Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

calnewport.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 486 posts

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

#371

Post by id »

weatherlite wrote: post #283
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.

A lot of this depends on how one's life is going. It is easy and natural to be genuinely happy for others when you are satisfied with your own life. But if I became unemployed and my friend got into Google then yeah...happiness level will be limited. There is a sound evolutionary explanation on why that is so.

This sure plays a big role, I agree. Maybe I would feel some envy in that example, but I would also not let it consume me, and still feel happy for my friend at the same time.

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

#372

Post by thenerdhead »

The only time social media makes me happier and less anxious is when I'm creating, not consuming. I've consumed digital media and social media for majority of my life as I grew up as 56k(dial-up) & cable became mainstream as I approached teens.

It makes me sad to reflect upon my life mostly being a comparison to different images online of how others live their often "fictional" lives and how mimetic desire had me wanting what they have although it didn't actually make me "happier" when I did in fact obtain those things in life.

I think this problem is a very personal one. I think everyone has a love/hate relationship with social media and only you know how to find the balance that is "just right" for you. While I am grateful for my generation to have not had such an attachment to technology and devices (i'm only 30), I do hope that the newer generations can find peace with the similar challenges of being addicted to digital media/social media/the internet from an early age into adulthood.

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

#373

Post by mitchdoogle »

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…

If you partake in comments then yes it's social media. If you manage to just use it as a curated list of blog posts/ articles to read, then not really

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

#374

Post by 2pEXgD0fZ5cF »

id wrote: post #368
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? This sounds like a misunderstanding. Being happy for friends (real friends not "500 Facebook friends" friends) is not mutually exclusive with these news invoking bad feelings inside you (shame, feeling of inadequacy etc.)

It's not a misunderstanding. I'm also happy for complete strangers. Jeff Bezos is enjoying his Amazon money? Great for him. Also, I can't relate to feelings of shame or inadequacy because someone has something good happening to them. If anything, it motivates me to achieve the same.

I'm not doubting your ability to do that and I'm not saying that negative feelings come inherently with these kind of news. But surely you can see that these reactions can be pretty common for many people especially if they aren't happy with their own situations, and that those people can still feel happy when good things happen to others.

What I'm claiming is that a negative reaction (in terms of comparison) in this way and feeling happy for others are independent of each other.

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

#375

Post by id »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #344
weatherlite wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just FYI, Not everyone feels jealousy like you're suggesting here. I know I never have. I never understood why people get so worked up about that sort of thing honestly. It never bothered me if someone wanted to date my ex, or if they had some sudden windfall, or are doing well. But I see some people feel this intensely! I'm sympathetic, IMO, they don't choose to feel that way. But it's funny to me, if I were to walk…

This is interesting, I'm the same as you. I can't really explain why, and I don't think that I have higher morals or something like that.

If I played the ultimatum game, and the other person offered me 0$ out of $100, I would let them have their $100.

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

#376

Post by jjulius »

id wrote: post #368
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? This sounds like a misunderstanding. Being happy for friends (real friends not "500 Facebook friends" friends) is not mutually exclusive with these news invoking bad feelings inside you (shame, feeling of inadequacy etc.)

It's not a misunderstanding. I'm also happy for complete strangers. Jeff Bezos is enjoying his Amazon money? Great for him. Also, I can't relate to feelings of shame or inadequacy because someone has something good happening to them. If anything, it motivates me to achieve the same.

Everybody sees/processes things differently.

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

#377

Post by HomeGear »

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 that’s the case, why come back at all?

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

#378

Post by k_sze »

emteycz wrote: post #306
k_sze wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe social media gives you a much more concentrated feed of things that can trigger your inferiority complex, compared to normal, real-life social interactions? And if you have to resort to unfollowing, you’re basically agreeing that it’s a problem.

I don't see how that proves anything specific to social media, I'm "unfollowing" people IRL all the time, it's not like I want to hear everything someone has to say, especially not if it makes me sad.

> especially not if it makes me sad.

Now I wonder whether you're pulling my leg.

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

#379

Post by k_sze »

id wrote: post #310
sdevonoes wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

It's definitely not "human nature" to feel envy towards your friends and family, unless you have been wronged by them.

> It's definitely not "human nature" to feel envy towards your friends and family.

Let me tell you how I had envied my cousin when he had a Super Famicom (a.k.a. SNES in North America) with a stash of great games and I didn't (not even the base machine), when I was a kid. He never wronged me. In fact, we were really good buddies when we lived next to each other more than 20 years ago, but I still envied.

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

#380

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

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…

I sincerely do not believe that this behavior is genetic. As you've said, many of us live in competitive capitalist societies, we are conditioned into a socipathic mindset by advertising, and educated to reduce the people in our lives to numbers on a spreadsheet. This is not how humans are meant to function, we have been conditioned and trained to think this way.
Post reply on HN