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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

#191

Post by bennyp101 »

laputan_machine wrote: post #187
eafkuor wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. If this would be your genuine reaction, congratulations. You belong to the 0.001% of the population that would feel this way.

If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them? I don't believe that puts me in the minority of people, not a chance.

An actual friend then sure, but most people I know have like 500+ “friends” so I think people are less likely to have that reaction to everyone in the timeline.

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

#192

Post by scotty79 »

charstacker wrote: post #149

Consider the following scenario: You're pleased and content one minute, thinking your life is going fine the next. You have a few minutes to kill, so you log onto Facebook and begin scrolling... First, you notice a friend's post stating that she has accepted her ideal job. Then you read a coworker's too political rant. You continue browsing and see a video of your neighbour enjoying a fantastic tropical vacation. And…

I think a lot of people realize that facebook makes them feel bad but they prefer to feel bad rather than not feel anything at all.

They unknowingly pursue easily available emotion (even negative) to avoid emotional boredom. It's a bit like watching scary or sad movies.

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

#193

Post by 2sk21 »

MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #178

Is HN considered "social media"? Because in many ways (at least for me), there's a resemblance - the never disappearing timeline, the comments that sometimes show the trenches of the good old culture wars... It's definitely no Facebook. I guess HN (or HN admins, to be precise) is doing a better job at limiting the disagreements from "Petersburg troll-farm vitriol" to "occasionally sarcastic". But the social media eff…

HN mostly reminds me of the Usenet of the late 1980s - which was in a way the social media of its time.

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

#194

Post by mojzu »

laputan_machine wrote: post #187
eafkuor wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. If this would be your genuine reaction, congratulations. You belong to the 0.001% of the population that would feel this way.

If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them? I don't believe that puts me in the minority of people, not a chance.

Personally I'm happy when good things are happening for family, friends and other people, but depending on my mood it can also trigger feelings of FOMO/anxiety (why isn't that happening for me, what am I missing, etc.). My guess is depending on the person and their current state that falling into a pattern of focussing on the latter rather then the former is easier when using social media. Which can then be a bit of a vicious cycle because cutting yourself off from social media may also mean you miss events that you could have participated in

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

#195

Post by parasti »

MikePlacid wrote: post #157
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've found that social media doesn't affect my level of happiness and/or anxiety directly. American privilege? Each time a war flares up in my home country I am going into a pretty deep depression. And the only cure is to switch off the Telegram. Which is frankly rather hard to do, but possible. A third week going strong…

Eastern Europe.

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

#196

Post by elvis10ten »

ricardobeat wrote: post #169
elvis10ten wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I think this analogy doesn’t work. Firstly, alcohol is inherently bad for you. SM is not. SM to me is more malleable and we can choose to make it what we want. We could apply this to most things from video games to work.

Video games or work do not expose you to ads or recommendation systems, or feeds of your friends living a perfect life. There are no parallels among these, I think you’re trying a bit too hard to go against the current. Its good for you that you have a healthy relationship with social media, but as evidenced by the study in this post and others it does have a negative impact that you can’t wish away.

Will you say people don’t also compare video games to tobacco/drugs? Or people can’t get addicted to working/video games/etc?

> Video games or work do not expose you to *ads or recommendation systems*

You must be joking? When last did you play free games on your phone? Are even ads or recommendation system unique to SM?

> friends living a perfect life

This happens anyways is my argument. Although it can be more persistent with SM, I admit.

> I think you’re trying a bit too hard to go against the current.

My issue is with comments like “SM is like smoking/alcohol/drugs”. Which I don’t think is a correct comparison.

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

#197

Post by ycombinete »

eafkuor wrote: post #181
id wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. The problems I have with social media are that - it steals a lot of time - a lot of content gets me by evoking negative emotion - it's taxing to get exposed to so many different ideas, clips, heated discussi…

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. If this would be your genuine reaction, congratulations. You belong to the 0.001% of the population that would feel this way.

I once heard someone say, "nothing in life hurts more than the success of a friend"

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

#198

Post by mrtksn »

charstacker wrote: post #149

Consider the following scenario: You're pleased and content one minute, thinking your life is going fine the next. You have a few minutes to kill, so you log onto Facebook and begin scrolling... First, you notice a friend's post stating that she has accepted her ideal job. Then you read a coworker's too political rant. You continue browsing and see a video of your neighbour enjoying a fantastic tropical vacation. And…

I think the roller coaster is not as much as an issue as the fast context switching and the hard labour you need to do to make sense of the things you see.

You can't have prolonged and deeper thoughts about anything because you are bombarded with refined extreme opinions and events.

Just yesterday, I was getting ready to do some work I noticed a tweet from an antivaxxer retweeted by a cryptobro saying "they cannot hide it forever, data leaks" and it was about insurance companies claims. The data was legit, indeed there was a huge rise in young people claims for dying off from non-covid condition. Wow, are the antivaxxers right, is the vaccine causing young people to die off from heart attacks? Now I have to dig the data and as it turns the rise in deaths started way before the vaccine roll out, about the beginning of the pandemic and it looks like it is related to drugs.

Because I followed some cryptobro to keep the pulse of the cryptobroverse, I had to endure doubt about what I knew was true, I had to fear for my life and for the loved ones and I had to spend precious time and mental energy because someone used misrepresentation of statistics to push an agenda. I was too exhausted to do any work.

I don't see how this could healthy. I don't see how I simply assume that it was false and ignore it because it will end up me missing out on everything outside of my bubble. I don't see how I can spend that much energy to fight off every single bullshit that is cheap to produce and expensive to clean up.

I don't see how this is sustainable. In real life, bullshitters are ousted by the communities but in this artificial communities we don't have the tools fight back.

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

#199

Post by tdudzik »

laputan_machine wrote: post #187
eafkuor wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. If this would be your genuine reaction, congratulations. You belong to the 0.001% of the population that would feel this way.

If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them? I don't believe that puts me in the minority of people, not a chance.

I think you can feel great for them and bad for yourself at the same time

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

#200

Post by chenxi9649 »

laputan_machine wrote: post #187
eafkuor wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. If this would be your genuine reaction, congratulations. You belong to the 0.001% of the population that would feel this way.

If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them? I don't believe that puts me in the minority of people, not a chance.

I don't think you're in the minority either. We experience joy from the joy of those around us.

I think the disagreement here mostly stems from a different definition of "friend". For most ppl, the friends they see on their FB/IG feed aren't actually "friends"... but more like acquaintances. Often times they're people that you've only met a few times and haven't seen in many years.

Though, even with close friends, sometimes one can't help but compare. And since social media only highlight the highlights, you'll naturally feel bad when comparisons happen.

Seems that with apps like BeReal/Locket taking off in the GenZ market this is starting to shift a little.

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