Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#91

Post by randycupertino » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #80

captainmuon wrote: post #14

Are they taking about the same Facebook? I find it utterly boring and only use it for messenger anymore. It used to be addictive, before social media, when it was a social network. You were interacting with real people, you could meet new people, "stalk" people you know IRL, share stuff about yourself or find out stuff about others. You would try to find your crush on FB and check see if you have common acquaintances…

>I wish someone would make a site like that again! I will make a site similar to that. I really want to. I have plan all drawn up for how it will work. Its ad free, but with premium services for those willing to pay. One member of a family or group can pay for everybody. The site is ephemeral, all posts are removed after three months. Its not a place where you store all your photos. Its a site where friends and famil…

This actually sounds super cool and I think would fill a void a lot of families/groups are using right now with group texting.

Godspeed!

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#92

Post by hairofadog » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

djoldman wrote: post #88

The uproar over and magnitude of digital ink spent on Facebook is interesting. This uproar seems to persist even if the discussion is restricted to Americans who are adults and not using Facebook for a commercial purpose (i.e. the use is for amusement or in free time). It seems to be a disconnect from the generally pro-free speech, pro-personal liberty/accountability tone of HN. Are HN'ers calling for regulating soci…

Firstly, from my point of view they're already heavily censoring content via their algorithm. Facebook hides posts that decrease engagement and amplifies posts that increase engagement. If the argument for absolute free speech is that misinformation should be fought with information (meaning, if some folks are telling people to drink bleach as a cure for covid, the remedy is to tell those same people not to drink bleach, and let the people decide for themselves), that's impossible what with Facebooks algorithmic censorship. It's nearly impossible to reach those people, and it's not even possible to even hear what argument they're receiving in order to rebut.

Secondly, in terms of liberty, Facebook is a company doing what they feel they need to do. What course of action, aside from government intervention, would prevent them from removing posts they thought were harmful? What would be the threshold for the government to intervene in a web service's moderation policy?

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#93

Post by i_am_proteus » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #75

captainmuon wrote: post #14

Are they taking about the same Facebook? I find it utterly boring and only use it for messenger anymore. It used to be addictive, before social media, when it was a social network. You were interacting with real people, you could meet new people, "stalk" people you know IRL, share stuff about yourself or find out stuff about others. You would try to find your crush on FB and check see if you have common acquaintances…

Herein lies the banality: facebook is boring, but if you're bored, it's better than nothing. I don't begrudge folks using it to pass the time on transit to avoid interacting with the public... but I've witnessed quite a few people scrolling endlessly while half-watching tv, half-participating in face to face interactions, etc. I've fallen into that trap myself, during a period of intense burnout -- my ability to focu…

I'll assert that it's much worse than nothing.

"Nothing" isn't bad. Meditate. Let your imagination run wild. Relax. You can't do those things on facebook dot com.

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#94

Post by thomasfl » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

I have been just as addicted to Hacker News as I have been addicted to Facebook. Since I discovered this site in 2007, it has at times been a daily routine to come here. Of course you don't spend as much time on HN as on FB. It only takes a few seconds to scroll to the end on HN.

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#95

Post by anonfornoreason » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #76

ramoz wrote: post #19

The author who wrote this has tweeted, on average, 1-2x a day for 10 years. https://twitter.com/jaronschneider Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society (an information/propagation architecture that exploits how people process information, imo). For me, Facebook is nothing more than a hometown forum. I havent logged on in months.

> Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society I don't really see how that can be true when only 20% of so of the population actually use Twitter. It's very small beans compared to Facebook, or YouTube for that matter.

Policy makers, journalists, and educators tend to use twitter pretty extensively. What happens on twitter affects the worldview of just about every journalist out there. Don't like the current ideological capture of journalism on both sides of the US political spectrum? Blame twitter for a significant portion of that.

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#96

Post by avgDev » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #73

ramoz wrote: post #19

The author who wrote this has tweeted, on average, 1-2x a day for 10 years. https://twitter.com/jaronschneider Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society (an information/propagation architecture that exploits how people process information, imo). For me, Facebook is nothing more than a hometown forum. I havent logged on in months.

> Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society I'm always surprised that Reddit gets a free pass in these discussions. Reddit has been home to some of the most egregious bad communities and misinformation hives. Their invisible-hand moderation system allows a small number of moderators to completely control the conversation in a subreddit. Banning dissenters and removing comments that don't agree w…

I hate Reddit mostly for its hive mind.

For example: There is a video of someone blasting music and neighbor clearly being upset. The offender calls the lady Karen. Then, all the comments are bashing so called "Karen". Even though many places in the US have laws in place to prevent people from blasting music all day. Stating this brings many down votes.

I had an awful neighbor in an area where houses are close apart. He would get wasted, cut grass with a lawnmower and blast music out of his car, which he could not hear because of lawn mower. My windows would shake when I was trying to study.

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#97

Post by ed_elliott_asc » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #14

Are they taking about the same Facebook? I find it utterly boring and only use it for messenger anymore. It used to be addictive, before social media, when it was a social network. You were interacting with real people, you could meet new people, "stalk" people you know IRL, share stuff about yourself or find out stuff about others. You would try to find your crush on FB and check see if you have common acquaintances…

I think my wife is addicted, she will pick up her phone to do one thing but first goes to Facebook and scrolls, then she forgets what she was using her phone for.

Maybe not addicted but she has a habit of going to Facebook every time she uses her phone.

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#98

Post by klyrs » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #93

klyrs wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herein lies the banality: facebook is boring, but if you're bored, it's better than nothing. I don't begrudge folks using it to pass the time on transit to avoid interacting with the public... but I've witnessed quite a few people scrolling endlessly while half-watching tv, half-participating in face to face interactions, etc. I've fallen into that trap myself, during a period of intense burnout -- my ability to focu…

I'll assert that it's much worse than nothing. "Nothing" isn't bad. Meditate. Let your imagination run wild. Relax. You can't do those things on facebook dot com.

For people with severe anxiety or depression, meditation can actually aggravate the situation and do significant harm. Letting one's mind run wild in that situation leads to more anxiety, suicide planning, etc.

But, I'll amend my statement: facebook is less boring than a blank screen.

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#99

Post by micromacrofoot » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

ramoz wrote: post #19

The author who wrote this has tweeted, on average, 1-2x a day for 10 years. https://twitter.com/jaronschneider Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society (an information/propagation architecture that exploits how people process information, imo). For me, Facebook is nothing more than a hometown forum. I havent logged on in months.

I feel like everyone ignores scale here. Facebook is an of magnitude larger even before considering Instagram and WhatsApp. They have nearly 3 billion active users.

Twitter is a fraction of the scale/influence, especially outside of english speaking countries.

WhatsApp is the de facto communication platform in some countries. Facebook is the internet in some parts of Africa. India has nearly as many Facebook users as the US has adults in total.

Even if you don't use Facebook yourself, society around you uses it... a lot... and that impacts you.

Re: Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit

#100

Post by treeman79 » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #68

treeman79 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I Facebook for support forums for autoimmune conditions. It is drastically better then Reddit for finding answers or suggestions. Every question gets dozens of answers many of which are very insightful and useful if repetitive. The sort of stuff that doctors don’t like to explain like my bloodwork says this what does that mean and what should I do next. people will have excellent answers.

how can you be sure that they're good answers?

Because I spent years researching my conditions. A lot of people on the forums have as well. Plus some treatments show up again and again as “this worked for me”

For example I was getting up 10x a night to pee for years. Kept seeing post to try aloe Vera freeze dried pills. $$$

Finally tried it. And I slept through the night now.

Understanding test is another one.

A crap ton of doctors will see a negative test and automatically declare you don’t have X condition even if you have every single symptom. Eventually you learned that a large percentage usually get negatives on that test. That there are alternate test that can be run. But most doctors aren’t even aware they exist.

Oh so a lot of the moral and legal support. Imagine having the flu for 30 years And trying to live a normal life. Everyone calling you lazy and a whiner and if you try and do something about it you get labeled as a hypochondriac and it all being dismissed as anxiety. Some diseases take on average seven years or more to get diagnosed because because of these problems; mine took 20 years.