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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

#381

Post by pjc50 »

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…

> Not knowing what is going on, living in a country with a high standard of living and personal safety, doesn't affect me at all.

But how long does that persist? The real battle in politics today is not so much between left and right as between "fixers" and "wreckers", and if you're one of the categories of people targeted for wrecking things can potentially get very bad very fast.

We live in a world of long, carefully constructed, lean supply chains. It may not be obvious what fractures the chain and results in serious problems.

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

#382

Post by INTPenis »

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?

It's far from complete ignorant bliss, things aren't that black and white.

Another commenter said I would have missed the nationalist party in germany starting to harass jews if I didn't watch the news. My reply below:

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.

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

#383

Post by INTPenis »

coleifer wrote: post #294
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…

What's up INTPenis (you can call me ISTPsycho if you want). My dysfunctional family members are always getting riled up online, blocking each other, quitting and quietly rejoining, etc. Some of them are into politics, which makes it worse. I think there must be an addictive component to this stuff -- not just the FB scroolers, but the twitter outragers, the SJW cancel cultists. There's a pornographic aspect to the sp…

Hello kindred spirit. I also feel completely outside of family drama.

The curse I carry is that I have a very good memory. So I'm relatively young still but I feel like everything just goes round and round.

Plagues in the news, terrorist attacks, family feuds. It all just repeats.

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

#384

Post by INTPenis »

goatherders wrote: post #305
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…

My wife is from Canada so I spend a lot of time in BC. The effect of not being surrounded by American news is almost transformative. At my home in austin it can be 6am and "the president did this awful thing...there was a murder over here...the senate did this awful thing...there was a terrorist threat over there..." morning ews in canada is "a bear was spotted in the park and we are facing a syrup shortage." TLDR: i…

That's interesting but I have to say that I don't think it's about geography specifically.

We have sensationalist news here in Europe too. Hard right wing parties gaining power by the day. Refugee homes set on fire.

All this has filtered through to me even without watching the news. I'm still aware of it without seeking it out.

If you live in the states and have a relatively good life, safety net through a good insurance and a stable job, then I don't think you should worry about the news.

Of course I can only guess. I can only speculate based on what I read about the United States on forums. It sounds awful. IT workers especially are often very vulnerable without unions.

So in the US I can totally understand the desire to stay abreast of what's going on.

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

#385

Post by kungtotte »

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?

I've adapted a kind of middle road with regards to this. I don't use mainstream social media but I do use Mastodon; a certain amount of general news reach me that way by people sharing it.

For regular news I don't read it during the week, but I will catch up on it during the weekend. It keeps me updated on ongoing situations (e.g. Corona virus, presidential elections) and let's me see what things stick around. If a story comes out Monday and it reappears Saturday it means it's worth considering since it survived the 24 hour cycle. Looking back I also pick headlines that seem interesting to me and read them even if it's something that's not reappearing for the weekend.

This way I avoid all the SHOCKING BREAKING NEWS that generally amounts to nothing much, I stay up to date on major issues, and I see what things are actual stories as opposed to clickbait.

If you read the news regularly you can quickly form the opinion that things are terrible. If you read up on things you'll find that in general things are better than they've ever been. Better obviously does not imply good, even so it's way better to be alive in 2020 than in 1920 everywhere on the planet.

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

#386

Post by kungtotte »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #379
pkalinowski wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I totally buy your argument that an informed public is a good thing and a requirement for a functioning democracy.

I vehemently disagree that the current news media is the way to reach that goal. As things stand as of this moment I think we would be better off if nobody read the news.

Misinformed is no better than uninformed, and often worse.

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

#387

Post by Der_Einzige »

ljw1001 wrote: post #293
Seenso wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You got to be kidding me. You rely on FB "exclusively" for news? That's like trusting a Nigerian scammer with your money! Context is important. In this case, he actually has some pretty defensible reasons for using Facebook this way: active suppression of local independent journalists and low activity by independent Western journalists. My guess is his alternative to Facebook is probably some pro-Assad propaganda r…

al jazeera is a perfectly good source of real middle east news. The economist isn't bad. Facebook is entirely unreliable as a news source because for every real post that shows you how things really are, you get two lies. As just one measure, FB themselves deleted over 3 Billion fake accounts between april and sept last year. These are accounts that provided a phone number for verification. The disinformation operati…

Al Jazeera is the opposite of reputable journalism. Just look into their ties with the government's of the oil producing Arab States as well as their support for the OIC

They're also responsible for things like extremely biased reporting against Myanmar (no reporting about Ang sang su kyis speech at the genocide tribunal except "she didn't say the word rohinga!"). It's no surprise that there's also a strong campaign by the OIC to slander Myanmar which is running concurrently

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

#388

Post by DonaldFisk »

INTPenis wrote: post #380
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…

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 t…

> 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.

If you're referring to Kristallnacht that would have been about five years too late. It's happened more recently, elsewhere.

Political parties change what they stand for over time, sometimes drastically.

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

#389

Post by Der_Einzige »

keenmaster wrote: post #130
ralmidani wrote: post #72

I use FB almost exclusively for news about the Middle East, especially Syria where the Assad regime actively targets journalists who tell the truth about what is happening there and very few Western journalists are going into the areas the regime is bombing. I have vowed to not use FB once the regime is gone, people can gather freely, and real news media can operate openly. My FB feed is mostly depressing these days,…

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…

Honestly the real reason why Americans don't care is that many absolutely, unconsciously or consciously, believe that syrians (and those not from a first world country) are subhuman. I don't see a world without these horrors until Americans can gain an authentic ethic of compassion and can humanize the subaltern others "over there" which is honestly pretty fricken unlikely

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

#390

Post by [deleted] »

kungtotte wrote: post #386
DonaldFisk wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I totally buy your argument that an informed public is a good thing and a requirement for a functioning democracy. I vehemently disagree that the current news media is the way to reach that goal. As things stand as of this moment I think we would be better off if nobody read the news. Misinformed is no better than uninformed, and often worse.

[deleted]
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