How to stop being “terminally online” • Hacker News Board

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#181

Post by nemothekid » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

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.

>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?

You just had to have played that game, and the game isn't obscure. Call of Duty is one of the largest franchises on earth and I would consider it akin to something like a Marvel movie in popularity. If someone referenced a meme from a marvel movie, I wouldn't describe it as obscure.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#182

Post by wpietri » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

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…

For me in this context "presented as objective" means using the authorial voice of an expert. I agree it's a bad fit for me here, because it sweeps a lot under the rug.

In contrast, I'd be interested in reading something on the same topic that was presented in a subjective way, where the author isn't hiding their personal relationship to the topic. For example, "I was terminally online and here's why and how I changed". Or "my friend was terminally online and I like that they stopped". Or even "here's why I am frustrated dealing with terminally online people".

But for me, the pseudo-expert advice from somebody with no obvious expertise and no claim of it leaves me cold. I don't understand why I should care what they think, or why I should trust them.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#183

Post by polishdude20 » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

dewclin wrote: post #55

Aromasin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sorry to read this, I also have a similar same situation with my father. He's in his late 70's and a year ago bought himself an iPhone. He now spends ~4 hours a day reading a tabloid newspaper app, which has endless content. His attention span has fallen noticeably and he can't keep up with conversations that happen in the same room while he's "scrolling". When I visit he's on his phone, and we go out for a walk…

Similar with my father but he's got a dumb phone and browses on his laptop. When we have conversations with family he seems to always tune out after a few minutes and goes on the computer. His whole world view has been flipped upside down by conspiracy and hoax content. We've talked to him about not mentioning that stuff while we're over but it seems to be affecting his happiness nonetheless.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#184

Post by zach_garwood » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #181

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.

> 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? You just had to have played that game, and the game isn't obscure. Call of Duty is one of the largest franchises on earth and I would consider it akin to something like a Marvel movie in popularity. If someone referenced a meme from a marvel movi…

I've played a Call of Duty game and watched several Marvel movies, and no one is claiming either is obscure. What I am saying is that just because you hang out in forums where this is a common phrase does not mean it has exposure to the wider world. It is unknown to 99% of the world, by definition obscure.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#185

Post by extheat » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

rco8786 wrote: post #39

A lot of good questions to ask yourself here. But, > have you ever used/applied "internet slang" (cringe, based, cuck, chad) in/to real-life situations? I take slight issue with this one. To me, there is no difference between “internet slang” and just “slang”. The internet is ubiquitous and the language we use online and offline is largely the same now. Didn’t always be this way. I still remember the first time I hea…

I disagree, the difference is still there. It’s gotten a bit smaller, but it’s still there. Some people who are perpetually online on forums will say things like “that’s based” in real life, but out of a diverse group of 100 people how many do you think would understand and say things like that? I’d wager a lot of people may have heard before but probably don’t understand what it means. There’s also lots of localized real life slang that people on forums won’t get. You still might hear it on Instagram or places like that, but there is no ubiquity there. I don’t think it’s changed significantly beyond exposure with more people being on TikTok/Instagram/YouTube and similar networks.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#186

Post by throwaway1146 » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

I don't know if HN is a good place for personal advice like this;

I have grown severely paranoid about what has happened around social media. I watched.. a conversation unfold in 2012. I thought at the time that I needed to de-escalate it. It kept escalating as I kept looking for a way to talk to the people involved. And, to my own perception, it grew into and took over the entire 'national conversation' that was happening here in the years that followed. I now have panic attacks whenever I see the words / phrases / jargon / ideas I watched form 'here'. I often have severe enough psychological issues that I just disconnect from everything and repeat the question "who are you people" to myself. Especially as my suspicions of what it was that had spread from that day in 2012 grew to... everything people say/think/do.

I'm not sure what way I could move forward. I've been trying, with minimal success, to write down in long form what I saw happen. I've largely lost the emotional wherewithal for it. I tried reaching out to old friends for advice, which shows I've lost contact with everyone enough that I can't. I was terminally online before this all happened, and don't really know how to meet people away from here. Or if I would find the same things, and shut down again. I do know that my paranoia extends to people I see in real life. The past 1 year has pushed me into a constant fear of everyone, online and off.

Not sure if getting away from the internet would help now.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#187

Post by cratermoon » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

ZetaRicky wrote: post #41

The author mentioning “based” and “cringe” reminded me that meme culture ages poorly while endlessly recycling the same tropes/jokes. Eight years ago the dichotomy was “dank”-“normie”, and Impact was used with way less meta-irony.

I recently re-read the first few verses of the LOLCat Bible[1]. It did not hold up well.

1 https://web.archive.org/web/20190327161227/http://www.lolcat...

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#188

Post by samatman » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #129

jchw wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every day that goes by, the out group of internet slang and memes grows smaller. I don't really know if I'd consider this a good thing or a bad thing so much as just, a thing. But there's a lot of joking amongst younger internet folk about how they'll probably be talking internet slang in retirement homes in a few decades. It's a funny visual, perhaps because of the weird perception that we always think we will be li…

20 years ago, my mother heard me use the word "hack" in a casual context and panicked, assuming on the basis of the word alone that I meant criminal activity. 2 years ago, I was walking through Target and an advertisement came across the store loudspeakers touting "Mom hacks." Nerd culture has spread.

This shows that nerd language has spread.

I would posit that the Instagram "mom hack" "lifehack" crowd don't associate the word with computer programming or pwning boxen.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#189

Post by whatshisface » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 7:20 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #177

whatshisface wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are running the Pirate Bay the internet is real life, and it also is when you have a business, but when you are on an MMORPG or Twitter it is real life to a much lesser degree. How can we distinguish between them? Well, the majority of relationships made on MMORPGs or Twitter go nowhere outside the platform, and the things that people discuss on them also tend to not involve anything that will still be there…

plenty of "real life" places also fail this test though. most work/school relationships don't "go anywhere" outside of that bubble. what fraction of people you hung out with in school or ate lunch with at previous jobs do you still actually talk to? how much of the code you wrote still runs in production?

Hopefully the money you make at work bleeds out into real life. :-) Also, I think a lot of people stay in touch with their college friends.

Besides that, the recognition that your school or office is a bubble universe in certain ways sounds like an important one. You sound like you're attempting to refute the idea but I think you're making a good point. Someone who implicitly thought their highschool was the whole universe would be in bad shape when they graduated.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#190

Post by callalex » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #176

tomc1985 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> glorious new dawn of political groupthink [citation needed] I don't see any reason to think that "groupthink", aka societal or subcultural values and beliefs, is at a notably higher level than much of history. In the west, look at the long dominance of the Catholic Church. Even after the rise of the Protestants, it was often more a set of competing orthodoxies, such that large groups were eager to cross oceans to g…

I think you are meaningfully contributing to the conversation, but you don’t get to drop a “[citation needed]” and then proceed to state your un-cited opinions.