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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

#271

Post by sdevonoes »

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.

> If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them?

We can feel happy (for them) and unsatisfied (with ourselves) at the same time. Multiply that by N, and well, that's a recipe for disaster (at least for me). I know, I know, we shall not compare ourselves with others, but hey, I'm not a machine, I have my imperfections which I am polishing from time to time, but in the meanwhile social media makes everything worse in average (for me).

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

#272

Post by sdevonoes »

laputan_machine wrote: post #254
johnnymorgan wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've never felt Envy towards someone? I kind of find that hard to believe. that was all OP was referring too and it's well documented. Honestly you come off as dishonest in this convo as it's quiet a normal emotion to feel and it's not negative per say, it can lead to negative actions but can also push people to do better. "It doesn't matter if the slight is real or not, its the perception of the person that matter…

I've never felt envy towards my friends and family. No, never. I find it bizarre that you do. I never said I don't feel envy. You jumped to conclusions based on a very little sentence I wrote. I currently have a very severe skin condition, and I live in a country with 'free' healthcare. I am envious that some people get medical treatment for it and can live a normal life again and some people do not (such as myself).…

> I find it bizarre that you do.

Why? Feeling envious is just human nature. Sure, one can argue that in our current society that kind of feeling is "bad", and we should "fix it". I tend to agree, but that you find it bizarre, it's bizarre to me :D

Oh well, maybe you are a machine (based on your nickname), so yeah, machines do not have imperfections (just kidding).

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

#273

Post by nickstinemates »

I think it depends on how and why you use social media. For me, having picked Twitter back up recently after having been mostly dormant for the past 4 years or so, it is about inspiration.

The next thing for me is to create a startup. I am immersing myself back in to the heartbeat / pulse of what's going on and thinking about how my ideas intersect with this.

There are a lot of inspiring projects I am following lately, specifically around devtools, platforms, etc. that almost exclusively exist on these mediums.

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

#274

Post by noufalibrahim »

Hitton wrote: post #242
noufalibrahim wrote: post #145

I fast from food for a month a year due to religious reasons (from dawn to dusk). During this time,I fast from social media (telegram, twitter mostly). After about a week, I feel anxious at a superficial level but it levels off and I feel much better about 2 weeks in. After the whole month, when I log into twitter again, I can really feel a mental shift. Almost like being dragged back into it. It's not pleasant. I'm…

If it's not pleasant, why do you return there?

Something akin to FOMO. I feel "out of touch". I don't like it 100% but there are some benefits to it. The platform itself doesn't encourage the beneficial behaviours though. It just tries to get you hooked.

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

#275

Post by prawn »

sdevonoes wrote: post #271
laputan_machine wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them? We can feel happy (for them) and unsatisfied (with ourselves) at the same time. Multiply that by N, and well, that's a recipe for disaster (at least for me). I know, I know, we shall not compare ourselves with others, but hey, I'm not a machine, I have my imperfections which I am polishing from time to time, but in the mean…

I travel more than average so I am happy seeing friends going on trips. It's rare that their trip looks better than what I've just done or have planned next. But I could absolutely see how someone might spectate a feed full of holidays and feel from the aggregate like everyone else is constantly travelling, while they grind away at work.

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

#276

Post by MomciloM »

Deleted Facebook 2 years ago, Instagram 1 year ago. The only social media account I have today is on Twitter and I am thinking about deleting that one.

It is true that you can feel a bit isolated from everyone, but it pushes you to go out with people and ask them what have they been up to, send them a message etc. I find the time spent on that much more valuable than the time spent on social media. While it is true that you can get up to what people are doing, I found that I spend the least amount of time getting up to date" with people I know and much more just scrolling through and "exploring" on all of these social media sites.

If you feel similar, I highly recommend you to delete any of the social media apps.

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

#277

Post by nickstinemates »

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…

> I guess HN (or HN admins, to be precise) is doing a better job at limiting the disagreements

I think users of this site disparage low effort/meme comments to the point that people typically stay on topic. Points of view are fairly nuanced and it seems effort is taken to understand and discuss.

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

#278

Post by password54321 »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #145

I fast from food for a month a year due to religious reasons (from dawn to dusk). During this time,I fast from social media (telegram, twitter mostly). After about a week, I feel anxious at a superficial level but it levels off and I feel much better about 2 weeks in. After the whole month, when I log into twitter again, I can really feel a mental shift. Almost like being dragged back into it. It's not pleasant. I'm…

Is islamophobia these days that bad that you made sure to totally avoid mentioning Islam or Ramadan?

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

#279

Post by weatherlite »

id wrote: post #168
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…

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…

Thought experiment - let's say you are the poorest person in your neighborhood. Would talking to your neighbors daily about their salaries really make you feel better? I mean them having money, even if more than you is a good thing according to you what you said.

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

#280

Post by leroy_masochist »

I'd be interested to hear whether other HN users consider this site social media. My mental model of HN is that it's basically a longform version of Twitter with a more interesting/intelligent and (slightly) less shrill user community.
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