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Social Quitting

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Re: Social Quitting

#111

Post by moe091 »

antipotoad wrote: post #96
Gigachad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won’t be HN user freedom social. It’ll be super tiktok. The platform of the year changes but they only get more invasive and more addictive.

My wish is that this big tech cycle has been long enough for us to have collectively learned at least some lessons about what’s desirable and what’s not in such vital communication infrastructure. Is it really good for human psychology to have these hyper-connected, star-maker platforms so prominent in our lives? Online fame does very strange things to people, warping the way they interact with their actual physical…

> My wish is that this big tech cycle has been long enough for us to have collectively learned at least some lessons about what’s desirable and what’s not in such vital communication infrastructure.

This is how progress usually works. Advancements are made, there are pitfalls / consequences, we learn from those, then new advancements are made.

The modern age is progressing too quickly though, it's just "advancements are made, people just barely begin recognizing the downsides, new advancements are made way before we adapt to the previous advancements". The life of someone from 1700 vs someone from 1850 is more similar than the life of someone from 1990 to 2020

Re: Social Quitting

#112

Post by antipotoad »

moe091 wrote: post #111
antipotoad wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wish is that this big tech cycle has been long enough for us to have collectively learned at least some lessons about what’s desirable and what’s not in such vital communication infrastructure. Is it really good for human psychology to have these hyper-connected, star-maker platforms so prominent in our lives? Online fame does very strange things to people, warping the way they interact with their actual physical…

> My wish is that this big tech cycle has been long enough for us to have collectively learned at least some lessons about what’s desirable and what’s not in such vital communication infrastructure. This is how progress usually works. Advancements are made, there are pitfalls / consequences, we learn from those, then new advancements are made. The modern age is progressing too quickly though, it's just "advancements…

This is essentially why I decided not to give up on all these years of experience building tech.

Not to claim any special insight, but taking just a couple years out has been enough to see that the flaws of the current generation are not inherent to the tech, that things can be built differently, and that I can be a hopefully more mindful builder.

Re: Social Quitting

#113

Post by Tangurena2 »

Gigachad wrote: post #55
btheshoe wrote: post #48

It seems to me that the deaths of Twitter and Facebook are being greatly exaggerated (by this article, and by the vibes generally). A decrease in users is not the same thing as a mass exodus. And I'm frankly skeptical of any claims that Twitter is facing an existential decrease in users.

“The great resignation”, “quiet quitting” and now “social quitting” are all instances of the media turning tiny observed trends or even normal operations in to some great names social shift when the reality is not much has changed.

People are tired of being abused. The powers-that-be don't like it and are trying to change the narrative to things like "people don't want to work" or "quiet quitting".

Re: Social Quitting

#114

Post by BizarroLand »

ipaddr wrote: post #49
travisgriggs wrote: post #37

There’s that old saying “God gave you two ears and one mouth, please use in that proportion.” So much of the social aspect of the internet has been about “giving more people a voice”, and we’ve chased that desire at the blogging, milli-blogging, micro-blogging level. I’m undecided, but I have a hunch that the increase in “speaking” via the internet has not increased at the same level as encouraging people to “listen.…

I want to agree with your ideals but there are 1,000x more people who read and rarely share. The viewed stat on a top rate hn submission is probably 50,000 views on average where comments are measured in the hundreds.

My favorite takeaway from social media has been realizing that many people have an agenda to push, and will use charged language to push that agenda.

Riling people up and making them angry at other people is a good way to get attention, and from that attention you can make money by selling that attention to other people. The more angry and upset you can make people, the more money you can make selling ads.

It's a cycle and I want no part of it. When I catch myself doomscrolling I remember this, and start skipping the electric stories in favor of ones of beneficial interest to me. It's done a little good for my mental health.

Re: Social Quitting

#115

Post by galaxyLogic »

rendall wrote: post #39
galaxyLogic wrote: post #2

I wasn't aware of how Facebook won over MySpace by using a bot to allow you to use MySpace THROUGH Facebook so you didn't really lose anything when you opened a Facebook account and started using it. Now why couldn't there be a service that was simply a super-bot, it would automatically open an account for me on all social media platforms. It would then post all my entries to all other platforms, relay the responses…

> Now why couldn't there be a service that was simply a super-bot, it would automatically open an account for me on all social media platforms. It would then post all my entries to all other platforms, relay the responses back to me. Why not? The part of the article's analysis about switching costs is spot on. Facebook is aggressive about keeping switching costs high. It is against the ToS of Facebook users to give t…

Ah, but they did it themselves with MySpace! What's good for the geese.

Re: Social Quitting

#116

Post by galaxyLogic »

midoridensha wrote: post #77
29athrowaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And before, many people were on ICQ, MSN, AOL, etc. Then before that you got BBSes, CompuServe, Minitel, etc. And before that you probably got Ham radio.

I never understood the attraction of Ham radio, outside the technical aspect (building fancy radio equipment) if you're into electronics, and I'm old enough that Ham was still a thing when I was growing up and I had one friend that was really into it. Unlike all the online services where there were separate channels for different interests, even back in the BBS/Compu$erve days, ham radio had no such thing, it was jus…

It was a club. You had to pay for the radio to join, and you had to be skillful enough to operate it. In other words my kinda buddy.

Now I wonder what if there was social media you had to pay to join?

Re: Social Quitting

#117

Post by galaxyLogic »

rendall wrote: post #39
galaxyLogic wrote: post #2

I wasn't aware of how Facebook won over MySpace by using a bot to allow you to use MySpace THROUGH Facebook so you didn't really lose anything when you opened a Facebook account and started using it. Now why couldn't there be a service that was simply a super-bot, it would automatically open an account for me on all social media platforms. It would then post all my entries to all other platforms, relay the responses…

> Now why couldn't there be a service that was simply a super-bot, it would automatically open an account for me on all social media platforms. It would then post all my entries to all other platforms, relay the responses back to me. Why not? The part of the article's analysis about switching costs is spot on. Facebook is aggressive about keeping switching costs high. It is against the ToS of Facebook users to give t…

> against the ToS of Facebook users to give their password to any service like that

What if it was not a service but an application I download and run on my PC? I'm not sure how ToS could forbid that, me running an application on my PC.

Re: Social Quitting

#118

Post by agumonkey »

sph wrote: post #87
ipaddr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to agree with your ideals but there are 1,000x more people who read and rarely share. The viewed stat on a top rate hn submission is probably 50,000 views on average where comments are measured in the hundreds.

The problem is who are you listening to. If you talk about anything in a public place, say in a pub, it won't take long to hear a differing opinion. We've worked so hard to create closed communities on the Internet, that you're not exposed to opposite ideas unless you work hard at looking outside your bubble. Social media with its very smart recommendation algos will try to keep you firmly in your echo chamber. Yeah,…

I wonder how much opinion was an important factor in societies before internet. To an extent you can go to a pub every night, full of people you disagree with yet you all live in the same area / space ..

I often feel human groups are not about high level ideas.. but emotional flow and basic needs. Most of the time we don't discuss to debate but to share feelings and share needs.

Re: Social Quitting

#119

Post by btheshoe »

thecrash wrote: post #106
btheshoe wrote: post #48

It seems to me that the deaths of Twitter and Facebook are being greatly exaggerated (by this article, and by the vibes generally). A decrease in users is not the same thing as a mass exodus. And I'm frankly skeptical of any claims that Twitter is facing an existential decrease in users.

As Doctorow says, the permanence of these institutions is taken for granted until it starts to unwind - and very quickly downfall becomes obvious and inevitable. It's not obvious to everyone yet, but he's saying it soon will be. "Hyperstition is a positive feedback circuit including culture as a component. It can be defined as the experimental (techno-)science of self-fulfilling prophecies." https://www.orphandriftar…

I'm sorry but I'm unable to take anything nick land says seriously anymore

But in general I don't think I'm taking the permanence of twitter or fb for granted - they both fill a clear need and I don't see any new players emerging to dominate the niche they fill (mastodon is not going to replace twitter)

Re: Social Quitting

#120

Post by TheHappyOddish »

pmontra wrote: post #59
nostrapollo wrote: post #5

Hard to tell from my phone but are there any sources for the ‘exodus’ numbers? I don’t get the same impression that this post is laying out.

Anecdotally I know exactly one person using Twitter to tweet and that's only because he shares some of those tweets to a Telegram channel. When he does I might check those messages on Twitter but I often don't. All the messages I exchange with friends in WhatsApp groups are not happening inside Facebook groups and are diverting traffic from there. In the last many years FB has been a site I use to announce work event…

I also know very few people who use Facebook, however a couple of degrees seperated from me, most people do. They all use Facebook Messenger (but just call it messenger). Other people a couple of degrees a different way use Twitter extensively.

On HN, we're in a bubble as we're people who give a shit about privacy and the companies running our social media. I'm fairly sure we're a tiny minority.

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