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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

#61

Post by ilikehurdles »

wolco wrote: post #53
FussyZeus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Getting tweets that make you emotionally upset isn't furthering any groups rights minority or otherwise. If you want to make a real difference you need to get out and connect with local political forces. Twitter can make you feel like you are making a difference. If you can only share this with one more person maybe my rights won't abused. It is distracting you from making that difference. Making a difference takes h…

It wasn’t until I quit social media that I found time to get engaged locally. Joined the board of a nonprofit, spoke with my council people, started becoming engaged in other community orgs and attending zoning and policy hearings. If you have political drive, staying away from the timeline as an outlet of that energy can be liberating.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#62

Post by 5q9d »

tempsy wrote: post #55

My biggest issue with social media is less that it's distracting (IMO not necessarily an unhealthy thing) but that it has, for me, more than anything else seemed to make all aspects of my life a competition with others. On Instagram, you're competing with others on who has the happiest life. On LinkedIn, you're competing with others on who has the steepest career trajectory. Even on Twitter, perhaps more acutely in c…

Blind is one of the worst. Useful for information, but super toxic for comparison. The problem with social media is not that it's 100% useless, it's that it's hard to walk the line. In the example of Blind, it is good to be informed, but it's bad to compare.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#63

Post by yourbandsucks »

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…

Counterpoint: Having the free time and energy to participate in culture war theatrics is a much greater expression of privilege.

If you're doing something productive, though, good on ya.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#64

Post by cm2012 »

nullc wrote: post #47
cm2012 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good plot summaries of Worm to catch you up (Spoilers for Worm!):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worm_(web_serial)

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-chapter-synopsi...

You can skip the Glow Worm part of Ward if you want, it's bonus chapters for people who like reading really deeply.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#65

Post by SolaceQuantum »

Aloha wrote: post #56
FussyZeus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Disconnecting from people trying to push a so called 'culture war' on the general populous seems like a rational choice - as a white male, social media seems to tell me emphatically that I am the problem. Similarly social media pundits from the other side are trying to blame all measure of economic and social ills on brown people/gay people/trans people. Both narratives are patently false. To touch very lightly on po…

I’m LGBTQ, and I am not a federally protected class. It is legal to fire me for my identity in many states, and the current republicans in power are continuing to make it legal and condoned to discriminate against LGBTQ people at the federal level- rolling back several policies that benefited marginalized folks along this umbrella. These changes happen with very little fanfare or any notification safe for observant reporters and the spread of social media.

I find this comment overtly dismissing that there might be very real, legitimate reasons to be keyed into social media and the news.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#66

Post by ravenstine »

Skunkleton wrote: post #49
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?

Most news isn't even actionable. If you feel like you're a bad person if you're not paying attention to the news, it means you're listening to the wrong news. Focus on bigger picture issues. Give precedence to numbers and detailed analyses. If it's still keeping you down, then just turn it off because it's wasting your time and draining your life force.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#67

Post by easymodex »

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…

Well actually we are all victims of the lawmakers as noone dares to punish the CO2 polluters. All this talk of privilege is meaningless compared to what we will all have to endure if we keep destroying our enviroment like that.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#68

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

danfang wrote: post #50
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think AIM / MSN Messenger etc. don’t remotely qualify as social media, but already it feels like we’re veering into unproductive debate. My position is that “healthy” and “social media” don’t mix. There is no positive subset of Facebook. The entire conceptual value proposition of the platform is unhealthy from first principles. It requires you to trust a provider with data in such a manner that this trust is, literally by definition, unobtainable. Just can’t be done. The type of draconian HIPAA-like legal framework (plus untold billions spent on enforcement & compliance) that represents the minimum requirement is just not compatible with the existence of a corporation that makes money from being a repository and sharing platform for this data.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#69

Post by ceejayoz »

bjornjaja wrote: post #46
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”…

Even better, newspapers often benefit from having a couple hours at least between when the story breaks and when it goes into print for at least rudimentary sanity checks on the details.

It doesn't work 100% of the time, but it's very handy in scenarios like mass shootings where seemingly every one has initial reports of "multiple gunmen" only to have that evaporate within a few hours.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#70

Post by povertyworld »

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'm going to adopt this strategy. If you follow politics people will demand you pick a side which they can then use to attack you. If you just pretend to be stupid, it's harder for them to find an opening. Plus, pretending to be stupid is a lot easier than pretending to be smart, so it'll save energy. What I really need to do is stop posting on Silicon Valley gossip boards.
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