41–50 of 67 posts
What are the alternative to replace "screens"?
Books (ink on paper)?
Out and about, preferably in nature?
Meditation?
Writing?
Gym?
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Similar to sibling comment, but from a slightly older perspective as I approach 40. It seems that people in my circles just don’t use anything any more, at least that I can see. Most who aren’t really techy or political have abandoned or never adopted Twitter. Facebook gets a few photos of first days of school and vacation. Instagram gets the same but more of it, and occasional food pics. But it seems that most actua…
> Whatever the cause, my Internet experience used to be so much about connecting and communicating with people Maybe as we get older, we realize that whatever it was we were doing on social media, it wasn't actually connecting with people. Whatever these companies' mission statements say about "building community" and "bringing the world closer together" and "connecting people," it's not actually what their products…
Before social media you’d sign up to forums and talk to people with similar interests. The smaller communities and purposeful writing was much better. Now it’s just a cesspool of ads and spammers. These platforms are still useful if you highly limit your usage.
I find the best way to use facebook is to join the useful community groups but otherwise do nothing of consequence. Maybe you post a holiday shot of a landscape so your friends in other countries know you’re alive. Otherwise simply don’t engage and sandbox Facebook.
Twitter is fine if you use it more like a news feed. Follow John Carmack or other people with interesting things to say. Again, don’t engage with the platform. It best when smart people send out ideas.
I guess the next space to watch out for is teleconferencing. How long can they provide a free service for personal use?
America, and especially its behaviorally addicted youth, are losing hours per day and hundreds of years of their lives to this crap. And it's not as easy as just saying "I learned to love the difficulty of connecting offline." I don't believe that.
What we need is a modern version of AA to march people through the 12 steps towards a dopamine landscape that is less stimulating.
So, what are the alternative to Social Media? What if we expand to include TV? Actually "TV" is so 1999; these are all wrong question, the correct question is: What are the alternative to replace "screens"? Books (ink on paper)? Out and about, preferably in nature? Meditation? Writing? Gym?
The alternatives only suck because we've been made lazy by the seeming ease with which social media facilitates human contact and interaction. Yes, you absolutely should delete social media, and yes, making an effort with people will feel like hard work. But it will be worth it. I personally think sites like HN and Reddit are better forms of social media because they don't necessarily try to replace the contact you s…
> they don't necessarily try to replace the contact you should have with friends and family They may not aim to replace those interactions but they definately eat in to what would otherwise be friend or family time for a lot of people. I personally find reddit too negative for my taste but HN strikes a good balance, on the whole I would probably be better off if i limited my time here.
I think one effect not often mentioned is the particular pairing of social media with smartphones, where the smartphone is the key agent of change, not social media. In the very early stages of social media, say the era of blogs, MySpace, and forums like these, there were no smartphones. People would live their normal lives during the day, and perhaps reserve an hour or so of "computer time". Where they physically si…
Think twice before getting married today.
You could be stuck with somebody addicted to social media, or worse, tindr.
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I really don't think this is true anymore at least in my generation. I'm in my late 20s and my family and friends really don't seem to post much content anymore on social media after graduating college. It's pretty much for consumption of memes and other internet content and could be cut out easily since its a time sink, vs years ago when people were much more active and no one ever followed commercial accounts or pe…
I see a lot of these sentiments that "nobody posts much any more" - is it true that they actually don't post much, or is it just that most people are now aware of online privacy and the long-term risks of public posting? Maybe everyone's posting a heap to their inner circle but nothing publicly?
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Irrelevant definitions aside -- I think everyone can agree there is a dramatic difference between a website like Facebook and a website like HN. The vast majority of the negative psychological triggers, for example, associated with a platform like Facebook, are missing from HN.
For what it's worth, my experience is the opposite. The vast majority of negative psychological triggers I see in my online life are on HN, not facebook or twitter or reddit. > I think everyone can agree there is a dramatic difference between a website like Facebook and a website like HN No we cannot all agree on that! For one I completely disagree. Also I 100% consider HN social media. It checks all the boxes the wa…
It's much easier for me to forget the people here on HN, there's no "follow", there's not pictures, there's just ad hoc comments with random people.
I don't build a relationship with people here. I just read text.