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How to stop being “terminally online”

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Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#141

Post by slim »

Aromasin wrote: post #48
iasay wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ex wife is an ex wife because she zoned out into Facebook constantly and stopped doing anything with the family. Then she went bananas and ran away with someone who ironically she split up with because he was always on Facebook. It can go pretty bad. I’m super happy though as the kids stayed with me :)

I'm struggling with this currently. My partner spends 3+ hours a day scrolling Instagram (I know, I checked it in her Apple phone metrics). When we watch movies, it's me watching it and her scrolling. When we're in the car listening to music, it's just me listening to music and her scrolling. I'm starting to struggle initiating conversations because she's simply not paying attention. Whenever we're out, half her time…

maybe she's not perfect. maybe you just don't know her well enough because she's not there most of the time and you don't have projects you both really care about

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#142

Post by swatcoder »

dotnet00 wrote: post #132
zach_garwood wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, okay, and they claimed it's not an obscure reference, but you have to have played a certain level in a certain game AND been on a certain forum to know what it means? Maybe obscure doesn't mean what I think it means.

It's a popular meme so you don't have to have played the game or even really be much of a gamer. You'd have come across it at some point hanging out on social media.

You may be surprised both by

1. how many people don’t “hang out” in social media culture, and only circulate on there with family and peers using everyday idioms and emoji/abbreviation; if they use social media at all,

2. how many different, disjoint online cultures there are. Many things widely circulated on reddit and adjacent communities may never surface on some FB mom’s group

People maintain much more different lives from each other than you seem to assume, even among those that who are “terminally online” or that “hang out on social media”

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#143

Post by allenu »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #123
vlunkr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trying to learn more about life, philosophy, how to be a better human, productivity porn etc IMO The internet is not usually a good way to learn this stuff. These are big life concepts that require deep focus and patience. The internet rewards the opposite of that. The Big Concepts require both study and application. If you’re mostly spending time in the study phase, it’s not working.

You might be right, where is good though? I'm starting to just give up on it to be honest and consider more just trying to avoid this kind of information and figure out what works for me myself, my ultimate thought is to replace information consumption of this kinda thing with just more deep reflection and a bigger trial and error process. I mean who are the people producing this content that I think will help me any…

Maybe the root cause is that your desire to "be better" or attain a goal is too strong. It sounds like you're aware of some of this already.

I know that for me, I once tried to optimizing just about everything in my life. That led me to try to learn how to do everything better and better. At one point I realized that I was overthinking and optimizing everything, even which path I would take to walk to the bus to save some time. The stress of attaining perfection just got to be too much, so I just worked on letting go of trying to improve everything.

So, maybe work on just being okay with things how they are and not striving too much to be even better. A lot of this requires being aware of your thoughts and moods so you can change in the moment. I've found meditation helps a lot there.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#144

Post by ElemenoPicuares »

jayceedenton wrote: post #22
ElemenoPicuares wrote: post #3

I hate to throw a purely negative comment up as a naked response to a post, but this is really just a contemptful screed about people engaging in online interactions the author doesn't jibe with. It's not even like they're presenting their opinion to elicit other perspectives-- it's presented as an objective list of unhealthy habits and patronizing instructions to align your behavior with the author's values and prio…

What does 'objective' even mean in this context? This is a post about what the author believes is healthy and positive for individuals and society. I don't see anywhere where contempt is shown, in fact quite the opposite. The post is written in a very empathetic way in my opinion, and I think displays a good level of insight into, and understanding of, the attractiveness of things that can do harm. I'd challenge you…

If you don't see contempt in the author's evaluation of other people's behavior, you're either not looking, or not a great judge of it.

> I'd challenge you to entertain the idea that this post has some good advice, and follow some of it. I have no data, but I expect you'll be happier as a result.

Personally, I don't fit any of the implied criteria for "terminal onlineness," so your challenge isn't possible. You don't merely lack data, you lack a valid reason for assuming this advice applies to me or any other person whose habits you know nothing about. I recommend you entertain the idea that neither righteousness in your conviction nor confidence in your words transform your assumptions and personal experiences into broadly applicable maxims.

