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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

#231

Post by jader201 »

khazhoux wrote: post #183

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…

I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too).

It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any individuals, only sites I want to see updates on without having to poll them.

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

#232

Post by pcmoney »

I am sorry but there is no way that that lack luster product is half as addictive as porn let alone opiods.

All of our first hand experiences disprove the narrative. Anyone here helplessly addicted? Sure a couple people might have issues but treating it like digital cocaine is a bit much.

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

#233

Post by rackjack »

sandworm101 wrote: post #216
khazhoux wrote: post #183

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…

Except that on HN I have actually learned a things or two. I have been connected to useful articles on topics that have solved many of my tech problems in recent years. Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed. The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. HN doesn't tr…

This is not specific to you, but in general people saying some social media site is "actually useful (TM)" is usually a cope to justify the staggering amount of life they've burned sucking dopamine from the website's teat. Can social media be useful? Yes. But there is a point where you get severely diminished returns, at which you would be better off doing something else, but we hide behind excuses to avoid feeling bad about ourselves.

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

#234

Post by henriquemaia »

jader201 wrote: post #231
khazhoux wrote: post #183

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…

I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too). It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any…

Funny, but I do exactly the same. My source, however, is Telegram's channel @hacker_news_feed. As you said, the signal-to-noise ratio hits that sweet spot that keeps me out of HN's front page for a long time.

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

#236

Post by paganel »

jader201 wrote: post #231
khazhoux wrote: post #183

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…

I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too). It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any…

> but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage,

I really like the HN front-page, it gives me a sensation of comfort (so to speak), of how the Internet should have been but unfortunately it is not: very fast-loading page, all text, a basic color-scheme that hasn't changed in a while.

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

#237

Post by khazhoux »

paganel wrote: post #236
jader201 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too). It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any…

> but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, I really like the HN front-page, it gives me a sensation of comfort (so to speak), of how the Internet should have been but unfortunately it is not: very fast-loading page, all text, a basic color-scheme that hasn't changed in a while.

I hate April Fool's Day, but this made me think how hilarious it would be if HN front page had a banner ad. And not even an over-the-top one... just a simple banner ad, quietly ruining HN.

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

#238

Post by executesorder66 »

khazhoux wrote: post #220
sandworm101 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that on HN I have actually learned a things or two. I have been connected to useful articles on topics that have solved many of my tech problems in recent years. Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed. The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. HN doesn't tr…

> Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed. Millions of people disagree, and frankly it's not our place to judge what is useful for others. It's not all snark and misinformation. > The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. But that's just an opinion, that staying on…

> But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated.

Maybe, depends on your social circle, but the main reason I left facebook more than a decade ago was because everyone I had on facebook _didn't_ hold any discussions or post anything original. It was all just sharing random crap they liked, or reposts from Instagram. I don't care about some random blogspam article my cousin liked. I joined to find out what was happening in people's lives and none of that was on facebook, it was all on instagram or whatsapp. (So I totally see why facebook bought out those two companies)

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

#239

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

paganel wrote: post #236
jader201 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too). It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any…

> but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, I really like the HN front-page, it gives me a sensation of comfort (so to speak), of how the Internet should have been but unfortunately it is not: very fast-loading page, all text, a basic color-scheme that hasn't changed in a while.

HN is what SlashDot was 15-20 years ago.

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

#240

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

danjac wrote: post #228
khazhoux wrote: post #183

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…

I know a lot of immigrants/expats and Facebook is pretty much the one thing they have to keep in touch with family and friends back home. Personally I loathe the company and would be happy if some fatal DNS or other issue took it down for good or if it were legislated out of existence by the EU/US. But we also need to be aware of the value it provides other than as a bullhorn for anti-vaxxers and other nutjobs and pe…

Wouldn’t something else fill that vacuum if Facebook went away?
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