Funny, I left Facebook yesterday. It got too much as I was connected with many of my customers/users and it was just mayhem. It was extremely complex for me to get off Facebook because our website "Login with Facebook", advertising, pages, etc all are connected to my account, so I couldn’t simply destroy the account itself or risk locking out hundreds of thousands of people from our platform and apps. I manually unfriended 2000 people (which surprisingly didn't take too long).
Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
251–260 of 433 posts
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#252[flagged]
People need to understand that the situation there is complicated before deciding that Obama was an idiot or that Trump’s decisions have been stupid. I submit that the situation is so complicated there that any action, no matter how reasonable or well thought out, will be subject to plausible sounding criticism. So detractors will always have something to decry about the actions of whomever is President. Very little reporting in the U.S. is about what sort outcome would be ideal and how to achieve. How to balance the conflicting desires of the regional powers.
It’s a bit hypocritical to overthrow Assad on humanitarian grounds given the death and destruction wrought by U.S. forces in Iraq the past 17 years. The U.S. had no problem supporting Saddam Hussein while he used chemical weapons against Iran. When he used said weapons against Iraqi Kurds there was token pushback by the U.S.
Just painting the picture of, “Assad is genocidal maniac” is overly reductionist. It’s a message that keeps the average American mired in the absurdly comical worldview of America being the shining light on the hilltop. I would welcome reporting on all these nuances. Maybe then Americans would start to question why we support regimes like Saudi Arabia while decrying regimes like Syria. Perhaps we’d come to the conclusion that we don’t need to intervene and control everything for the sake of short sighted goals of dubious benefit.
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#253[flagged]
People need to understand that the situation there is complicated before deciding that Obama was an idiot or that Trump’s decisions have been stupid. I submit that the situation is so complicated there that any action, no matter how reasonable or well thought out, will be subject to plausible sounding criticism. So detractors will always have something to decry about the actions of whomever is President. Very little…
Assad. Iran. Russia. Hezbollah. Those are the perpetrators of genocide in Syria. 500k+ have been killed, 13 million displaced. Additionally, ISIS was invited into Syria by Assad (details in the Syria thread below) to muddy the waters and make things "complicated" as you describe, but also to add another party to murder Syrian Arabs. That is not a reductionist description, that is reality, just like the following statement: Hitler perpetrated the Holocaust.
There is no danger in calling a genocide a genocide. The danger is, in fact, in not doing so. The people should know the truth. Global cooperation and reaction will follow. "It's complicated" doesn't cut it. In fact, Russian and Iranian bots have spread mass confusion and disbelief on Facebook specifically so that the constituents of developed nations don't get emotionally moved regarding the genocide in Syria.
That is not to say the Russian or Iranian people support what their dictatorships are doing. I wish the best for those peoples.
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#254What 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…
Dummy... this very site is called NEWS. The comments you are submitting are social media.
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is HN not social media?
That's debatable. Where is the social element? If you stretch the definition of social media long enough you could also call the usenet, mailing lists or Wikipedia social media. HN isn't really about human connections or personal interactions. We might discuss them, but HN isn't designed or usually used for creating them.
The entire social community on this site revolves around making ycombinator money and using and creating human connections and personal interactions for them to make money.
Anyone who would debate that for anything other than sport is delusional.
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
People need to understand that the situation there is complicated before deciding that Obama was an idiot or that Trump’s decisions have been stupid. I submit that the situation is so complicated there that any action, no matter how reasonable or well thought out, will be subject to plausible sounding criticism. So detractors will always have something to decry about the actions of whomever is President. Very little…
Assad. Iran. Russia. Hezbollah. Those are the perpetrators of genocide in Syria. 500k+ have been killed, 13 million displaced. Additionally, ISIS was invited into Syria by Assad (details in the Syria thread below) to muddy the waters and make things "complicated" as you describe, but also to add another party to murder Syrian Arabs. That is not a reductionist description, that is reality, just like the following stat…
There is a great danger with convincing Americans that “they are bad and we are good” is justification enough to invade, kill, or otherwise bring destruction on another nation. Such simplistic reasoning allows those in power to do whatever they wish to other nations provided they can paint that nation as the bad guy.
I do not in any way support Assad. I also don’t fully understand what is going on there and what the various actors desire. But I do know that just saying Assad is evil is not enough to justify military action.
Overall though, your point here supports my view. It is hopeless at present to expect an informed populace. We are not psychologically prepared as a species to resist sustained, subtle propaganda and said propaganda is far too easy to do nowadays. Hence, I’m content to bury my head in the sand.
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#257What 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 read a great book, "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, that said "A problem you can't change isn't a problem, it's a truth and you have to accept it". I think that mental reframing helps process effectively immutable events.
In life, society and politics, most things aren’t strictly immutable or mutable in a binary way though. What may be impossible for a single person to change, may still be subject to collective action - and collective action arises from the cumulative pressures, tensions and frustrations of many individuals. If all those individuals avoid information that could evoke these pressures, that collective action will never come into existence.
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 th…
Where do you get the boring stuff? Please, I'm drowning here.
Short form, Reuters and AP. PBS NewsHour is excellent if you prefer an audiovisual presentation.
Personally, I find all of that to be too much of a firehouse, and prefer longer form reads.
For those, I’d recommend subscribing to physical copies of magazines (or digital copies of the physical copies).
Something about the pieces of paper or emails in my inbox beckons me to read. Some magazines (New Yorker, Economist, even WIRED) have first rate long form journalism.
They’ll usually have at least one substantial article that’s deeply or tangentially related to current news blurbs, so you stay “in the loop”.
Magazines are nice because they seem to respect the reader’s autonomy and intellectual curiosity, by avoiding tantrums, outrage, and diatribes, and focusing instead on nuance and themes. It’s a more literary way of digesting current events than twitter or what have you, and it can even be relaxing!
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assad. Iran. Russia. Hezbollah. Those are the perpetrators of genocide in Syria. 500k+ have been killed, 13 million displaced. Additionally, ISIS was invited into Syria by Assad (details in the Syria thread below) to muddy the waters and make things "complicated" as you describe, but also to add another party to murder Syrian Arabs. That is not a reductionist description, that is reality, just like the following stat…
There is a great danger with convincing Americans that “they are bad and we are good” is justification enough to invade, kill, or otherwise bring destruction on another nation. Such simplistic reasoning allows those in power to do whatever they wish to other nations provided they can paint that nation as the bad guy. I do not in any way support Assad. I also don’t fully understand what is going on there and what the…
Never Again is a serious duty to uphold. I refuse to bury my head in the sand. That would yield the world to agents of chaos and malice. Inaction is a choice. To not act when a genocide is happening is to be an accessory to that genocide. There is no opting out. Note that I have not said what "action" would entail, but I want everyone to reflect on how the Allied Powers ultimately rescued the Jews during the Holocaust. Reflect on how Clinton saved the Bosnians, racked with guilt for not helping in Rwanda. Needless to say, those actions were 100% necessary.
I hope you achieve the peace you seek by turning off the news though. I get it.
Re: Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety
#260What 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 read a great book, "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, that said "A problem you can't change isn't a problem, it's a truth and you have to accept it". I think that mental reframing helps process effectively immutable events.
That does not seem to account for most political and social issues that you can't do much for alone, but millions of people together can bring positive change with little individual effort.