Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by sleepdreamy » Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

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.

Agreed. Majority of people are jealous creatures. It's embedded into American individualism/Capitalism.

It's an end sum game of who can acquire more money/resources if we break away all the bullshit.

I don't share my wins because the majority of people are jealous creatures

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

#422

Post by cortesoft » Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

antiframe wrote: post #420

cortesoft wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the one hand, you claim to never feel inadequate, yet when you see others achieving something you haven't yet achieved you claim it motivates you to achieve the same That doesn't mean you are feeling inadequate. Being inspired doesn't mean you feel bad about yourself. For example, whenever I watch really good basketball, it makes me want to go out and play myself. When I see someone playing a fun video game, it…

Maybe I'm using the word incorrectly then. There are two ways I can imagine feeling inadequate when seeing, for example, a post of someone on a Hawaiian vacation: 1. I have inadequate resources. I can never afford such fancy lodgings, etc. This is a pretty negative emotion. 2. I feel my vacationing has been inadequate. I should spend more time off with my loved ones. Where can I go in my time and dollar budget to bet…

What about the 3rd option:

3. I have adequate resources, but hadn't really thought about going on a Hawaiian vacation. Maybe I should start planning a tropical trip, that looks really fun!

Or even if you don't currently have the money saved up, maybe now that you see how fun a trip like that could be you want to start saving for it.

Basically, this is how I feel about my life and seeing people having fun doing stuff:

I like my life. I have a ton of things I enjoy doing, and I spend my free time cycling through those things I like. However, there are so many fun things to do I can't possibly do them all at once. I have a huge backlog of fun things to do, and I enjoy thinking about one day doing all of them. I don't feel bad that I can't do them all at once, because I am busy enjoying the fun things I am currently doing.

At the same time, there are many fun things to do that I haven't even thought about! I encounter new fun things all the time online, and when I see someone doing something that looks fun I think, "Wow, that looks cool! I might enjoy that someday!" So I will put it on my list of things to do, and maybe if it intrigues me enough I will try to move it up on the list. It might take some work to learn how to do the thing or to gain the resources to do it, but that doesn't bother me, because I like working to learn new things or save up resources. Working hard is one of the things I like doing!

Sometimes, I see someone having fun doing something and I have no interest in doing it myself, but I still really enjoy seeing someone else having fun doing it. I love seeing passionate people pursuing their hobbies. I find it fun to peer into subcultures that form around strange activities that I have no personal interest in, but love that there exists people who are super into it. The variety interests me.

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

#423

Post by sleepdreamy » Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #188

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'm a bit immune to a lot of this because I don't like travel, jobs of any kind, having family, excessive fitness (the one you need to excercise to get) and facebook does fairly good job of exposing me only to rants that confirm my biases. But this also makes Facebook way less engaging for me because it does invoke barely any feelings in me.

You don't like jobs of any kind? Hopefully you have an inheritance because when your parents die you're in for a rude awakening.

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

#424

Post by dwringer » Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #394

k_sze wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially not if it makes me sad. Now I wonder whether you're pulling my leg.

I just can't see the reason why this is about social media, and not about personal relations in general. Someone makes me sad IRL - I don't listen to them. Someone makes me sad on social media - well I don't listen to them. Where's the difference? I can understand the scale argument, but I can't see why it's a problem after I've unfollowed the problematic accounts. At one point in my life, I unfollowed literally ever…

I don't know how much of this is reality, but to me the argument is as follows:

Let's say seeing a certain type of post makes someone sad, and that this causes that person's mind to wander, slowing or stopping their feed-scrolling for a moment now and then when they see such content. This means they're now stopped on the feed at a potentially vulnerable moment. There is now a monetary incentive for the feed curation algorithm to continue doling out the kind of posts that make the user sad, as well as placing targeted advertisements right with them - ideally ones that exploit the negative emotion in some way.

I realize not everyone reacts the same way. Maybe they speed up their scrolling instead. The kinds of behavior that social media feed curation algorithms track and act upon is opaque, and I think that lack of transparency and accountability can easily have unfortunate consequences.

