Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by celticmusic » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

sykick wrote: post #331

celticmusic wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You appear to be upset. I'm sorry that what I wrote made you think that I'm immoral and that I'm a piece of shit. This exchange exemplifies what started all these threads. That is, that it's better off for people to quit social media. Had we discussed this in person I'm certain you'd not think I'm a piece of shit. What's missing in internet discussions like this is the assumption we make about people when we first me…

more pretense. I'm condemning you and your stance in no uncertain terms, the way I would a man who stood by and allowed the rape of children while they considered the act from the perspective of the perpretrator.

People like you actively make this world worse through your rationalized inaction.

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

#372

Post by defterGoose » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:24 AM UTC

samplatt wrote: post #360

ImaCake wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> impact of technological advancement upon the global climate It's worth remembering that our technology makes the world less habitable for us but that might not be the case for other organisms. I have little concern for the longterm health of life on earth beyond the blip of disruption that is humanity. However, I hope we can use the same technology to overcome or manage some of our own worst excesses. It is worth l…

Maybe, maybe not. There's a theory that fungi that breaks down plant matter today didn't exist during the Mesozoic - it's possible that subsequent civilisations (if any) aren't going to be able to turn to fossil fuels for cheap energy. Not to mention that the goldilocks zone doesn't last forever, and the impending runaway-greenhouse-effect is something unprecedented in Earth's history. I'm being hyperbolic here, but…

| the incredible biodiversity of life we had a few hundred years ago.

I've been thinking a lot recently about the biblical creation story in the context of trying to understand how I can effectively communicate regarding climate change with those around me who are religious.

Some Christians are amenable to the concept of human destruction of the environment being sinful, but even then, I sometimes wonder if their tendency to rely on grace hinders their ability to be proactive in their worldview regarding it.

Anyway, most people know the story of Adam and Eve as an explanation of the imperfection of life. "Why did God make life so hard? Why is there evil?" Humans did something knowingly bad and we now have to pay the consequence of having a harder life. Fine.

I just can't shake this feeling that maybe that story is a prophecy more than a prologue. I look around and see all the incredible beauty of the natural world; the amazing cornucopia of life, the incredible desolation of space, the warm gifts we give each other in the form of culture, food, love. Seems like life is really ok if you have family and can put good food on the table every night, right?

So what happens if we keep breaking the natural order of things? What happens when all the animals bigger than us are dead? When the soil drys up and blows away? When we've put enough pesticides and antibiotics and plastics into our rivers and oceans and overfished them to the point where our children won't know the concept of seafood like we did because it doesn't exist anymore? What happens then? I think only then we realize that what we had before looked pretty close to Eden.

It's completely thinkable that we've already caused the extinction of some organism with an adaptation that humanity will desperately need in the future. Our science is good but it's almost nothing compared to the machinations of nature itself when it comes to revealing fundamental truth about reality.

I only hope we can turn the tide.

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

#373

Post by fwn » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

smileysteve wrote: post #194

welly wrote: post #117

"Facebook is designed to make you anxious, depressed and dissatisfied" Really? Designed? Come on.

Well, it's designed to capture eyeballs; and those are definitely mechanisms to capture eyeballs.

If I understood it correctly that's what our parent was implying.

A dike is designed to keep water away and, as a side effect, blocks the ocean view. It would be misleading to say that a dike is designed to block the view, as it misrepresents the builders intention to fit a specific narrative.

If we'd explain dikes that way to someone who does not know the concept, they would assume that dike builders have to be very evil.

Which is pretty unfair, given that if we had better ways of building dikes that - everything else equal - don't block the view, everyone would probably build those instead.

I think that such a deliberate misrepresentation reveals the authors agenda and their willingness to be intellectually dishonest.

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

#374

Post by DonaldFisk » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

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…

A properly functioning democracy requires voters to be well informed about political issues. Not knowing what's going on means you can't make an informed choice if or when you vote. Often, you have the choice of two or more equally unsatisfactory (or equally good) candidates so change doesn't happen and voting might not matter, but sometimes countries change very rapidly for the worse, like Germany did in 1933, so it isn't always possible to stay insulated from events.

Of course, many news sources are unreliable, or biased, and most voters are poorly informed or easily manipulated, and many important issues are so complex that learning about them would take up most of people's spare time, but if people make more of an effort to stay informed, and learn to recognize bias and disinformation, and vote accordingly, things might become better than they would otherwise be.

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

#375

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:38 AM UTC

PTOB wrote: post #220

godelski wrote: post #207

Earlier 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.

