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Quit Social Media (2016)

calnewport.com

1–10 of 281 posts

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#2
So, should I join so that I can quit?

The coming of the current cluster fuck was clear decades ago. Anyone who wasn't enamored by meme illiteracy never took that train...

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#3
I quit any non small community social media a few years ago and it's been really nice. My tolerance for trolls and thinking with people on the Internet is has dropped away down and I think I'm better for it.

Certainly feels better

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#5
Isn’t it on the decline yet?

Facebook is for boomers.

Twitter is weird and we all realised how pointless it is to spend time falling out on there.

Instagram feels a bit long in the tooth.

LinkedIn is a parody of itself.

Reddit feels like it’s growing but I think that avoids the worst of social media.

TikTok and YouTube shorts seem popular but aren’t really social media. It’s just time wasting junk.

All in all, social media feels like it peaked a while back.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#6
I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media.

Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyone into the friend circle. Having a barrier to entry model may work well for an online community, although this remains to be seen. