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I Quit Social Media for a Year

joshcsimmons.com

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Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#41

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

cortesoft wrote: post #28
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #10

I think this posts discussion of “why do we take photos” is really great and deserves more consideration. I’ve not had any form of social media account for over 8 years and something I notice is that I just take waaay fewer photos than everyone else I know. A few on vacation or when I see something stupid I can turn into a pun or a joke. Seriously maybe 3-5 photos per month. I love living this way and consider it hea…

This is interesting, because I do not have social media but take a TON of pictures and videos of my kids (4 years old and 4.months old).... I send some to family via group texts, but most just sit on my phone/computer/cloud until I look at them. I take so many for a few reasons. One, I think they are crazy cute and want to take pictures and videos when I see them doing cute things. Two, my 4 year old loves looking at…

I’m sure that your use case for so many photos is fine and just rooted in your family’s specific hobbies in a way that social media image sharing totally isn’t.

At the same time though, I think a ton of people use the excuse “because KIDS” to justify all manner of things. Just because kids enjoy something doesn’t in any way endorse it as constructive, healthy or a good or worthwhile habit or activity.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#42

Post by FussyZeus »

young_unixer wrote: post #27

I used to use Twitter. My country's political news and related commentary usually got me into a mental state of frustration and misanthropy. I deleted Twitter. Political news still frustrate me but I rarely see them anymore. Ignorance is bliss. I've effectively created a safe space where political idiocy can't cognitively harass me. Is it wrong to be so uninformed? I don't know. I think a lot about it and I haven't c…

> Is it wrong to be so uninformed?

I wouldn't say it's wrong, but I would say it is an expression of privilege. People who don't find their race, gender or identity regularly being touted as either some up and coming new social fad or the boogeyman to a given group that oppose them and the source of everything evil in the world or what have you can pretty safely disconnect from the discourse with no real ramifications to their lives.

So again, no I wouldn't say it's wrong, and hell, I have to disconnect occasionally too simply to keep my sanity. But I also say that from a similar position of privilege. I don't have lawmakers attempting to restrict my rights, my gender and race aren't an oppressed group. But, exercising privileges doesn't make you a bad person in my book so long as you're not fighting to maintain those privileges at the expense of others.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#43

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

young_unixer wrote: post #27

I used to use Twitter. My country's political news and related commentary usually got me into a mental state of frustration and misanthropy. I deleted Twitter. Political news still frustrate me but I rarely see them anymore. Ignorance is bliss. I've effectively created a safe space where political idiocy can't cognitively harass me. Is it wrong to be so uninformed? I don't know. I think a lot about it and I haven't c…

Ignorance is what caused the problem you are running away from. Thanks, jerk. Go back to France.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#44

Post by derefr »

rdiddly wrote: post #30

This write-up really ends up understating the benefits and "magical" things that actually did happen, but I fully approve of the understated approach. Hyping everything up is part of the problem. If something is beneficial, I shouldn't need to sell you on it; I can just tell you about it, and you can decide. (In fact it's almost an intrusion into your free will when I start persuading you, and it betrays some vested…

> If I'm a worthwhile and valid human being, I shouldn't need to sell you on me, and maintain this continual online sales platform for the "me" product. You can discover it on your own and maybe reach the conclusion that I'm awesome, or maybe not, but either way it's fine.

Presuming that you aren't the type of person who spends all their time out in public giving talks or something, how are you expecting people to "discover" you? By chasing links from your work? By just bumping into you in the grocery store?

I'm pretty sure I'm a worthwhile human being, but, y'know, I'd like to have friends, and I'd especially like to have friends that share interests with me, and are doing interesting things themselves. And I don't live in a place where those type of people are. So it'd be great if those friends found me... probably through the Internet. And how do I encourage that to happen? Well...

(None of which is to say that there's any reason to consume social media. Only to publish to it. Though that creates a funny Nash equilibrium...)

