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Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

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Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#201

Post by ralmidani »

projektfu wrote: post #171
keenmaster wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the benefits of social media is supposed to be transparency, and I believe that. However, isn't it an indictment of global callousness that so many people have seen Assad's destruction of Syria and no one is helping? In fact, Russia's bot armies far outnumber Syrian refugees on Facebook, and they're spreading confusion on the whole situation. They're making it seem like Syria is some sectarian black hole, wher…

The US had a moment to help when the Free Syrian Army existed in the first year or so of the conflict. For some reason, our leaders had cold feet and allowed our natural ally to be wiped out. The UN was hamstrung by Russia and China's veto power. No smaller power was willing to take on Russia in a proxy war.

Arming FSA was a good option for much longer than just the first year (and still is). Obama’s advisors (including Clinton at State and Panetta at DoD) advocated this, but were overruled. A large factor was his overwhelming desire to secure a deal with Iran, which even caused him to walk back from his “red line” when Assad used chemical weapons in 2013.

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#202

Post by dabbledash »

anderber wrote: post #101
INTPenis wrote: post #89

What gave me the most satisfaction is quitting the news. Incidentally I don't have or use any social media either. Except imgur and sometimes among the funny memes I get news. But I'm afraid for people I meet who always remind me of all the awful things they've seen in the news. I'm aware of none of this until someone tells me. And yet my life is the same as everyone elses. Not knowing what is going on, living in a c…

I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news, what effect would that have in our Govenment?

“Hold those in power accountable” could mean many different things, but if you’re referring primarily to voting, then reviewing high quality sources every few weeks or once a month will probably give you better information then following the daily news cycle.

I think if people in general took that approach, the effect on the government would be positive. Citizens consuming politics as entertainment and politicians approaching their job like YouTube celebrities are doing enormous damage.

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#203

Post by jariel »

arrow7000 wrote: post #107
jariel wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, those who drink in moderation are more successful and happy than those who quit.

So what you're saying is people without an addiction are happier than people who are addicted? Shocking stuff

What I'm saying is that the analogy of alcohol is not helpful.

Social Networking is not inherently toxic, and quitting many things: sugar, television, even meat, might have the similar effects for some small group of people.

In fact, the entire thread is based on three levels of indirection of misinformation: the Bloomberg article misquoted the paper, and the short-summary referencing Bloomberg made it worse.

Here is the summary of the findings [1]:

"We find that deactivating Facebook for the four weeks before the 2018 US midterm election (i) reduced online activity while increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and (iv) caused a large persistent reduction in post-experiment Facebook use"

So that's a little bit more information now isn't it? And completely conflates the Facebook/wellbeing issue with a host of other things.

Most poignantly, stopping Facebook usage reduced the amount of factual knowledge a person had access too. So maybe that's not so good?

Maybe by 'removing Facebook' people are simply a little bit more removed from the issues of the day (like elections) many of which can be contentious.

So 'ignorance is bliss' is the result of the study? Or is it really something materially related to Social Networking.

I think we'll need to do some more studying to find out.

[] http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#204

Post by yingw787 »

mindcrime wrote: post #163
yingw787 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I like IRC as much as the next guy (probably more). But I also like talking to friends who aren't in tech, like those from childhood, high school, or college, and who went into medical school or business or who simply write code during the day and don't make it their life, and the one network we have in common is the one managed by Facebook. For me at least, I'd rather stay connected to my friends using any m…

I get, and appreciate, where you're coming from. But for me, I really care about promoting and encouraging use of Open Standards and that - to me - means eventually dropping my hypocritical usage of FB and the like. And I don't see any reason to think that people have to "be in tech" to use XMPP, IRC, etc. But to the extent that there is friction to using Open protocols, as opposed to closed ones, I see part of my pe…

I appreciate your stance :) Keep fighting the good fight, maybe one day I can and will join you :)

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#205

Post by jariel »

war1025 wrote: post #192
jariel wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, those who drink in moderation are more successful and happy than those who quit.

