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Same here! I haven't had a TV in many years and since quitting the news (on every medium) I'm much happier and have much more time and energy to devote to fun and productive things.
How do you know what is going on in the world around you? Or don't you realy care that much?
Related to reducing media exposure and the attendant increase in the sense of wellbeing, this is a lovely article by the Serbian / American poet Charles Simic, about discovering how his dad had attained "Olympian calm": "Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard the news of the day with amusement,…
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I stopped watching regular TV around 2005 due to the influx of "reality-tv" and other crappy formats. What I used to watch before was real documentaries on discovery and it's family of channels. Now I just watch Festival of Science or Royal Institution lectures on YouTube and some anime on wakanim :) There are also a lot of real in-class lectures filmed on various topic on YouTube that I find very nice. I don't miss…
I don't think there's any particular need to cold-turkey quit watching TV, just to be a little strict with yourself about what you watch. Similarly with Facebook; I use it but I don't follow friends particularly - I follow pages, mainly a useful local neighbourhood page that mainly seems to concentrate on who has lost a cat and who can recomnend a plumbe. Similarly with Reddit, just select a few decent subs that you…
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I don't think there's any particular need to cold-turkey quit watching TV, just to be a little strict with yourself about what you watch. Similarly with Facebook; I use it but I don't follow friends particularly - I follow pages, mainly a useful local neighbourhood page that mainly seems to concentrate on who has lost a cat and who can recomnend a plumbe. Similarly with Reddit, just select a few decent subs that you…
There is nothing to cold turkey about TV. I got cable to watch the olympics a few years ago and found nothing else worth watching for months. I used to watch various documentaries on the History channel, but now it’s full of ancient aliens crap. I think my demographic left and they just stopped producing content for US.
For all its faults - Youtube has a lot of factual content produced by people who want to share their cool hobbies with the world.
The thing I really want to give up next is Twitter. Or at least my 3,000-follower public account. It started out with finding like-minded friends, but quickly turned into a place where I can't even say "I find WD40 often works better than cutting fluid when machining aluminium" without being jumped on.
I'm curious if the findings are "social media in general" or "just Facebook"
I totally quit television about a year ago, and it had a very noticeable positive impact on me. I also mostly quit Facebook with the end of last year. I say mostly, because I still use its event calendar, and occasionally check my stream. But I significantly reduced the amount of comments I leave on that platform. I feel like, while the criticism of FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit and co is pretty much warranted, we manage…
I personally don’t find TV a time waster. If you enjoy it, as I do, then do it, guilt-free. However if you find yourself addicted ie you want to do other things but you keep getting “sucked in” then by all means stop - it will have a noticeably positive impact.
Did the researchers fail to look for those things? Or did they just not come up?
For me the greatest improvement came from stopping using Twitter and Reddit rather than Facebook or Instagram (I quit using all four within the last year, Youtube is the only social media service that I'm still regularly consuming, I'd like to quit that too), of course this is based on my personal situation and the way I personally use all of those media. In my specific case I have the impression that Twitter and Red…
Same here. At least in Facebook you mostly communicate with people you've chosen to accept as friends, and know who they really are. Reddit and Twitter on the other hand show all the bad sides of anonymity to the fullest. Way too much blind tribalism and conflict seeking, few adults actually capable of real discussion. So it's not only a waste of time, but one that gives you a bad mood as well.
Most people are using Twitter for the memes, the (often educational) content, the news, and direct messaging. The average person is probably not there to look for people to have a long form discussion with, especially if that person is a stranger who is trying to argue with them.
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How do you know what is going on in the world around you? Or don't you realy care that much?
Wow, I typically only get that question from people way older then 70 years... That feels weird, to read this on HN. No, sorry, I don't need a TV just to get a few news bites daily. There are other ways to stay up to date.
Right, that was the question. What do you use to stay informed?
If you have a well-developed circle of friends, sure. But this only holds for what, half of Americans? I don't know people well enough that I'd have a functioning social life without Facebook, unfortunately. I think this holds for many other people as well.