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

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

#121

Post by acatnamedjoe »

elvis10ten wrote: post #112

In 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 no…

These sorts of responses always come up to these kinds of posts and, with respect, they always seem to come down to: "I don't have any issues with social media so I can't see why anyone else does"

But imagine saying to an alcoholic: "I can have a few beers on a Friday night and then stop, and so can the majority of my friends, so I dont see what the problem is."

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

#122

Post by corderop »

elvis10ten wrote: post #112

In 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 no…

> 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?

The thought that I have overcome about this is that SM is different from the examples that you gave. In magazines or TV, you assume that is going to be filled with "non-real" people (esthetic surgeries...), but at the end of the day, you will be surrounded by people like you.

At parties, school, or at the beach, yes you can find some perfect people, but the vast majority are going to be just normal people like you.

SM is different for that, you are comparing every nuance of you with an adulterated version of normal people (just people like you, not famous people). Personally, SM makes me feel that everybody except me has an ideal life and I know that's not true.

I don't like the "social" aspect of social media, I like the "media" part though. I like to follow photographers, use to follow some type of hobby, but not to see people's life.

Edit: typo

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

#123

Post by basisword »

ayngg wrote: post #64
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.

And much like non-smokers are effected by smokers (particularly when they were the majority) non-social media users are still affected in the sense that it has completely changed and polarised our politics, social/justice issues etc.

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

#124

Post by jokoon »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #114

Until 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?

I love Reddit, but I wish it was a little less toxic sometimes.

Reducing toxicity online really is a hard problem.

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

#125

Post by majjam »

j7ake wrote: post #107
ayngg wrote: post #64

Earlier 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 suppose if you take $10 as the price of a pack of cigarettes and $15/hr as the wage earned, then you could argue 2/3 of an hour of leisure time/personal life is lost per pack purchased/smoked.

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

#126

Post by Markstar »

eligro91 wrote: post #115

I'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.goo…

Interesting. The latter reminds me of a book ("Drop Dead Healthy"), where the author tests a similar technique to incentivize productive behavior. There it goes a step further, though: If you miss a deadline, break a promise, etc., you must donate a specific amount to a cause that you despise.

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

#127

Post by varjag »

majjam wrote: post #125
j7ake wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 suppose if you take $10 as the price of a pack of cigarettes and $15/hr as the wage earned, then you could argue 2/3 of an hour of leisure time/personal life is lost per pack purchased/smoked.

The cigs were a much better price proposition before smoking was ostracised. Pennies on a dollar.

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

#128

Post by dividuum »

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.

I switched my Twitter Trends location to Falkland Islands and my feed to "Latest Tweets". I guess this technically now is a filter bubble, but I don't feel like I have the obligation to expose myself to algorithmic content and its generated outrage.

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

#129

Post by jokoon »

Social media allows people to feel less alone, I guess...

The problem of internet is toxicity, where users feel they can disrespect others without consequences, something they would not do face to face.

It seems there is no good solution to this problem, except reducing the size of communities so they don't feel anonymous.

I really think the website who will solve the toxicity problem will win a lot of money.

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

#130

Post by account-5 »

I still remember when social media/web 2.0 was kicking off. All my mates were on it. I tried I really did but I thought the whole thing was a waste of time. When I finally learned the true intent behind these platforms wasn't connecting people but was making money from those people (connecting people is just the hook) I was done.

Having seen how these platforms affect my children I'm now dead set against them.

You literally are the product, and are manipulated to stay on the platforms to continue to be so.

This is my long way of saying, with personal annocdotes, that I am not surprised at all by this finding.

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