I believe they have re-run the study or further examined it and determined that the causality is reversed. Picking up moderate drinking isn't going to make you healthier / more successful. It's just that successful people tend to be healthier and also are more likely to have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

If this is the case, quitting drinking will still not likely yield 'more happiness' ergo, the fact remains.

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#206

Post by ghostpepper »

Angostura wrote: post #200
sykick wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem as I see it is that it is almost impossible to be informed enough to hold people accountable. In the U.S. at least the news is almost always of the form: “ Person from party A (which you are a member of) destroys person from Party B”. Or, “Party B seeks to destroy Issue C”. There is virtually no nuance in the reporting. There’s no dissection. For example, the situation with Syria is quite complicated as T…

So read something like The Economist or the paper version of the NYT?

This is the answer. Journalists cannot work for free, and trying to run a newspaper entirely supported by ads creates perverse incentives.

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#207

Post by godelski »

anderber wrote: post #101
INTPenis wrote: post #89

What gave me the most satisfaction is quitting the news. Incidentally I don't have or use any social media either. Except imgur and sometimes among the funny memes I get news. But I'm afraid for people I meet who always remind me of all the awful things they've seen in the news. I'm aware of none of this until someone tells me. And yet my life is the same as everyone elses. Not knowing what is going on, living in a c…

I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news, what effect would that have in our Govenment?

May I suggest consuming news through text rather than video? In fact, the more boring the better.

I see a big issue is that the news is frequently emotive based. In some cases this is helpful, when terrible stuff is going on. Other cases it makes mundane things seem worse. Or it makes things that don't affect us and/or we have no control over emotionally important. The latter is particularly harmful, imo. A lot of these make you feel like you are more informed than you are, because you're highly emotionally invested. I think video really promotes the emotional investment.

But the boring stuff allows you to become emotionally invested in what __you__ care about. Then the lack of emotional forcing makes you feel less informed, so if you care you spend time finding out more. This prevents people from being "armchair researchers" and fighting.

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#208

Post by MFLoon »

izzydata wrote: post #110
INTPenis wrote: post #89

What gave me the most satisfaction is quitting the news. Incidentally I don't have or use any social media either. Except imgur and sometimes among the funny memes I get news. But I'm afraid for people I meet who always remind me of all the awful things they've seen in the news. I'm aware of none of this until someone tells me. And yet my life is the same as everyone elses. Not knowing what is going on, living in a c…

Having the privilege to live in complete ignorant bliss is nice I guess. What could go wrong?

This assertions along the lines of "it's a privilege to be able to be politically disengaged" is just an empty slogan weaponizing empathy to guilt whoever it's directed at towards supporting your political leaning.

It's also a privilege to be able to be politically engaged. Both ways of being are completely protected and legal (in America at least). And both privileges are available to all - even the disadvantaged groups that the slogan implies must be politically engaged for their own survival. It would probably serve their self interest to be more engaged, sure, but in reality they still have the choice. The ethical standard of mandatory political engagement that you're appealing to is not universally recognized or enforced. And if you think of places/times where that ethic of mandatory political life is or was enforced, do you really want to be like that?

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#209

Post by senderista »

Even if Facebook/Twitter didn't make me less happy or turn me into a person I didn't want to be, I would have quit them for the sheer opportunity cost of time spent on them that my long-term self would rather be spending on other things. (Obviously could apply to HN as well haha.)

Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety

#210

Post by sykick »

Angostura wrote: post #200
sykick wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem as I see it is that it is almost impossible to be informed enough to hold people accountable. In the U.S. at least the news is almost always of the form: “ Person from party A (which you are a member of) destroys person from Party B”. Or, “Party B seeks to destroy Issue C”. There is virtually no nuance in the reporting. There’s no dissection. For example, the situation with Syria is quite complicated as T…

So read something like The Economist or the paper version of the NYT?

Why do you think those sources are nuanced or provide decent coverage of topics? Are you sure you're right?

Here's one example among many that perhaps these are not good sources of information.

https://www.mediamatters.org/new-york-times/how-iraq-war-sti...

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