(spoiler) i lived life. the end.
elegantly put. but it's funny how much of our lives we live with our eyes shut.
How 30 days without social media changed my life
11–20 of 111 posts
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#12I was about to say I just spent my lifetime without social media but I had no idea Hacker News was social media too. I guess that's good. Means I'm getting on with the times and not living in the 80s as one commenter put it.
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#13This is a great blog post -- I can't help but feel like its an argument less against social media and more about how we use social media.
I think it's particularly ironic that he singled out Reddit for providing "absolutely 0 value to me", since Reddit's original use was a news aggregator devoted to separating signal from noise. Nowadays, its a place for people to spout memes.
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#14I enjoyed this writeup and it's well-timed for me. I'm going to try it! Anything you would add to the blacklist that you didn't initially?
If 30 days is too much, we're launching a free app that lets you cut off social media for 30 minutes at a time. https://monotask.com (downloadable now) We also have a pro version that lets you customize your whitelist and blacklist. We hope you use the time to make some awesome stuff!
Amazing! If you can charge 10 dollars a month for something which really doesn't do much and for which there are many free alternatives (some even provided by you) then I applaud. Do you have any paying customers at the moment?
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
If 30 days is too much, we're launching a free app that lets you cut off social media for 30 minutes at a time. https://monotask.com (downloadable now) We also have a pro version that lets you customize your whitelist and blacklist. We hope you use the time to make some awesome stuff!
Amazing! If you can charge 10 dollars a month for something which really doesn't do much and for which there are many free alternatives (some even provided by you) then I applaud. Do you have any paying customers at the moment?
We're just launching the pro version now. The parent post is more promotion than just about anything we've done so far. But I'm a fan of transparency, and would be happy to share numbers in a month or three.
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#16I ditched Facebook, and while I miss the ease of social engagement (getting invited to events via friend-spam was nice, since most people never invite me personally) i'm glad for no longer needing to constantly check my feed.
However, I noticed that Twitter and Hacker News tend to replace Facebook in that way, so I may follow your lead and ditch those too. But I sometimes find myself in a bar, searching through the internet, trying to find something to read rather than make conversation with a stranger. So i'm going to go one step further and ditch my smartphone. (Protip: Google supports syncing contacts/calendars using SyncML and S60 devices)
I'm not sure how well I will do without Google Maps and GPS to be my Hitchiker's Guidebook, but something tells me that not knowing where your going will lead to a more interesting destination. Or, since I live in Baltimore, getting shot. Either way it's an adventure.
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#17This essay could also be called, "Life in the 80s (and early 90s) for most people." Back then, you had to be relatively informed to have access to "social media" (i.e. Usenet, gopher, BBS). It's amazing how much productivity has been disrupted by social media. There are of course huge upsides as well, but sometimes I wonder if the full downside is recognized. A lot of people I know do very little work in the workplac…
I was a news hound in the 80s which was great because TV news didn't suck.
Another 80s early 90s information device was the magazine, there were tons of magazines which were mostly killed off by the Internet.
Social media is a whole lot of everything and 1% substance on a good day. It's a habit it's like Entertainment Tonight you sit there and one day think "why am I watching this?". That actually happened to me in the late 80s I realized I had a half smile grin Joker sort of thing watching banal celebrity news. These days instead of a dumb smile it's my left elbow with osteoarthritis from leaning on it reading about cats, rage faces and other memes or arguing with strangers over things 5000km away.
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#18I understand the urge to keep away from facebook or twitter. However, Hacker News is very important resource for career and personal development IMHO.
Since I came to know about Hacker News, my life has changed. Not only I stay away from social media such as facebook, twitter, but also I am away from news websites such as cnn and bbc.And, let me say, it is very good for mind and body to not consume so much news.
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#19I ditched Facebook, and while I miss the ease of social engagement (getting invited to events via friend-spam was nice, since most people never invite me personally) i'm glad for no longer needing to constantly check my feed. However, I noticed that Twitter and Hacker News tend to replace Facebook in that way, so I may follow your lead and ditch those too. But I sometimes find myself in a bar, searching through the i…
Baltimore, eh? Get to live your own Homicide - Life on the street moment.
Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life
#20I stopped using Facebook last November. It's been a fantastic experience.
Whether you realize it or not, FB changes your emotional health. FB used to make me oddly depressed. Its like sitting in front of the TV and feasting on Sour Patch Kids for two hours. I would sit there staring at how awesome people's lives were and wonder why I wasn't doing such awesome things myself. I heard about the passing of family members from family friends before family members would have a chance to tell me personally.
After I stopped going to FB my important friends started CALLING me. Can you believe that? They picked up the phone and CALLED me. I went out to dinner more. I stopped engaging in those destructive conversations like "Can you believe so-and-so's status message..."
There have been some drawbacks though. I don't always hear about last-minute parties. I don't get to see the pictures my friends take from events. And I don't have the luxury of sending a message to someone I don't quite know very well who wouldn't have my phone number or e-mail, most likely through group activities like Crossfit that I'm a member of.
But all things considered, ditching Facebook is highly recommended.