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How 30 days without social media changed my life

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Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#81

Post by graue »

makmanalp wrote: post #73
graue wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I signed up for Facebook, that was my dream. That I would post stuff like "who wants to get ice cream tomorrow night?" and, just like that, people would take me up on it. Never happened. On the contrary, people I met would "friend" me, but still keep me out of their real-world cliques. Example: A guy invited everyone to a party at his house. Everyone else who responded knew where he lived. I sent a message askin…

Well, I think this says more about your understanding of friendship versus acquaintance rather than facebook itself. Just because you added someone on facebook doesn't mean that you are now good friends. It means they know you somehow. You'll get invited to people's parties when you're close to them. Facebook supports existing friendships. It doesn't create new ones (well, in general). In fact, if someone you know bu…

I think you're making the same point as me: "Facebook supports existing friendships. It doesn't create new ones." That's my experience too: Facebook did not turn my acquaintances into friends. But the person I replied to claimed otherwise — he posted an ice cream invite and 3 people he'd never met offline came.

Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#82

Post by Swizec »

makmanalp wrote: post #73
graue wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I signed up for Facebook, that was my dream. That I would post stuff like "who wants to get ice cream tomorrow night?" and, just like that, people would take me up on it. Never happened. On the contrary, people I met would "friend" me, but still keep me out of their real-world cliques. Example: A guy invited everyone to a party at his house. Everyone else who responded knew where he lived. I sent a message askin…

Well, I think this says more about your understanding of friendship versus acquaintance rather than facebook itself. Just because you added someone on facebook doesn't mean that you are now good friends. It means they know you somehow. You'll get invited to people's parties when you're close to them. Facebook supports existing friendships. It doesn't create new ones (well, in general). In fact, if someone you know bu…

I've made tons of acquaintances into friends. Facebook is a great facilitator for that.

Hell, my current girlfriend-like person was initially just an acquaintance on Facebook.

You need to put in an effort. Consistently including online people in your offline life, will eventually turn them into close friends. You talk to them online first, meaningfully, you invite them to offline friendly gatherings and eventually they just become one of your group of friends.

I mean ... it's the same as offline stuff. All your friends were acquaintances at first.

Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#83

Post by Swizec »

ams6110 wrote: post #54
Swizec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this at all. FB (and social media in general) is the only thing I've found that enables me to organize going out for drinks with more than 2 people at once. Also the only thing that lets me post "Hey, anyone wanna go out for ice cream tomorrow evening?" and actually having 5 people come. Three of which are completely new outside twitter/facebook. It's really quite awesome. Hell, I have very scatter…

For some reason as I read this I thought of the thread from a few days ago, about how if you freelance, you shouldn't take on low-value, high-demand clients. Maybe if your "friends" only get together or even talk to you in response to tweets or facebook, and forget all about you otherwise, you need to consider their real commitment to the friendship. You know that friends did manage to organize cocktail parties at ea…

Who said they forget all about me? It's just the most convenient way to contact me.

They use twitter/facebook/irc to ask me out for stuff as well ...

Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#84

Post by eostyx »

gorydetails wrote: post #60
mtgx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this whole "social networking" thing will start to fade soon, as people increasingly realize that it's not "cool" anymore, and that they don't really need it, other perhaps than checking their accounts twice a year. So this whole discussion about whether Google+ or other company can beat Facebook or not might be irrelevant, if the whole social networking "industry" collapses in the next 5 years.

I agree. This whole "Internet" thing is highly overrated. Also, "electricity" and "clean water."

You ass. You can't compare things that are essential to a functioning economy to be compared to annoying background noise like '"social" networking'. It more closely related to TV and online media. Both of which are incredibly draining and mind numbing. Try going without TV for a year and take up a productive/creative hobby.

Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#86

Post by einhverfr »

I don't really know what social media is well enough to say I would go without it. I am simplifying it and getting off Facebook though (Strangely about a month ago I just quit signing on-- I suppose I should announce to people that I am no longer going to be there.)

But social media can be a larger thing. Email lists, discussion forums like this, blogs, etc. Some of those are central to my ability to stay informed and some are central to my actual productive work. I don't know you can separate email lists from something like Hackers News.

So I am separating things into three piles.

1) Discard: Facebook 2) Check 1-2 times/day (HN, a few blogs) 3) Check occasionally (LinkedIn, etc)

I haven't gotten on the Twitter bandwagon, so I don't have any experience with that.

Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#87

Post by gorydetails »

eostyx wrote: post #84
gorydetails wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. This whole "Internet" thing is highly overrated. Also, "electricity" and "clean water."

You ass. You can't compare things that are essential to a functioning economy to be compared to annoying background noise like '"social" networking'. It more closely related to TV and online media. Both of which are incredibly draining and mind numbing. Try going without TV for a year and take up a productive/creative hobby.

Try telling Syrian activists that social networking is "noise." The ability to freely share information is highly underrated in places where information may be freely shared. Thanks for the tip.

Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#88

Post by sigkill »

mhartl wrote: post #59
sigkill wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sarcasm meter is faulty. Are you being sarcastic, or genuinely serious?

I'm confident he's serious, and I feel much the same way. I use cperciva's Hacker News Daily ( http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ ) to help avoid spending too much time at Hacker News and to make sure I don't miss any big stories.

Hey thanks for the link. It looks useful.

Re: How 30 days without social media changed my life

#89

Post by edwinnathaniel »

mycodebreaks wrote: post #61
sigkill wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sarcasm meter is faulty. Are you being sarcastic, or genuinely serious?

I am genuinely serious. You can trust your judgement that your sarcasm meter is faulty. :-)

There will be a point where HN could hurt you. So it's like that bell curve where you feel reading HN would help you but one side of the bell curve is a downward side and that's where you'll learn that HN is becoming more and more like any other aggregation sites out there.

- been here since late 2006

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