Live data from Hacker News

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

petapixel.com

201–210 of 274 posts

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

#201

I disagree. If someone provided a simple service for friends and families to share photos and updates, it's possible Facebook could be disrupted. I have no evidence to back up my claim, but I think those are the only things people truly care about. It is the only thing I miss after deleting it two years ago. I certainly don't miss Messenger, the Feed, or news.

You mean something like Cluster? Our family has used it for years.

https://cluster.co/

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

#202
post #193

For everyone here who --like me-- has never bought into Facebook, and never gotten hooked on it, congratulations. We are free of the Facebook dopamine dispenser, unlike our poor friends and family. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go refresh the HN front page for the 10th time today, and after checking how many upvotes I got on my latest comments, don't mind if I jump back over to reddit for a while, and then b…

You made me laugh, but also think what I might be addicted to. I can't think of a single thing except porn. Highly functional addict buy still one nonetheless. I don't think I can quit. It's odd though that it's the only thing. I've always thought that susceptibility to addiction is a personality trait that make you usually get addicted to more than one thing.

Also mine. Have gone long stretches between relapses during which time I've felt noticeably better. What typically happens is I'll rationalize its use after a spell, but will find I'll want to watch the next day, and the next. Particularly if sleep suffers, just to get some deliverance.

From what I've learned, large sustained dopamine hits lead to deficits in baseline levels. I could intuit early on that some of my negative experience (including sleep) was linked to consumption, but managed to convince myself each time that I "just need to better manage it". Even if the truth stares you in the face it's hard. I like to think of it as a "mild" addiction owing to frequency (it wasn't always) but still an addiction, which is like playing with fire. It can always get worse.

I've been enjoying Huberman's videos on the topic of dopamine and other things - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU

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

#203
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Reddit is an amazing platform for niche hobbies and tech forums. It is fucking terrible for its political news. It's so clearly biased AND it leaks into every default subreddit.

And at such polarized extremes. I see unironic communists post in worldnews about as often as any kind of conservative.

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

#206
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think many will, but many others won't.

There are a lot of spaces online, especially on Discord and at one point in Facebook groups where Reddit is regarded as if it were a digital North Korea.

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

#208
I never could understand what was addictive. I kept my account for a few years because I used the chat and posted art my friends and family would enjoy. When I got a smartphone I quit the platform since I could do that stuff on my phone's messaging app. Only thing that seems appealing to me now is the marketplace versus Craigslist.

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

#209
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absurd. There is no scientific basis that would support your assertion. In fact, increased social media activity leads to a higher chance of suffering from depressive episodes. Meditation has been shown to to actually combat symptoms of depression. If you can't sit still with your own thoughts for 60 seconds without spiraling, then you shouldn't even be remotely near social media.

> That's absurd. There is no scientific basis that would support your assertion. Why are you so confident in that? Have you done your research? I learned that from a licensed psychologist, and know several people who have had severely negative reactions to "mindfulness" training, but it only took 30 seconds to find these two links: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210202-how-mindfulnes... https://www.newscienti…

Is there any evidence that therapy is helpful? Haven't seen any evidence supporting it but I might not be searching correctly.

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

#210

For everyone here who --like me-- has never bought into Facebook, and never gotten hooked on it, congratulations. We are free of the Facebook dopamine dispenser, unlike our poor friends and family. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go refresh the HN front page for the 10th time today, and after checking how many upvotes I got on my latest comments, don't mind if I jump back over to reddit for a while, and then b…

You want this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-demetr...

It removes comment/upvote numbers from Hacker News and makes it far less able to exploit human psychological loopholes related to numbers.

Post reply on HN