Maybe I'm the outlier - but everybody I am "friends" with on social media I'm friends with IRL (save for Twitter, but that's more blogging than social media). We just post what we did this weekend and stuff like that. Post stuff that the kids are doing (and for some of my friends what the grandkids are doing). No one is trying to impress anyone else. People just staying in touch. Maybe we older folks have a better feel for how to integrate technology into our everyday lives than we're given credit for.
My life after quitting social media
61–70 of 172 posts
Re: My life after quitting social media
#62I've never understood this. I think if you have a relationship with social media that elicits a desire to "quit", it's not because social media is terrible, it's because the relationship is bad. 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 ha…
It sounds like you're basically using Twitter as something like email, which never occurred to me (my friends and I do "group comms" via actual email).
Do other people use Twitter in this way? Maybe you are the exception :)
Re: My life after quitting social media
#63I recommended it in a similar discussion before, but Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" offers reasonable ways to introduce intermittent fasting patterns into your social media consumption vs quitting cold turkey. Some sample strategies to adopt: 1) Mobile sites only, never apps. Always log out when done to increase the friction of subsequent logins. The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bo…
What would Cal have us do on the can, if not doom scroll Twitter?
Re: My life after quitting social media
#64I think there are only three types of modern social media: Facebook, Pinterest, and then virtually everything else. (I don't consider Reddit to be in this conversation because it's a glorified forum, and those have been around since BBSes).
Facebook was conceived and still largely operates as a social network in the community aspect: you are in touch with your friends and family members for the most part. Facebook has of course tried to deviate from this path in the last decade, but that's still strongly what the site is.
Pinterest is probably the least interactive social media platform in terms of communication between people, but it's probably the most useful, even if it's nothing but a collection of bookmarks.
All the other social media platforms are basically centered around groups of people yelling at influencers in a desperate attempt to be noticed. They are giant dopamine sinks.
Re: My life after quitting social media
#65Re: My life after quitting social media
#66I recommended it in a similar discussion before, but Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" offers reasonable ways to introduce intermittent fasting patterns into your social media consumption vs quitting cold turkey. Some sample strategies to adopt: 1) Mobile sites only, never apps. Always log out when done to increase the friction of subsequent logins. The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bo…
> The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bored at the checkout line, waiting in-between meetings with nothing to do, sitting on the toilet.
Just curious, why is this considered the "most insidious"? Isn't that time wasted anyway? Before cellphones you would just stare off into space (you're not getting any deep thinking or deep work done waiting in line) or would just browse the gum or trash magazines.
> computer access only, never mobile
This one definitely makes sense. It was interesting time when Facebook was around but smartphones weren't fully ubiquitous. You would only see your feed on the laptop and had to text friends to stay in touch in real-time (even if async)
Re: My life after quitting social media
#67I recommended it in a similar discussion before, but Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" offers reasonable ways to introduce intermittent fasting patterns into your social media consumption vs quitting cold turkey. Some sample strategies to adopt: 1) Mobile sites only, never apps. Always log out when done to increase the friction of subsequent logins. The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bo…
What would Cal have us do on the can, if not doom scroll Twitter?
I'm not Cal, but it seems like the real fix to that isn't finding another attention-consumer, but instead fixing whatever is causing excess can time.
Re: My life after quitting social media
#68I love Twitter but recently removed Instagram from my phone and as a result, my usage dropped to near zero. I found I was watching the same updates (here's my baby doing this fun thing!), which was nice, but I wasn't really connected to this individual, and for most of my Instagram it was old friends and colleagues who no longer live near me or share much similarities. Twitter, Instagram, Hacker News, etc. are all at…
A couple thoughts here. I was an adult before social media was a thing, or even the web, and I sometimes wonder if I would have even attempted much of the experimentation I did - doubtful, at least at that age. Why bother when now it takes only a few minutes searching to find someone who already solved the problem, and better than you (think) you could have. But now I understand I would have missed out on so much had I not even tried. Who knows what fresh angle you’ll bring to the table? It happens.
The second thought is at some point you come to terms with your own limitations (and strengths!), and you realize, yes this person is great at such and such, but am I able to do what I want in my life with my talents? Am I happy doing my thing, even if it’s not “as good” as them? Yep. So good for them. And good for you.
Re: My life after quitting social media
#69Sometimes 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.
And checking to see if your comment stays near the top, how many up votes, reading the replies to see if you're a smart person or not.
I'm not the only person who never feels like they're one of the "smart people" in these threads, right? After close to a decade on this forum I've just learned not to fight that feeling and instead to find the humor in it.
Re: My life after quitting social media
#70Interesting and insightful read. But the Facebook and Twitter share buttons at the bottom were....ironic.
Also, is Hacker News social media?
There is no way to intentionally follow specific users or customize your view of the site depending on who is a part of your personal network. There is no personal network at all. Those seem to me to be the defining features of social media. Hacker News is just a crowd-sourced link aggregator with comments that requires persistent accounts so the links and comments can't be easily spammed.
Of course, so is Reddit, but I personally don't think Reddit should be considered social media, either. You can personalize your content view there, but the personalization is based on content topics, not the following of specific users.