I have a problem with the way the author frames social media. I seem to not clearly fall into either the observer or validator camp. I generally use social media as a way to try to add value to others through comments. I care less about the actual content and more about the discussion around the content. Thus, a lot of the author’s points are irrelevant to me because I see social media as an uplifting, positive thing. Why would I then want it gone from my life?
Reasons to Quit Social Media
111–120 of 283 posts
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion the main differentiator is whether or not the platform's userbase is more or less like the population at large. This is important for two reasons: - If a website is full of normies - sorry for the word, feel free to suggest a more appropriate one - then mainstream cultural references, information sources, opinions and so on are bound to dominate the scene. This makes the community far less interesting,…
>That a comment is flagged or at -4 is useful signal Knowing that something is a) spot on but ideologically inconvenient b) wrong doesn't really help if you don't have the subject matter familiarity to already know what's right and wrong. It just reduces your options to a binary choice.
"ideologically inconvenient" is indistinguishable from "incoherent nonsense" if you put yourself in the shoes of someone who disagrees with said ideology.
It's typical of people knee-deep in weird politics to fall into "with us or against us" type of thinking.
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#113I think the eternal september has become so deep that social media lose its value. Pure mobs don't work, and regulated mobs don't scale. People can get addicted to counting their 'likes' for so long, after that they realize it's a rigged, impossible game. Upvotes are not the way forward, and that puts an end to social media based on pure popularity.
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#114I think part of the problem today with individuals trying to figure out how to moderate their social media usage is that it's not clear what specifically within social media constitutes harm. Is it the like/upvote mechanism? Hacker News would constitute harmful social media in that case. But what might be lost is a powerful lever for democratic input in terms of content curation and moderation. My vote for what's mor…
> Is it the like/upvote mechanism?
Yes it is, HN pays people to keep things at bay. But that doesn't scale
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#115One of the arguments for social media is that it keeps you in touch with friends you've lost touch with.
Except, that there's probably a good reason you've lost touch with a lot of those people. What Facebook showed me was how racist and vulgar most of the people I went to school with are. Better to just see them once every ten years at a reunion event where people are on their best behavior than to have to face it every day.
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#116Here's another reason to quit social media: the lords of the engagement economy make money off "mimetic desire" -- off your envy of me and my envy of you. The more anxious they can make me and you about measuring up to each other, the more money they make.
That's evil. Some might say it's demonic.
Here's a writeup. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n16/john-lanchester/you-...
(Said he, writing on the Hacker News social media network :-)
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#117Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#118I think part of the problem today with individuals trying to figure out how to moderate their social media usage is that it's not clear what specifically within social media constitutes harm. Is it the like/upvote mechanism? Hacker News would constitute harmful social media in that case. But what might be lost is a powerful lever for democratic input in terms of content curation and moderation. My vote for what's mor…
> Is it the like/upvote mechanism? Hacker News would constitute harmful social media in that case. The way I've started to look at it is that all social media has some harmful and some beneficial aspects, but the nexus of identity-based (vs topic-based like HN) social media with upvote/like functionality is the most problematic for people struggling with identity and self worth. Even as someone established enough not…
How can you distinguish identity-based from topic-based social media? Doesn't your identity influence which topics you're interested in, and don't the topics which interest you form your identity? This forum says in the guidelines to submit "Anything that good hackers would find interesting." That reads to me like an identity-based forum.
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#119I enjoy social media and use it to exchange information, observe trends in culture, and as a communication channel when convenient.
Re: Reasons to Quit Social Media
#120Maybe I'm not the typical user here, but I don't have most of the problems described in this post. I use Twitter somewhat heavily, but I just use it to post jokes, and mostly follow people who use Twitter the same way. It's definitely a time-sink, and to some degree the "fake sense of belonging", so I'm being less social irl. But I don't think I can blame the second point entirely on Twitter, and I think I'm ok with…
They're presenting a bit of a false dichotomy. You can use social media and still be sane, you just have to have some amount of self awareness so the troubling aspects don't affect you as much.