[deleted]

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

#376

Post by kenoph » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:39 AM UTC

DonaldFisk wrote: post #374

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…

A properly functioning democracy requires voters to be well informed about political issues. Not knowing what's going on means you can't make an informed choice if or when you vote. Often, you have the choice of two or more equally unsatisfactory (or equally good) candidates so change doesn't happen and voting might not matter, but sometimes countries change very rapidly for the worse, like Germany did in 1933, so it…

I kind of agree with Aaron Swartz: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

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

#377

Post by scandinavegan » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:43 AM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #355

powowowow wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is virtually no nuance in the reporting. If you want to read ad-supported news, then you will be stuck with news that is intended to have the lowest possible production costs, and garner the most possible eyeballs. This business does not support nuance, because nuance is expensive and less audacious. Nuanced reporting exists on essentially every topic that it is possible to care about, but it is often in smal…

> Nuanced reporting exists on essentially every topic that it is possible to care about, but it is often in smaller paid publications. Earlier this week I spoke to someone who wanted me to subscribe to a left-wing newspaper (klassekampen for the Norwegians here). I said my media budget was full - for now - but I'd like to add them - together with one from the other side at a later stage. Then she says: that's not unu…

People could read both to make more informed decisions or to take a middle position on issues. But it could also be because they want to know their enemy or to find fodder for their online rants. I agree with you though that it's always good to be informed.

I'm happy to read articles both from the political left and right in Sweden, but I refuse to read the anti-immigration websites by the far right. It just makes me feel dirty, and I don't want to be in their company. I already know that even if we start from the same sets of facts, our conclusions will be completely different, and there's no need for me to even see their proposed solutions.

Speaking of all sides, there's a Swedish web forum called Flashback that is a great example of this. It's very pro free speech, which means that you have posters who are openly nazis discussing politics with communists and others. You have to have a thick skin to read some of the stuff posted, but I'm really happy that there is a platform for these people to meet and discuss, because nothing gets better by only having individual echo chambers.

I think individual spaces are also important, where you agree with people and don't have to fight all the time, but we also need spaces for people with different backgrounds to discuss.

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

#378

Post by pkalinowski » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

DonaldFisk wrote: post #374

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…

A properly functioning democracy requires voters to be well informed about political issues. Not knowing what's going on means you can't make an informed choice if or when you vote. Often, you have the choice of two or more equally unsatisfactory (or equally good) candidates so change doesn't happen and voting might not matter, but sometimes countries change very rapidly for the worse, like Germany did in 1933, so it…

What following then news gives you is more chaos and disinformation. Every time there is a vote coming up, you can look up information on all important things collected nicely afer they've been settled, by people following politics.

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

#379

Post by DonaldFisk » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:39 AM UTC

pkalinowski wrote: post #378

DonaldFisk wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A properly functioning democracy requires voters to be well informed about political issues. Not knowing what's going on means you can't make an informed choice if or when you vote. Often, you have the choice of two or more equally unsatisfactory (or equally good) candidates so change doesn't happen and voting might not matter, but sometimes countries change very rapidly for the worse, like Germany did in 1933, so it…

What following then news gives you is more chaos and disinformation. Every time there is a vote coming up, you can look up information on all important things collected nicely afer they've been settled, by people following politics.

What I'm arguing for is to stay well-informed, and that usually involves delving a bit deeper than just passively listening to news broadcasts or passively reading news sites.

Yes, you can visit web sites which help you to decide who to vote for by asking you questions (and which, incidentally, collect your responses for whatever purpose they choose), but your answers, and the recommendation of who to vote for, might change if you became better informed.

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

#380

Post by INTPenis » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:57 AM UTC

DonaldFisk wrote: post #374

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…

A properly functioning democracy requires voters to be well informed about political issues. Not knowing what's going on means you can't make an informed choice if or when you vote. Often, you have the choice of two or more equally unsatisfactory (or equally good) candidates so change doesn't happen and voting might not matter, but sometimes countries change very rapidly for the worse, like Germany did in 1933, so it…

I'm pretty sure I would hear about kids breaking shop owners windows for being of a certain cultural origin. Even without checking the news.

Like I said, some news manages to filter through to me. And it's often completely pointless.

For example Youtube sometimes recommends news from my country to me, even if I never watch it. in 2019 I can remember them recommending news about some missing girl up north. But I had to hear from my friends about a handicapped guy who was shot 25 times by the police for playing with a toy gun. They didn't recommend that one.

I do vote btw. Since I don't consider myself capable of keeping up with politics I vote with my instincts, as most others. I either vote for the social democrats/left or the green party.

I don't fuss over details or little missteps they might have done. I believe the green party has the right direction and their voice needs to be stronger in parliament. Equally I believe the left still cares about workers rights and unions.