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Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

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Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#51

Post by ranguna »

cblconfederate wrote: post #15

You dont quit an addiction, you replace it with something else. But social media is different. It's a reality show in which you re the unpaid actor, a replaceable lab rat. If you feel that, living your whole life oblivious under a painted dome (like in the Truman Show) by getting rewarded with likes is an OK life, then maybe you should grow up. In the end, Truman chose to get out.

Hmmmm.. I quite social media a few years ago, need to find out what I replaced it with.

Maybe I replaced it with something that is not an addiction?

Your phrase might sound nice but it's not necessarily true.

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#52

Post by soco »

dpeck wrote: post #24
neonnoodle wrote: post #5

I appreciate this essay and I think your observation is true, broadly speaking. However one thing I find consistently lacking from the “digital minimalism” space is recognition of the things that social media has eliminated or made harder. The pandemic has compounded this problem. It’s not just that using social media for relationships is individually easier—it’s that the network effects eventually make it so that so…

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…

I wouldn't call instant messaging "social media". I see a fundamental differences between the 1:1 (or 1:n where n isn't that high) bidirectional communications and the 1:world fundamentally one-way principle of Twitter and the likes. Yes I know it happens you get replies but I'd say that's less expected (and less happening). So while you use the one for exchanging infos, you use the other for... advertising? And the latter is less important.

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#53

Post by [deleted] »

droptablemain wrote: post #14
yesenadam wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And..having friends on here would be somehow bad?.. I like Clay Shirky's definition of social media, (something like) a website where the users create the content, where the thing wouldn't exist in the same way without the users. But the definition of the word doesn't really matter, I guess. I'm just not sure why not having friends here makes it "ok", and why if you made friends here you'd have to quit because of you…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#54

Post by RHSman2 »

Read books, paint, draw, exercise, play music, listen to music, yoga, meditate, ring your mum and dad, re-arrange rooms, clean, cook, learn to cook, plant something, go camping, ride a bike, fix a bike, walk, take photos whilst walking...etc, etc

Put a capital L in Living.

Who needs social media?

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#55

Post by phil294 »

RHSman2 wrote: post #54

Read books, paint, draw, exercise, play music, listen to music, yoga, meditate, ring your mum and dad, re-arrange rooms, clean, cook, learn to cook, plant something, go camping, ride a bike, fix a bike, walk, take photos whilst walking...etc, etc Put a capital L in Living. Who needs social media?

18 out of your 19 activities are solo-activities.

Who needs social interaction, you should rather be asking.

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#56

Post by danaris »

ryandrake wrote: post #36
dpeck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While there's certainly some truth to what you say, I think it's also very true that social media platforms used to be much more about connecting people. That's how they got their start.

Then they began to be corrupted by the insatiable search for ever-growing revenue.

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#57

Post by kthejoker2 »

phil294 wrote: post #55
RHSman2 wrote: post #54

Read books, paint, draw, exercise, play music, listen to music, yoga, meditate, ring your mum and dad, re-arrange rooms, clean, cook, learn to cook, plant something, go camping, ride a bike, fix a bike, walk, take photos whilst walking...etc, etc Put a capital L in Living. Who needs social media?

18 out of your 19 activities are solo-activities. Who needs social interaction, you should rather be asking.

> Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search of pleasure naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a noise; in future their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet.

Chrome Yellow, Aldous Huxley

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#58

Post by corpo_punisho »

cblconfederate wrote: post #15

You dont quit an addiction, you replace it with something else. But social media is different. It's a reality show in which you re the unpaid actor, a replaceable lab rat. If you feel that, living your whole life oblivious under a painted dome (like in the Truman Show) by getting rewarded with likes is an OK life, then maybe you should grow up. In the end, Truman chose to get out.

> You dont quit an addiction, you replace it with something else

Not true. Some things are habit forming, like cigarettes or really fun books or games. The same is true for social media. All addictions must start at some point.

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#59

Post by asdff »

prophesi wrote: post #23
asdff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm also in my late 20's, and my core friend group still coordinates via Messenger and FB Events. Much easier to send a mass invite, including people you aren't too close to, when IRL meetups finally do occur. Not to mention the event reminders, and timeline cards that say x is attending y this Saturday for the network effect to do its thing.

Probably just depends on the group. I haven't used facebook events since undergrad for university sponsored events or off campus parties with like 300 people. I've never had a friend set up their own for a smaller event. If there was a birthday party coming up we'd just text people who are in town and see if they are available that weekend or something. We are in our late 20s now and live across the country, and if you can get 6 friends together to make time out of their increasingly complicated lives to hang out on a specific day, you chalk that up to a big win. Curious, how do your friends use events? For things like birthday parties or even informal hanging out?

Re: Should you delete social media? That’s the wrong question.

#60

Post by asdff »

Spooky23 wrote: post #26
asdff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agree… in my life iMessage and text threads replaced social media. Facebook is something I check out once in awhile, I only reactivated recently to share some pictures from a wedding and to share some news of a loved one’s death. Otherwise it sucks. You can’t discuss anything without some rando friend of friends friend butting in with some sort of nonsense. It’s like going to the middle school dance… everyone lurks…

Yup, the only things I see on facebook other than 90% sponsored posts that creep in even if I don't follow the pages, generally are wedding photos and people dying. It just makes me feel old now. I just log in maybe once every two weeks for no longer than 30 seconds to see if I need to respond to a cat video my aunt or mother might have sent me.
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