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Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
111–120 of 486 posts
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#112In topics like these on HN, people often compare social media (SM) with tobacco/drugs. I still disagree with this comparison.
For one, social media is not inherently bad like smoking/some drugs.
The only SM I use currently is Instagram. I spend 30 minutes or less per day and I’m usually happy at the end.
In fact I would argue IG made me a better person — I got into fitness, helped me connect with a football club I now play with, etc. In the past I used Facebook a lot and it changed my life — I found jobs and built connection with people I would have never had the opportunity to meet.
The majority of my friends have a similar experience. My father (60) who lives in a remote part of the world uses “joy” to express his experience with SM.
Secondly, on the topic of social media making people feel insecure about something (like their bodies). Isn’t that everywhere? At the beach? In magazines? On TV? At parties? In school?
I’m into fitness and I see people that have better aesthetics than me on SM and IRL. I appreciate their beauty but it doesn’t faze me. Isn’t it common knowledge that someone always have more X than you? And these people are usually the minority?
Lastly, influencers react to the market. Anyone who has ever posted content know that wholesome content are usually not engaged on as much as exaggerated/superficial content. If people want less of these, maybe they should vote with their likes & follows?
PS: I do realize some part of my comment might not be as practical as simply not using social media at all. But I think we should be teaching people these skills as it applies beyond SM usage.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#113Being able to take a break from social media is one of the nobler goals we started building Murmel (https://murmel.social) with. It’s not an easy process, and we are far from finished, but our customers have already reported positive results back to us. Rather than scrolling on Twitter for hours, they now let the best of their Twitter timeline arrive in their inboxes once a day. Like the morning newspaper reading routine, I am hoping that we would be able to provide people with the option to disengage from the downward spiral of doom-scrolling, and instead, get the gist of all there is to know in one daily email digest.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#114Until the past couple weeks I haven't used reddit in years because its just a bunch of toxic echo chambers. Today I tried posting a helpful suggestion to someone asking for recommendations for speakers for their parents' TV. Several other users got nasty and a mod deleted our thread because I dared to suggest a soundbar in the "home theater" forum. I guess I'll try again in a few more years?
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#115I'm using 2 useful apps to avoid social media on my smartphone:
- Minimalist phone:
Gives you full control on your home screen, and which apps you want to hide.
- lock me out:
Useful apps and sites blocking. You must pay in-app-purchase to break out your rules.
And for my mac I'm using static /etc/hosts file and simply putting hosts that I don't want to access hundreds of times.
it looks like that:
127.0.0.1 news.google.com
127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 twitter.com ...
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think it’s like combining the addictiveness of tobacco with the time sink of television. Tobacco is addictive but I’m not sure if it is a time sink.
I think you can substitute time sink with lower life expectancy for tobacco.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#117Until the past couple weeks I haven't used reddit in years because its just a bunch of toxic echo chambers. Today I tried posting a helpful suggestion to someone asking for recommendations for speakers for their parents' TV. Several other users got nasty and a mod deleted our thread because I dared to suggest a soundbar in the "home theater" forum. I guess I'll try again in a few more years?
Reddit is best when the sub-reddits are smallish. Home Theater is gets pretty rabid when it comes to soundbars, that's the last place to ask or give soundbar advice.
Typically, the subreddits I like the best are splinters from the original. Typically these start after some sub-reddit drama happens and a moderate size group decides to go somewhere else.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#118For 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.
To add to your idea, social media shares a deep property with tobacco: people know it’s bad and keep consuming it. Part of the reason is soft social pressure: nobody wants to be the odd one out by quitting.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a weird mix of contemporary events to mention together.
This is the kind of stuff that ends up filling my news feed. None of it has ever had any real effect on my life but it all seems to get equal feed real estate on reddit/twitter
Yeah you need to start over if you plan to continue using social media at all
You’re stuck in a filter bubble thats irrelevant to you
If you start over, dont follow the same people, dont import your contacts, dont give it the same phone number, even for one time passcodes, dont use the same email address
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#120I wanted to get off social media for a long time (Facebook, mostly) but couldn't bring myself to close my account.
A few weeks ago I just uninstalled the app. I don't have any FOMO since I can always check on the computer,but I end up doing it less and less often. I think the behavioral hold they have on me is loosening, and it feels awesome.