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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

#271

Post by thecleaner »

devaroop wrote: post #230
agotterer wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like social media and I’m capable of controlling my usage. I’ve developed some ground rules to ensure a good healthy experience. To start, I have an iOS rule that prevents more than 7 minutes of each social media app per day. I pretty much only use Facebook. After the timer is up that’s it for the day. I honestly enjoy seeing picture of my friends, their kids, their vacations, and the…

When was the last time you looked at the open sky?

Well lets see some responses. I saw it like 5mins ago. Europe is having some beautiful days right now.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#272

Post by viksit »

Isn’t hacker news social media? Karma points are no different from retweets or likes surely? And then isn’t reading nyt’s comment section social “media” too? At what point is engaging with media that has some collaboration from peers different from the big three social sites? Should there be a case made for quitting these too?

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#273

Post by thecleaner »

scanny wrote: post #93
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…

I feel like Hackernews is more distracting to be honest, it's like crack, I just cannot stop looking through all these interesting posts.

Try reading books on mobile. Once you get used to it, you just cannot stop. I read 5 books in 2 months - on container shipping, nikola tesla's biography stuff like that - none very useful to me but the point is I read them.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#274

Post by thecleaner »

bjornjaja wrote: post #146
scanny wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Hackernews is more distracting to be honest, it's like crack, I just cannot stop looking through all these interesting posts.

Question: how many of the articles do you read in their entirety? Do you spend 1 or 5 or 20 minutes thinking about the content? I’d like a comparison between, say, a library where you can find a nice book and sit-and-read for a good 2 hours. I think HN is more of a news aggregator with comments than social media platform. But it has the same problem as anything compared with “crack” and that’s a quick information fix…

> Question: how many of the articles do you read in their entirety? Do you spend 1 or 5 or 20 minutes thinking about the content? I’d like a comparison between, say, a library where you can find a nice book and sit-and-read for a good 2 hours.

I don't read anything on Medium. I brush it off as marketing bs. Github pages though I do read. I read documentations of software frameworks on HN that I find intersting. Sometimes source code too (if I can understand it).

>I like a lot of the stuff on here too but I often book mark things and don’t necessarily go back to it. Some things yes but mostly no.

I use Firefox for this, but their bookmarking system is awful.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#275

Post by thecleaner »

unqueued wrote: post #266
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…

I quit social media two years ago, and while I think I am generally happier and less anxious, I am also left out. When everyone else has seen someone's new baby pictures or a picture from the summit of a mountain. Sadly, I am growing apart from my friends faster.

> When everyone else has seen someone's new baby pictures or a picture from the summit of a mountain

Did you just say you like seeing pictures of other people's babies ?

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#276

Post by toadi »

- Was very active on twitter. Haven't opened the app in a while. - Linkedin is just my CV don't use the social stuff on it.

Besides being a software engineer I have a custom motorcycle shop. We use Instagram/Facebook and also my personal account gets more updates since I have the shop. If I wouldn't have a business that uses these platforms as lead generation I wouldn't' be using them either.

Between these two Instagram sucks. People just scroll through it and don't interact that much. Mostly other Instagram channels re-use motorcycle builds from the actual builders without attributing. They are more popular as it's easy to follow them as they post builds daily and people need their fix.

Our facebook is growing fast and interactions grow on it too. As platform its a bit better and people coming to our shop most of the times know us from facebook.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#277

Post by notafrog »

knzhou wrote: post #139
agotterer wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like social media and I’m capable of controlling my usage. I’ve developed some ground rules to ensure a good healthy experience. To start, I have an iOS rule that prevents more than 7 minutes of each social media app per day. I pretty much only use Facebook. After the timer is up that’s it for the day. I honestly enjoy seeing picture of my friends, their kids, their vacations, and the…

I don't know if we're in the minority, but I'm completely with you. I use social media for about 15 minutes a day and it only improves my life. I'm happy when I see my friends being happy. I think people who blame their life problems on social media have deeper underlying issues. Mark Zuckerberg didn't invent envy in 2004.

Well, I tend to see it like opioids, for example. Some people can just use their prescribed dosage and in the end they have no addiction whatsoever. Many more, even though they use their prescribed dosage, start an addiction which can lead to their lives getting ruined.

I think the same happens with social media. There are people who are more prone to addiction than others. People close to me have claimed to have felt much better after deleting/deactivating their social media accounts.

Personally it's been more than 10 years without Facebook, and I never had an Instagram, so there's not much I can say about the topic from my own experience.

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#278

Post by krapp »

Sean1708 wrote: post #250
SirHound wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all social media is equal in its mental effects

I'm not at all convinced that HN is better than Facebook.

But we're the smart ones engaged in intellectually stimulating conversation, while everyone else is just a vain, endorphin-addled monkey in a Skinner box sharing cat memes, links and mundane trivialities. /s

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#279

Post by krapp »

Kifot wrote: post #267
Beldin wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a form of social media, though: users submit content, comment on content and each other, and can upvote content and comments.

The main upside though is not feeling the urge to compete with other people which makes it different from the likes of Facebook/Instagram.

I suspect most people using those other social media sites don't feel such an urge. If anything, some people use it as their primary means of socializing, communicating and consuming media, which is unhealthy, but they do so because the medium is convenient, not because it drives them in some relentless pursuit of "likes."

Re: I Quit Social Media for a Year

#280

Post by badpun »

bradlys wrote: post #154
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think your peers were able to purchase homes through means not accessible to you? Not to speculate on your circumstances, but it's truly something how many people I know making six figures that choose to rent these days (in competitive, expensive housing markets). One possibility might be, we become so accustomed to renting. I can't imagine developing my career further, and then all of a sudden in 5 years, hav…

Banks will definitely loan out crazy stuff. But it's not very common, from my knowledge, to buy a $1m+ home with less than 20-30% down. (You have to pay PMI and a really high mortgage then anyway) To have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around before you're 28 is pretty remarkable. Especially if you aren't at FAANG. The means they were able to do it through were likely rich family (no one here of course will say…

> The means they were able to do it through were likely rich family (no one here of course will say their family is rich) and high paying job ($300k+/yr). Both of which I am not in (for my position in my region). I'm at a startup. Watching my peers, who are not in companies like mine, just skyrocket in wealth is rather discouraging. It's even more harsh because it's usually a couple who are sky rocketing and I'm just sitting here with a SO who will never make anything substantial. Love them to bits but the lack of financial contribution is practically suicide here.

I don't see what is the problem here. That you'll buy a house a couple years later than some of your peers? That's life. Some people have cancer at two - not THAT's shitty. Waiting a couple years more to buy a house is just hilariously insignificant in comparison to anything serious.

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