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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.

#61

Post by fleddr »

ryandrake wrote: post #39
fleddr wrote: post #31

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…

Great point! Would social media be the massive societal ill that it is without smartphones and wireless Internet everywhere? Without it being in people's pockets all day beeping and buzzing notifications at them, constantly trying to engage them? If we had to carve out a few hours at night for "computer time" like we used to, would it be so toxic?

I'd say the level of toxicity of current social media would simply not be possible in a scenario of dramatically reduced usage. Far less would be posted, it wouldn't spread so instantly, and so on.

The smartphone will invent ways to disrupt you all day. Even if there were no social media, it would be a video game, a stock trading app, whichever. It's a brand new capability to be able to reach all people all day, and it will be used.

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

#63

Post by RHSman2 »

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?

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

I see at least 9 of them as shared.

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

#64

Post by danw1979 »

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.

13 of those activities I almost always do with my family and friends.

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

#65

Post by cblconfederate »

commandlinefan wrote: post #21
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.

We replaced TV with social media. I still believe this was progress.

My view is that it's not. Especially with the advent of video in social media, and with so many people joining we ve regressed to the mean and below. FB & IG are basically a 24 hour reality show or 24 hour home videos, not quality programming. The news are now made from self-reported tweets without cross-checks. and clickbait videos are gradually increasing the noise in youtube, a paid platform. the world's biggest forums (reddit+twitter) are severely narrowminded. Maintaining a nuanced community requires dedicated effort and expenditure (like HN does).

As always on the internet, after the initial panspermia came a period of severe winner-take-all consolidation into monoculture. I m not sure if it would be different in an alternate timeline where the ad money was going to media companies.

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

#66

Post by qualudeheart »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #20
droptablemain wrote: post #4

As someone who quit social media a couple of years ago, I would say, yes, you should quit social media (regardless of whether that's the question). It is wonderful for one's mental health. It's true that you will lose a lot of connections, but you will manage to stay in touch with the people that matter.

I’m the same. I left Twitter and LinkedIn this year which were my main vices. Probably 70k reasonably organic connections down the drain. However, I feel much happier and relaxed and have better relationships online and offline with a smaller group of people. Would definetly recommend binning social media. It’s a toxic time sink.

Twitter in particular is a drug, most normalized among gen Z.

I don’t think anyone should use large social media platforms unless they rigorously curate their feeds, and limit their interaction to positive sum games.

Twitter is best used as a content aggregator where you follow a few elite accounts and consume their wisdom. Don’t get dragged into tribal fights over politics or darwinian fitness signaling.

It’s monkey games all the way down but we have the freedom not to play them.

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

#67

Post by qualudeheart »

yesenadam wrote: post #18
droptablemain wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, I'm not the vast majority hehe. On FB I just chat with my friends around the world and sometimes while doing that, look at their pictures of what they've been up to. It's so nice. My friends are amazing. I've no idea why everyone acts like you are forced to look at your "news feed" on FB. On here, it's all-too-frequent crazy/nasty/snarky/jerk comments. Yes, negative psychological triggers is a good way of putti…

What is !!Con? I’m new here.
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