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Sometimes I feel HN also is a similar attention sink, even Wikipedia as well. They also can draw you in for information snacking, and before you know hours have gone. Commenting and reading responses in HN is also another attention consuming loop.
I always find these "quitting social media" blog posts a bit ironic... "social media is addictive and encourages doing and posting things just for the attention and to make other people think I am interesting... so I wrote this blog post about quitting social media, and am posting it to hacker news and other sites... I hope lots of people read it and think I am insightful"
Sometimes I feel HN also is a similar attention sink, even Wikipedia as well. They also can draw you in for information snacking, and before you know hours have gone. Commenting and reading responses in HN is also another attention consuming loop.
"HN comments are terrible. On any topic I’m informed about, the vast majority of comments are pretty clearly wrong." From https://danluu.com/hn-comments/ . I happen to agree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, is Hacker News social media?
User generated content, comments, ratings. 3/3 would say so, yes. :-)
That's not great criteria for determining if something's "social media". All those things you listed were part of websites long before social media came along.
I wonder as well if there's a difference between people who use it to catch up with their real-life friends vs. people who use it to communicate with online friends. I deleted my Facebook account last year simply because I had never used it; most of my friends on there were people I was acquainted with in real life at some point but I have no desire to talk to them. I never used it so I just deleted my account. However, I use Twitter, and I'd never dream of deleting it; most of my interactions on there are between me and friends I initially met online, and social media is one of the main ways we communicate. These are real friends - I've met several of them in person now - but I'd be losing a huge channel of communication with them if I went dark on social media.
Which, when worded like that, almost sounds like they're trapping me on there, but I also have no desire to quit. I've never felt Twitter negatively impacting my life. I go on it daily, I usually have it open in a tab while doing other things on my computer, but I don't spend hours just scrolling, and I don't follow people who say things that will only make my day worse. I don't see it as wasting my time any more than watching TV or doing crossword puzzles, which are also things I spend a reasonable amount of time doing.
The comparison to cigarettes and alcohol is ridiculous in my opinion. I don't buy the premise that social media, by default and for most people, makes your life worse. Maybe I'm just the exception? I have no idea.
> Social media is like cigarettes and alcohol. Toxic. Addictive. Yet widely accessible. I never thought I would say this...but I have to wonder if cigarettes and alcohol may be healthier options than social media, simply because they usually accompany real social lives? EDIT: To be clear, any addictive substance is a bad choice. Please entirely disregard this analogy in that sense.
I forget what magazine carried this essay, and it was from maybe about 10 years ago, but a journalist decided to take up smoking (temporarily) at the age of 30-something or 40-something, with the idea of writing a story about it. One of his takeaways was the sociability of it, especially since everyone nowadays is forced to exit the office building to have a smoke.
The relationships I established with fellow smokers, whether it was at work while stepping out from the office, standing outside a pub, stepping outside on a balcony at a party, etc. were almost always stronger than with my non-smoking friends. You immediately become part of a social circle with people you at least have one thing in common with, and are standing around with a limited number of minutes to chat about almost anything.
I haven't had a cigarette for nearly five years and the thought of lighting one up disgusts me, but I miss the carefree banter during smoke breaks with other smokers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I usually pride myself on my google-fu, but this one has eluded me. I also remember this essay. Do you remember anything more about the essay that would help me find it? There is so much information and blogspam about their for the {nicotine, addiction, cigarettes, voluntary, chooses, sociability, constraints} results.
I also remember it - I’m pretty sure he was 42? Some other things: - might have been the Atlantic - he talked about etiquette around things like flicking ash and smoking circles - he talked about asking his doctor about starting smoking It was definitely an interesting one
I really want to read it now. But can’t find it by Google.
This is the key. Either you use technology intentionally or it uses you. You don't have to quit altogether, but it's important that you use it as a tool.
I wrote about this from a different angle - in my view, the problem can be isolated to feeds[0]. They encourage consumption over action, take you in unwanted directions and induce FOMO through overchoice. If you can eliminate them, these services magically become tools rather than escapes.
I always find these "quitting social media" blog posts a bit ironic... "social media is addictive and encourages doing and posting things just for the attention and to make other people think I am interesting... so I wrote this blog post about quitting social media, and am posting it to hacker news and other sites... I hope lots of people read it and think I am insightful"
Point is, I found that social media was mostly feeding a need I had to be "on display" or "performing" that I used to get in person pre-pandemic by "holding court" in group settings and leading interesting conversations. After making that realization, it caused me to rethink the behavior altogether. I still comment on HN and read HN daily, but this is basically the only site I go on now that's akin to social media. Blogging about quitting social media would have just been me doing this same behavior in another pathway. To a large degree, I feel like that's the "point" of social media. To make us crave attention and to act out specifically to get attention and it's bled into everyday life and in-person interactions.