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'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

bbc.com

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Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#81

Post by askvictor »

badcppdev wrote: post #40
bjoli wrote: post #29

I stopped using facebook and Twitter about 10 years ago. I can't say I noticed any difference back then. The thing I am noticing now is that a larger part of civil society has moved to Facebook. I can't even find the opening hours or phone numbers of many restaurants, which means I just have to guess or not go at all. One company I quickly left had support through Facebook. I hate it. And I think people are crazy to…

Just as an experiment I tried to access the facebook pages for the local restaurants. I could easily see the opening hours and phone number even though I wasn't logged in. I'm in the UK. Is it a different experience where you are? Or are you refusing to access the facebook website at all?

Did you clear cookies or try from an incognito browser? Facebook tries pretty damn hard to stick around even if you're logged off

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#82

Post by hYqnLX »

The problem of current round-the-clock media is the inevitable lack of actually meaningful events to present. Real meaningful events are rare and cannot solely drive the for-profit ad-driven legacy media and social media. As a result, we see unnecessary "news" like: this public figure said something stupid, discussion on the implications of that, interviewing solely to instigate the interviewee to say something edgy and then broadcast it as breaking news, etc. And social media sites pioneered the idea of getting creators to constantly churn out "content" to catch the attention of the users. News should be event-based like: hurricane to hit this part of the world, and actually useful to the public like: parliament passes this law and what you should know about it and not what you should feel about it. And social media should be used in regulation, if at all.

An actually useful news source would be the one which periodically lists the important happenings in the local area and (optionally) a couple of sentences about them.

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#83

Post by blitzar »

coldtea wrote: post #60
fullstackchris wrote: post #22

I disagree with this general sentiment. I don't think absolutely 0 social media is feasible or even wise this day in age. How are you going to keep up with family, friends, and so on? (In my case, family and friends span multiple states, countries, and continents!) You would at the very least need a phone - ok, that's maybe not "social media" in the sense this article talks about, but it's still tech at the end of th…

> How are you going to keep up with family, friends, and so on? Yeah, god forbid you actually visit them, invite them over, and talk to them on the phone, or, text them... > you'd anyway likely need an app like WhatsApp or Telegram to keep track of everybody and everything - and those technically ARE considered social media right? No, technically they are considered chat apps... And you wont need those either...

Or god forbid that you find out a week after the event that Mavis, your cousins aunt went to the shops only to discover that you couldnt get any green apples today.

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#84

Post by elsjaako »

bambax wrote: post #36
ThePhysicist wrote: post #21

I effectively shut down my Twitter account a while ago, best thing I did for my mental health in the past year. There are interesting people on Twitter but the algorithm just works like a slot machine that tries to keep you on the site no matter the cost, it's not optimized to serve you but to make you view more ads. In addition it's almost impossible to have a civilized discussion, it often feels more like two peopl…

> There are interesting people on Twitter but the algorithm just works like a slot machine that tries to keep you on the site no matter the cost, it's not optimized to serve you but to make you view more ads. Yes. I don't know if it wants us to see more ads or be more "engaged". I'm currently fascinated by generative art and find a lot of interesting posts about this on Twitter. Yet Twitter keeps showing me posts abo…

Have you seen https://genart.social/? Unfortunataly it looks like registration is closed right now. You could follow users you like using RSS and join when registrations open again, or maybe someone you know on twitter has an account there can send you an invite.

You can also create an account on any mastodon server and follow users from genart.social, but it's more fun to be in the middle of it.

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#85

Post by mola »

msravi wrote: post #53
ThePhysicist wrote: post #21

I effectively shut down my Twitter account a while ago, best thing I did for my mental health in the past year. There are interesting people on Twitter but the algorithm just works like a slot machine that tries to keep you on the site no matter the cost, it's not optimized to serve you but to make you view more ads. In addition it's almost impossible to have a civilized discussion, it often feels more like two peopl…

> but the algorithm just works like a slot machine I'm always surprised that people, especially on HN, complain so much about twitter's algorithms that are so easy to bypass. I use Twidere as a client, and my feed doesn't have any of twitter's algorithms - it's simply a reverse chronological feed. Even the website and twitter's official app have a button right on the feed page that allows you to switch to a reverse c…

But then you only get opinions of those ppl that engage in the sort of "discussions" OP talks about. You really aren't exposed to real ppl opinions, only the opinions of the most crazy and or manipulative.

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#86

Post by barbs »

birracerveza wrote: post #69

I don't have Facebook. I don't have Twitter. I don't even have Instagram, or TikTok. I stay away from all kinds of social media, aside from Telegram to chat with my friends, and it's been this way for the last 10 or so years... and boy do I get confirmation that I made a very good choice very, very often.

Do Telegram and other chat apps count as social media? In my mind they are separate but I could be wrong?

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#87

Post by askvictor »

blodkorv wrote: post #56

I have quitted social media many many times. But i always end back up, even tho i get that liberating feeling. There is alway this boring evening that makes you want to just check in and se what is going on and then it grabs hold of you. I wish there was a way i could ban my IP or something else more permanent to really remove me from most social media platforms. As it is now, its too easy to create a new account or…

Some ISPs have this kind of function (usually because "won't someone think of the children"). You could hand your account details to your ISP to a friend to enable such a function.

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#88

Post by rglullis »

Lapsa wrote: post #67
rglullis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is like solving the opioid crisis by saying "you should use painkillers in moderation" or the obesity epidemic by saying "we all just need to be disciplined with what you eat." The issue is systemic. Most people's idea of "social Media" today is the algorithm-fueled, privacy-invading, advertising funded model which divorces the users from the curation of good content. We need social media platforms that are not…

pro tip: start liking underwear ads on Facebook. you will get to see good looking ladies instead of whatever bullshit you usually get

Real pro tip: just use an ad blocker.

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#89

Post by sdiacom »

bjoli wrote: post #29

I stopped using facebook and Twitter about 10 years ago. I can't say I noticed any difference back then. The thing I am noticing now is that a larger part of civil society has moved to Facebook. I can't even find the opening hours or phone numbers of many restaurants, which means I just have to guess or not go at all. One company I quickly left had support through Facebook. I hate it. And I think people are crazy to…

For opening hours and phone numbers, Google Maps seems to cover that fine in my area. It's not great, as it's still a private company, but Maps is ran more like a public utility, at least compared to Facebook.

Re: 'It's so liberating': The people quitting social media

#90

Post by blitzar »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #33
raydiatian wrote: post #2

Social media is one great big psy-op. Best to not be a part of it at all.

I wonder what a significant change in attitudes toward social-tech will mean for those of us, still in a minority, who have never been on it? No doubt the irony will be I'll have to listen to endless "news" from friends who haven't spoken to me in real-life for 15 years, about how "Liberating it is". :)

Nahh that is totally different. When you were not into social media - it was weird and creepy. Now not being into social media is liberating and responsible.

You wouldnt understand ...

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