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

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

#151

Post by klyrs »

coliveira wrote: post #114
colpabar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted my account several years ago and tried to get my girlfriend at the time to do the same thing. She was in favor of the idea, but facebook would show her a bunch of people with a message like "but what about all these people, won't you miss them?" and it did a great job of picking people who she most likely would not have kept in contact with if not for facebook, so she never deleted it. I think FOMO is the m…

You don't need to delete your account, you just need to delete the app in your phone and the job is done.

Not if you've got a browser...

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

#152

Post by cirgue »

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…

There are intelligent, well educated people that I personally hold in high esteem that take Twitter seriously and it weirds me out because they ostensibly to know better. I do not know anyone that takes Reddit seriously. I’m guessing that I’m not the only one here who feels that way.

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

#153

Post by 1shooner »

nonameiguess wrote: post #128
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Because there is no such thing as Reddit. Every sub is different. SilphRoad and the fandom subs for Dark and Twin Peaks were terrific communities when I participated there. Hobbyist subs for modding PC cases and programming languages have consistently great communities. Front-page Reddit is a totally different animal, but assuming you can remember words or deal with six bookmarks instead of one, you can go to the spe…

I have a browser extension ('leechblock') to stop me from viewing r/all and r/popular, and it really is night and day. If I happen to somehow end up on those pages on another device, it's jarring. I don't recognize the site as what it was when I first started using it.

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

#154

Post by thegjp210 »

alchemyromcom wrote: post #58

I personally found Facebook hard to quit, but not entirely impossible. I would compare it to giving up cigarettes: not easy, but I got through it. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have have a very serious and damaging internet addiction, however. Like many serious addictions, there's a lot of shame attached to my real addiction, which is 4chan. 4chan is like being addicted to heroin. Every day is a battle to…

Would you mind unpacking what you see as your addiction to 4chan? Are there specific boards you frequent? As an infrequent reader of /fit/ and /biz/, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around your experience.

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

#155

Post by sigstoat »

facebook helped me stop visiting, by insisting on showing me absolutely everything from one acquaintance (who is a fine person), all the dog photos from another friend, and effectively nothing else.

no idea what sort of failure mechanism that was, but it made things really boring.

i’ve still got my account, there’s just no point. i know what i’ll see already.

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

#156

Post by karaterobot »

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…

People talk about how boring Facebook is, but two days ago, when it went down for a few hours, it was all anybody talked about. There were multiple "Facebook is down!" threads here on HN, including a 1200+ comment thread about it. You can say "well, that was just morbid curiosity..." but then I'd ask for a pointer to another equally urgent response to an event. Any event. If all the smart kids find Facebook boring and not-at-all addictive then why did it suck up all the oxygen on the internet when it disappeared for a couple hours?

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

#157

Post by civilized »

gfxgirl wrote: post #41
itake wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. My news feed is like 90% memes and ads. I have like 3 friends that actually make interesting text posts that foster discussions. Everything else is a waste cognitive energy.

maybe you need to curate your feed? mine is no memes and few ads which I ignore. it's all posts from family and friends . also stopped following friends who I aren't close and friends that post too much

Remember that time when they were constantly pushing us to watch terrible videos on their platform?

Maybe you can curate it if you really work at it, but... ugh

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

#159

Post by stevecalifornia »

avgDev wrote: post #96
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

I sometimes feel alone when I go to Reddit and have the same disgusted feeling you do-- and it's because all the dissenting opinions are downvoted and deleted.

With that kind of moderation, how is there any other outcome other than a loud, obnoxious hive-mind?

It bothers me because perhaps the younger generation will grow up in Reddit thinking that this hive-mind is normal and healthy.

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

#160

Post by speedybird »

afavour wrote: post #78
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 feel as though it's impossible for anyone to write a thread on HN about Facebook without someone immediately coming in and saying that Facebook is stupid and they deleted their account years ago. Yeah, me too. But you usually don't have to look beyond your immediate family to find someone that uses Facebook (or at the very least an FB-owned property) a ton. We aren't typical!

If quitting facebook is framed as impossible, then those who want to quit will feel helpless. Posts like the one above are helpful because they tell people that there is hope. You can quit facebook.

Should we tell alcoholics that they'll never quit and their plight is hopeless? Or do we amplify the voices of those who succeeded in quitting, in the hopes that others may find inspiration to do the same? I'll do the latter.

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