Live data from Hacker News

Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

meta.ath0.com

61–70 of 174 posts

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you imagine if hypothetically, HN suddenly became the world's most popular social network? It would be unusable for it's current purpose and no amount of moderating could ever fix that. This sounds harsh but not everyone deserves to be heard all of the time- myself included.

I like browsing HN from the Android app Materialistic because (1) I can't see votes on my posts and (2) it's difficult to find replies to my posts (you can view your profile, but jumping to a post only shows its ancestors, not replies). This combination, plus the annoyance of typing on a smartphone, means I usually * only comment when I have something that adds value to the conversation; I tend to engage more with th…

Materialistic used to be able to cache articles and comments when you saved a story (for offline consumption) but that is no longer the case. I've also only been able to export the list of stories *once* before as that feature is more or less broken at this point.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#62
post #57

Perhaps we really are in the (clickbait) matrix. An blog post about a pointless research project aimed at drawing a conclusion that could be drawn from common sense without any research at all. All of which is a somewhat circular exercise in bad content announcing itself to the world in an ontological sense.

this is actually something that's been bothering me heavily, lately. i've noticed a lot of content is created in these convoluted and grandiose borderline word vomit. honestly, a lot of the stuff frequently makes me feel a bit dumb as a reader. by the time i get through it, i realize that the main thesis is actually extremely simple but surrounded by flowery words.

furthermore, i'm also noticing at my workplace many people saying a lot of things, to the point of utter rambling and going off topic, in extremely verbose ways but communicating ideas that could have been said in the most basic of ways. i'm not sure if i'm just slowing down as i get older and get dumber, but i am feeling like a lot of information hasn't gotten more complex, but the way its communicated very much has.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#63
post #56

As soon as your news feed becomes too big for you to read all of it and then decide whether to repost anything, the quality of information you propagate is going to fall because of that filtering process. I avoid this by unfollowing people very frequently. I see one stupid candid or a pout or a food shot, I just unfollow that person. Same goes for SJW/White Supremacy types. Whether you are OP or a sharer, you get mut…

> SJW/White Supremacy types

In what way are these 'types' equated?

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#64
post #7

Related to this, there is an intimacy of small community which makes you feel valued and a proper contributor, that social networks really seem to oppose: they want to make the network bigger, you are part of the biggest world context, everybody on TikTok is eating a habanero while watching Bob Ross, so only if I do the same nonsense do I have a chance of 100 people noticing and liking the video and maybe opting to s…

I'm willing to bet that my fyp on tiktok is much different from yours.

Niche subreddits could have been the solution. It is the specific implementation suck, not the idea of openness of a subgroup to new comers e.g., there can be a feeling community while participating in an open source project even if anybody may join.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#65
post #56

As soon as your news feed becomes too big for you to read all of it and then decide whether to repost anything, the quality of information you propagate is going to fall because of that filtering process. I avoid this by unfollowing people very frequently. I see one stupid candid or a pout or a food shot, I just unfollow that person. Same goes for SJW/White Supremacy types. Whether you are OP or a sharer, you get mut…

> SJW/White Supremacy types In what way are these 'types' equated?

I'm assuming they're referencing the type of content they see from opposite sides of the political spectrum. I'm also not assuming any value attribution.

In the context of the comment, it seems that they simply do not want political noise in their social network in any form.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This strongly reminds me of Kornhauser’s three levels of social relations ( Politics of Mass Society , 1959): > We can conceive of all but the simplest societies as comprising three levels of social relations. The first level consists of highly personal or primary relations, notably the family. The third level contains relations inclusive of the whole population, notably the state. The second level comprises all inte…

You can reduce all of this to the simple observation that: There are little consequences when the pool of people you have access to is massive; and there remains no reason to become emotionally invested in a certain "core" of people, when you can easily jump to another if that "core" is not perfect. This leads to a feedback loop that stunts relationship "depth." Or further: when you have options, the default modus op…

Interesting, also why online dating can be difficult.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#67
post #7

Related to this, there is an intimacy of small community which makes you feel valued and a proper contributor, that social networks really seem to oppose: they want to make the network bigger, you are part of the biggest world context, everybody on TikTok is eating a habanero while watching Bob Ross, so only if I do the same nonsense do I have a chance of 100 people noticing and liking the video and maybe opting to s…

Growth is always the default expectation. It's part of humanity at this point. I personally feel that it is destructive. I hate the idea that static and stagnant are NEGATIVES. They are not. They have value.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#68
post #56

As soon as your news feed becomes too big for you to read all of it and then decide whether to repost anything, the quality of information you propagate is going to fall because of that filtering process. I avoid this by unfollowing people very frequently. I see one stupid candid or a pout or a food shot, I just unfollow that person. Same goes for SJW/White Supremacy types. Whether you are OP or a sharer, you get mut…

> SJW/White Supremacy types In what way are these 'types' equated?

Participation in the culture war, weaponizing social media, and politicizing every space they pollute. There is no space for science, art, culture, day to day experience, or just fun and joy when they try to recruit every social media user and their content into their cause.

I'm saying this even if I actually do agree with their cause.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#69
post #56

As soon as your news feed becomes too big for you to read all of it and then decide whether to repost anything, the quality of information you propagate is going to fall because of that filtering process. I avoid this by unfollowing people very frequently. I see one stupid candid or a pout or a food shot, I just unfollow that person. Same goes for SJW/White Supremacy types. Whether you are OP or a sharer, you get mut…

I unfollow everyone, absolutely everyone on facebook. I do it systematically whenever somebody sends a friend request.

This way I can decide whose posts I see, and not the algorithm. Ha, take that! Facebook even displays an error message in your feed if you unfollow everyone :)

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#70
post #56

As soon as your news feed becomes too big for you to read all of it and then decide whether to repost anything, the quality of information you propagate is going to fall because of that filtering process. I avoid this by unfollowing people very frequently. I see one stupid candid or a pout or a food shot, I just unfollow that person. Same goes for SJW/White Supremacy types. Whether you are OP or a sharer, you get mut…

> SJW/White Supremacy types In what way are these 'types' equated?

They're equally removed from my Facebook feed, along with most other non-local politics. Life is a lot less stressful when you don't get shown the most inflammatory political arguments on the internet whenever you check your messages.
Post reply on HN