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#45

Post by bitL »

young_unixer wrote: post #27

I used to use Twitter. My country's political news and related commentary usually got me into a mental state of frustration and misanthropy. I deleted Twitter. Political news still frustrate me but I rarely see them anymore. Ignorance is bliss. I've effectively created a safe space where political idiocy can't cognitively harass me. Is it wrong to be so uninformed? I don't know. I think a lot about it and I haven't c…

IMO it's better to read real-time Reddit threads when something is happening; it's usually unfiltered and you can get raw data, not the curated ones from mainstream news once propagandists from all sides plug in and offer only selective evidence.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#46

Post by bjornjaja »

young_unixer wrote: post #27

I used to use Twitter. My country's political news and related commentary usually got me into a mental state of frustration and misanthropy. I deleted Twitter. Political news still frustrate me but I rarely see them anymore. Ignorance is bliss. I've effectively created a safe space where political idiocy can't cognitively harass me. Is it wrong to be so uninformed? I don't know. I think a lot about it and I haven't c…

I think newspapers are the best—say you get a daily or even weekly summary of events. That’s been good enough for centuries.

The problem today is all the rehashing of events. Professional journalists honestly do a better job than all the rest of us.

Internet information is mostly garbage (where social media is concerned). Don’t get me wrong the quick access to information is nice—but ”quick” means “less thought out” for the majority of readers and writers.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#47

Post by nullc »

cm2012 wrote: post #26
muzani wrote: post #20

When I quit I ended up reading books and watching TV for entertainment. I literally read over a million words of fiction (Worm) in one month with the spare time. It was a lot more fulfilling, and I'll remember that time. While in contrast there are few social media moments I'll miss. I had to actually force myself to get back into social media. I'm not sure what the author here means by withdrawal; there was maybe a…

The web serial Worm is amazing. The sequel, Ward, is really far along now and is even better IMO. You can catch up on https://www.parahumans.net/ The HN crowd would probably really like Worm in general. Basically a sci-fi superhero story with realistic uses of powers and complex characters. The protagonist has the powers of insect control and scalable multitasking.

I found the squeal hard to start because it was a struggle to remember how worm left off-- the end of worm was a real whirlwind, and I read it around the time it finished IIRC.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#48

Post by anon12345690 »

FussyZeus wrote: post #42
young_unixer wrote: post #27

I used to use Twitter. My country's political news and related commentary usually got me into a mental state of frustration and misanthropy. I deleted Twitter. Political news still frustrate me but I rarely see them anymore. Ignorance is bliss. I've effectively created a safe space where political idiocy can't cognitively harass me. Is it wrong to be so uninformed? I don't know. I think a lot about it and I haven't c…

> Is it wrong to be so uninformed? I wouldn't say it's wrong, but I would say it is an expression of privilege. People who don't find their race, gender or identity regularly being touted as either some up and coming new social fad or the boogeyman to a given group that oppose them and the source of everything evil in the world or what have you can pretty safely disconnect from the discourse with no real ramification…

no thats not what privilege is, you can turn off social media too, youre not forced to listen to anything

and youre showing the problem with the news because theres really not that much going on. who is losing their rights? what oppression are you talking about?

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#49

Post by Skunkleton »

young_unixer wrote: post #27

I used to use Twitter. My country's political news and related commentary usually got me into a mental state of frustration and misanthropy. I deleted Twitter. Political news still frustrate me but I rarely see them anymore. Ignorance is bliss. I've effectively created a safe space where political idiocy can't cognitively harass me. Is it wrong to be so uninformed? I don't know. I think a lot about it and I haven't c…

> Is it wrong to be so uninformed?

Are you sure that you are uninformed? Do you think that trends on twitter reflect meaningful news that you wont pick up through other means? Could it be possible that by spending time on twitter you might not be becoming informed, but rather misinformed?

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#50

Post by danfang »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #39
danfang wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think there are two main camps here: people who take photos to share to their followers, and people who take photos for their own recollection and to share with the people closest to them (e.g. family photo albums). I totally agree that the former is toxic and damages our mental health in many ways, like a digital version of smoking and vaping. I recently launched a tool for our generation to manage and ma…

I think your tool is very cool and building tools for recreational image libraries is super neat. But I can’t agree with you that “a healthy relationship with social media” is a possible state of affairs apart from wholesale avoidance of social media. There is simply too much asymmetry information advantage for platform maintainers (even in decentralized cases) for it to be possible.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "asymmetry information advantage"?

Personally, I've used tons of social media services growing up - AIM, MSN Messenger, GChat, G+, Blogspot, FB, IG, etc. I think all of them have positive traits, at least had positive traits when they started out. I've also experienced a healthy balance between online relationships and in-personal relationships. I just think it's super critical for our generation to move back to platforms that are healthier and better for our mental and social wellbeing.

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