Even if this advice addresses problems you, personally, struggle with, that's not necessarily true for everybody. I know brilliant, happy, well-adjusted people, like my wife, who engage in behavior this author deems undesirable. It's just not that cut and dried. Perhaps the author's conclusions suffer from sampling bias? Regardless, I will still skip the rest of their blog entries.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#145

Post by ehnto »

jayceedenton wrote: post #22
ElemenoPicuares wrote: post #3

I hate to throw a purely negative comment up as a naked response to a post, but this is really just a contemptful screed about people engaging in online interactions the author doesn't jibe with. It's not even like they're presenting their opinion to elicit other perspectives-- it's presented as an objective list of unhealthy habits and patronizing instructions to align your behavior with the author's values and prio…

What does 'objective' even mean in this context? This is a post about what the author believes is healthy and positive for individuals and society. I don't see anywhere where contempt is shown, in fact quite the opposite. The post is written in a very empathetic way in my opinion, and I think displays a good level of insight into, and understanding of, the attractiveness of things that can do harm. I'd challenge you…

I think where you can see contempt, is in the characterization that the internet breeds a certain sense of humour and that it's an objectively bad one. Irony is not unique to the internet, nor is self-deprecating humour, or cynical humour, or are slang words. Usually when you hear an internet-slang used in real life it's a reference, not an earnest attempt to use the word legitimately. Like when people reference TV shows or movies, you've have to have seen it to enjoy the reference. If using it works for your in-group then that's great, you all understand eachother.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#146

Post by mattgreenrocks »

SoftTalker wrote: post #131
jimkleiber wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think it might be similar to the "I don't watch TV" or "movies" or "sports" crowds. Just any pervasive cultural activity in which some don't participate but still carry on. I remember before I deleted my FB account (I've since created a new one), my buddy said to me that I'd be ok, just that I might be strongly disconnected from culture—not necessarily to tell me to not do it, but to be aware of the potentia…

I have no Facebook, Instagram, Snap, or any similar accounts. In casual converstation, I sometimes notice meme references or slang that I don't know, but that's about it. Not a big problem or loss IMO.

The importance of Internet memes is overblown by the always-online crowd. They are cultural phenomena, but not knowing them doesn’t confer disadvantages.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#147

Post by tomc1985 »

athorax wrote: post #103
thrown_22 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can be online constantly and escape whatever the flavour of the month is. The only time it bites me in the ass is when I get banned for not being up to date on whatever everyone good and decent has to agree with to be good and decent.

If you are getting banned regularly from online communities you might want to reconsider why that is happening

Yeah, online communities reflexively "other" anyone who does not agree with their increasingly robust (aka fascist) political dogma, given that that sort of thing seems to be inescapably creeping into everything

How many times have I walked by a table in a cafe to overhear someone complaining that it's impossible to be taken seriously unless you adopt extremeist left or right schools of thought?

How many times have I witnessed adherents dismissing moderates or centrists? Accusing them of helping the "enemy"? What about people who think for themselves and have concluded something out of the mainstream? Throwing in some other unrelated political cause and accusing anyone who doesn't agree to be wrong?

It's disgusting, and those communities should be ashamed of themselves

I'm assuming, of course, that GP is a decent person and independent thinker, as those types tend to get railroaded in this glorious new dawn of political groupthink

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#148

Post by plorkyeran »

zach_garwood wrote: post #128
djangelic wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one of the call of duty games, you attend a funeral and when you reach the casket, an onscreen prompt asks you to press F to pay your respects. This took on a life of its own, and now on Reddit threads you’ll see people saying press f to pay respects when someone was figuratively killed.

Wow, okay, and they claimed it's not an obscure reference, but you have to have played a certain level in a certain game AND been on a certain forum to know what it means? Maybe obscure doesn't mean what I think it means.

As with most idioms, most of the people who reference it have no clue what the origin of the expression is. Knowing the etymology of something is not a requirement for understanding what it means.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#149

Post by kzrdude »

zach_garwood wrote: post #128
djangelic wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one of the call of duty games, you attend a funeral and when you reach the casket, an onscreen prompt asks you to press F to pay your respects. This took on a life of its own, and now on Reddit threads you’ll see people saying press f to pay respects when someone was figuratively killed.

Wow, okay, and they claimed it's not an obscure reference, but you have to have played a certain level in a certain game AND been on a certain forum to know what it means? Maybe obscure doesn't mean what I think it means.

I've never played that game, but the F in the chat thing is popular on twitch. No wonder, since it's a huge (nonsensical) chat platform.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#150

Post by mattgreenrocks »

mxkopy wrote: post #63
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #59

Author alludes to such, but the chief distinguishing factor I see is whether one prefers real life, or the unreal life offered by the Internet.

This. Sometimes being "terminally online" is better than the alternative until life circumstances change.

I used to be much harder on people I perceived as being always online.

Then I remember I was about as online as you could be in the late 90s.

Sometimes, or even lots of times, people are just trying to get by.

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