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Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

calnewport.com

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Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#61

Post by mongol »

Gigachad wrote: post #55
cute_boi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, few people probably aren't affected by social media just like smoking & drinking. But from my personal experience many people really feel jealous/unhappy/lonely when they look on false reality. And, those influencer really makes everything worst.

For me it’s not the fake people showing off, it’s all the news, drama and doom. And arguably it’s all irrelevant anyway. As an Australian, if I had known nothing about Ukraine, BLM protests, Trump, Kyle Rittenhouse, etc, my life would be no bit worse or less informed. It would probably be a bit better. But if I check social media it’s just a non stop stream of crap.

That's a weird mix of contemporary events to mention together.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#62

Post by rilezg »

openknot wrote: post #26
shoeshoeshoey wrote: post #13

At Facebook / Meta, employees often questioned Mark Zuckerberg whenever a study like this came out. Zuckerberg noted that the same held true for news media. Reporters do not like to mention this.

Depends on the news source. There is a noticeable difference between Tweets and unverified Facebook posts, news media from Buzzfeed or Salon, articles from a local newspaper, articles from The New York Times/Washington Post, and articles from the Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal. Not all news is designed for outrage. Several publications publish in-depth articles in a neutral way, where you can actually lea…

I don't agree that it depends on the news source. The problem is consuming media and not acting on it. A person can use social media to inspire real positive change in their behaviors and their life, and a person can read in-depth, well-written articles about atrocities happening half-way around the world and just end up feeling powerless and depressed.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#63

Post by minroot »

Social media doesn't affect my mental health. I use social media (e.g. Twitter) to get information on what my peers and the people whose work am interested in are doing. They don't post a lot, but when they do it's worth reading nearly always. I visit it 2 or 3 times a week

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#64

Post by ayngg »

parasti wrote: post #36

For me, I've found that social media doesn't affect my level of happiness and/or anxiety directly. What it does do, is take up a lot of my time almost imperceptibly - leaving less time for other, more meaningful activities. It makes me feel like I'm running out of time every day, which in turn causes a feeling of anxiety.

I think social media is like our generations tobacco, everyone uses it and it is considered fashionable and cool but eventually it will start to come to light how unhealthy and insidious all the data harvesting, time sinks and gamifying social interactions at scale can be, especially with children who have much of the spare time to dedicate to it.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#65

Post by pjerem »

jfim wrote: post #22
tayo42 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

idk about that, a lot of news sources feel like they're optimizing for clicks too. where is some boring neutral news? then am i to broken to even stick with something like at this point lol maybe i need the clickbait i agree with the main point, social media isnt the world. i think people forget that

There are some news sources that are less click baity and partisan, such as Axios, DW, or Reuters. If you can read French, courrier international is decent too.

Courrier International is totally worth the reading and its concept is pretty smart : most of their article are just translated articles from foreign ( = not France based) newspapers. It allows the reader to get a view of the current topics from the outside of the country. Furthermore, by its nature of being translated, this newspaper have to be "slow" and can’t fall under the "breaking news" clickbait temptation.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#66

Post by bee_rider »

Syonyk wrote: post #30
Calvin02 wrote: post #11

Does this include HN? Asking for a friend. Snark aside, why is this a recurring obsession of HN posters?

I'd argue that it can include HN, but HN is not designed to be nearly as toxic, and actually goes out of the way to be "as not-toxic as possible without breaking the concept of what it's trying to be." I've spent a while thinking through "What makes social media evil?" - I've read a number of studies, I grew up with the first wave of what we might call "social media" (never used MySpace but was quite familiar with it…

> Humans are vulnerable to "metricification" quirks, and you see that with a lot of social medias too. HN only shows your up/down votes, and you can't see anything else. There's a demetrificator extension for it, though I would like the option to turn the metrics off in my profile.

Where's this extension? That seems useful (I'm susceptible to "metricification" - quit reddit because of it. He said, knowing that mentioning quitting reddit would probably net him at least 5 upvotes).

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#68

Post by _Algernon_ »

Calvin02 wrote: post #11

Does this include HN? Asking for a friend. Snark aside, why is this a recurring obsession of HN posters?

HN hits the same buttons as reddit for me, that is, compulsion to constantly refresh to see if there is something new, karma goes up, or I've gotten replies, so no, HN isn't any different, though it has less of the toxicity and low or no-value comments.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#69

Post by is-is-odd »

minroot wrote: post #63

Social media doesn't affect my mental health. I use social media (e.g. Twitter) to get information on what my peers and the people whose work am interested in are doing. They don't post a lot, but when they do it's worth reading nearly always. I visit it 2 or 3 times a week

Good for you?

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#70

Post by hackernewds »

minroot wrote: post #63

Social media doesn't affect my mental health. I use social media (e.g. Twitter) to get information on what my peers and the people whose work am interested in are doing. They don't post a lot, but when they do it's worth reading nearly always. I visit it 2 or 3 times a week

Good that it doesn't in moderation. But what you're implying is anecdata, and better phrased that you do not have evidence if social media affects your health - since you don't use it as often. Bit pedantic, but important to state as not being counterpoint to the article presented in context :)
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