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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

#311

Post by noufalibrahim »

password54321 wrote: post #278
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?

Nope. You can look at my profile to see that I don't "avoid mentioning" my faith. At the same time, I don't like to wave it around everwhere either. Just didn't think it was relevant to the point being discussed. I'm on a few groups where non Muslims tried out the fast (physical and intellectual) and had positive results so I wanted to emphasise that rather than ramadhan itself.

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

#312

Post by cableshaft »

prawn wrote: post #275
sdevonoes wrote: post #271

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? 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.

Meanwhile my family's barely travelled the past three years due to Covid concerns, tighter budgets (wife's income got severely impacted from the pandemic for a while, while this year we had to unexpectedly pay a good vacation's worth of taxes), and having to use PTO for other unrelated things. Most I've done is a few weekend trips to neighboring states.

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

#313

Post by id »

weatherlite wrote: post #279
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…

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.

Yes, because if they made less money, it wouldn't help me at all (it could even hurt me because then they have nothing to share). In difficult personal situations, it has often helped me to know that at least others have it better.

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

#314

Post by guerrilla »

somenameforme wrote: post #185
WilTimSon wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, do you also tend to fast from news sources, if you follow any? HN, BBC, stuff like that. Things that aren't social media but might have a similar effect where you get overwhelmed or anxious from the information.

I don't think people are getting overwhelmed or anxious from the information, but rather from the way that information is presented. The past was, in nearly every measurable way, vastly worse than the present. In the span of a single life you go from WW1 to the Spanish Flu to the Great Depression to WW2 to the very real threat of nuclear annihilation which nearly came to be multiple times. And you didn't need to seek…

> Today you can present data impartially, or emotionally. Emotional narrative gives a million clicks, a million shares, and drives extreme "engagement" that is a hair's breadth away from mob mentality. You can also present data impartially, which drives little more than a more informed society. It's not a surprise which path we take.

You also forgot the part where it's not in any of their interests to produce anything impartial. 100% of it is propaganda for someone or another, even the stuff pretending to be "impartial."

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

#315

Post by peoplefromibiza »

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…

> it makes me feel... good?

it doesn't in general.

and that "good feeling" is mostly a lie, something we tell ourselves, because of our education, if our education was not biased by some made-up belief, we should feel nothing, not good, not bad, because we should not care about it. What other people do with their lives - in reality - has no impact on our life at all.

But we were all thought to poject. Unfortunately people mostly project their frustrations on others.

The only way to actually feel good about something that people share, it's to share it, like in person, in real life, not passively receive it on a screen.

If watching a screen full of "good news" would actually improve people's mood, it would be recommended by WHO like with vaccines.

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

#316

Post by throwawaycuriou »

weatherlite wrote: post #289
SyzygistSix wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a truly warped mindset.

Most of us commenting here live in competitive, capitalistic societies and a lot of our sense of self worth and self esteem comes from comparison (mostly comparing to our friends, colleagues and siblings) - and the metrics as we all know are stuff like career/money and other social status metrics. Feelings of envy are completely involuntary btw so there is no need to pretend like feeling them or not feeling is some k…

While feelings may be involuntary, this does not mean we are beholden to them. Maybe envy is what happens when a consciousness is discontent and allows these feelings to overpower.

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

#317

Post by id »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #315
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…

> it makes me feel... good? it doesn't in general. and that "good feeling" is mostly a lie, something we tell ourselves, because of our education, if our education was not biased by some made-up belief, we should feel nothing, not good, not bad, because we should not care about it. What other people do with their lives - in reality - has no impact on our life at all. But we were all thought to poject. Unfortunately p…

>that "good feeling" is mostly a lie

I meant good as in "hey, that's great for them", not as in "I'm so happy I can't stop smiling".

>because we should not care about it

If people truly didn't care, they wouldn't go on social media or read the news.

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

#318

Post by gadders »

I think if I had a phone that (apart from calls and texts) did Email, Whatsapp, an e-reader and a music/podcast player I think I would be interested. Maybe a browser because some emails have links you need to action, but I realise using a browser opens you up to all the time-sinks you are trying to avoid.

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

#319

Post by peoplefromibiza »

scotty79 wrote: post #192
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.

> bad but they prefer to feel bad rather than not feel anything at all

this is possible.

But also FOMO makes them feel worse than feeling bad about what they read online.

For many people social networks are a conversation topics, for some it's the only thing they talk about, if they know nothing about what's happening, they're out of the social game, even IRL.

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