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How to stop being “terminally online”

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Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#191

Post by 1270018080 »

polishdude20 wrote: post #183
dewclin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mine too. It seems like every old father has fallen into the right wing conspiracy cesspool that has warped their mind. An entire generation lost. I really wonder what makes them so susceptible to that content. Internet illiteracy? Old age? It's just who they are? In other words, they want the conspiracies to be true, they want a reason to hate Fauci, Greta Thunberg etc.?

And even more, I wonder if it can be cured. I think it ties into how socially isolated men are, especially old men. Once you retire and your work social network is gone, their only social ties are online. They need to identify with a community, and I guess there is something appealing to being in a conspiracy in-group. It's just impossible to pull them out, because you have to replace that group with something else. And there's just nothing there for them.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#192

Post by callalex »

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 would argue that there is a 100:1 ratio of people who know know what the reference means vs. having actually played the game. Maybe even closer to 1,000:1. Kinda like how lots of people know the “World Series” is a baseball tournament, but most people have never watched it.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#193

Post by GrabbinD33ze69 »

agileAlligator wrote: post #165
bootlooped wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I remember reading a Reddit post once about a girl whose boyfriend would say things in real life like "can we get some f's in the chat boys". Things that were clearly very niche and would either be completely unintelligible to the audience or at best sound out of place. I think it's a matter of reading the room.

Where I am, the F meme has pretty much become part of regular conversation, just like "lol". Granted, I exist in urbanized techie gen z spaces so ymmv.

No post body was provided.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#196

Post by wpietri »

callalex wrote: post #190
wpietri wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I do in fact get to do that.

The parts that were my opinions ("I think", "I see", etc) were clearly cited to me. But a fair bit of what I wrote was pointers to things people can look up. If there's something apparently factual that you're having trouble looking up, let me know and I'm glad to give you a pointer. Because I'm happy to give citations when people ask for them.

The reason I put a "citation needed" in was that was phrased as an objective claim, not a personal opinion. An objective claim I believe to be false. (And which I'll note that the author didn't give any further data on despite me asking.)

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#197

Post by picture »

throwaway1146 wrote: post #186

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 hap…

I can't understand what you're saying, but I get that this may be a stressful topic so you are being vague. From what I see, it might be a good idea to look for some professional help if this is debilitating paranoia.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#198

Post by gaws »

jacobmischka wrote: post #113
xwdv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard someone loudly exclaim L O L at tech conference one time in real life and it just made me want to kick their ass. I had a low opinion of that person immediately.

Seems like they're not the most immature one in this situation.

What do you expect from a user who claims to be "fighting for my life in the comments almost daily" on HN? el-oh-el.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#199

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#200

Post by SoftTalker »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #161
SoftTalker wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. It would be a loss if your cohort planned/converse using those methods of communication, and you valued doing things with that cohort.

It's not nearly that severe. In cases where I don't understand some reference, it's often clear by context. If not, I say "what does that mean?"
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