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

#425

Post by antiframe » Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #422

antiframe wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm using the word incorrectly then. There are two ways I can imagine feeling inadequate when seeing, for example, a post of someone on a Hawaiian vacation: 1. I have inadequate resources. I can never afford such fancy lodgings, etc. This is a pretty negative emotion. 2. I feel my vacationing has been inadequate. I should spend more time off with my loved ones. Where can I go in my time and dollar budget to bet…

What about the 3rd option: 3. I have adequate resources, but hadn't really thought about going on a Hawaiian vacation. Maybe I should start planning a tropical trip, that looks really fun! Or even if you don't currently have the money saved up, maybe now that you see how fun a trip like that could be you want to start saving for it. Basically, this is how I feel about my life and seeing people having fun doing stuff:…

That third option I lump into my second option. Whenever I feel like "I should X" it's because I have inadequate X in my life. Whatever X may be. In my estimation, inadequacy is the driver of desire and not necessarily a negative, unhealthy emotion. But without it, I wouldn't have any desires. I have desires and I have feelings of healthy (positive) inadequacies.

I might be using the word differently than everyone else, but that's why I try to explain what I mean. If for you and id inadequacy can only be a negative feeling then I agree social media need not evoke that emotion, but for many people it often does. But I don't think inadequacy is necessarily a negative feeling. I can be a positive driving force.

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

#426

Post by azemetre » Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

leokennis wrote: post #403

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.

Ugh. I’m not even on Facebook or active on Twitter and I have the same. I need to read the newspaper. Then I need to know the Economist’s and The Guardian’s and the NY Times’ view on the daily news as well. Plus I need to keep up to date on the COVID situation and the war in Ukraine. Oh and I’m also behind on Better Call Saul. And I need to watch 1917 and Dune. And I want to read at least 10 pages in a novel every da…

As for your news issues, I'd honestly go with the approach of never reading information about breaking stories. Most often breaking stories aren't breaking and they rarely have the full picture.

By delaying your news consumption a few days (or even a week) you'll have a much better picture of the news with the benefit of never needing to "keep up."

Also my personal opinion, very often the news isn't relevant. The decade defining stories don't happen every day and there's very few stories that require your immediate attention, versus say your weekly attention.

That's why I'm a big fan of Delayed Gratification (someone posted this on HN a few months back):

https://www.slow-journalism.com/

Journalism that is deliberately slow and very informative (IMO).

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

#427

Post by mawadev » Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

I must comment about the people claiming it does nothing to them. I thought so, too. I justified spending more time on these sites.

However - as the time went by, I noticed these posts moving into my subconscious mind. Thoughts I had afterwards were a little skewed.

If you enter a forest and you hear a sound you have never heard before, you look around and find the source. In 3 years, if you hear that sound again, your body remembers and you may not look around again.

That is the power of our memory and I really want to emphasize there is way more going on than you can keep track of at first glance.

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

#428

Post by colpabar » Tue, May 17, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

sharadov wrote: post #417

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…

No, it does not bother me. I am one of those people who feels happy when something good is happening in other people's lives. That other person who got that job put time into it and achieved it. Good for them. Someone lost a shit ton of weight and looks ripped. That's motivation for me to lift too and eat better. It comes down to you, are you using that as fuel to motivate you or are you seething inside and burning w…

> It comes down to you, are you using that as fuel to motivate you or are you seething inside and burning with envy?

> I honestly believe that envy is the thief of joy and if you allow it to consume you it will destroy you.

It's nice that you are able to do this, but most don't use social media this way. They see successful, beautiful people doing interesting things and they feel sad that they can't do the same. Can't you empathize?

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

#429

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 17, 2022, 6:20 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #428

sharadov wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it does not bother me. I am one of those people who feels happy when something good is happening in other people's lives. That other person who got that job put time into it and achieved it. Good for them. Someone lost a shit ton of weight and looks ripped. That's motivation for me to lift too and eat better. It comes down to you, are you using that as fuel to motivate you or are you seething inside and burning w…

> It comes down to you, are you using that as fuel to motivate you or are you seething inside and burning with envy? > I honestly believe that envy is the thief of joy and if you allow it to consume you it will destroy you. It's nice that you are able to do this, but most don't use social media this way. They see successful, beautiful people doing interesting things and they feel sad that they can't do the same. Can'…

[deleted]

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

#430

Post by megaman821 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

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…

This comment and the replies to it make me think there is a lot of undiagnosed depression. I would feel happy for the good fortune of my friends and family and mute the politics off my timeline. If my friends or family did something that I wanted for myself, I would feel inspiration, not envy.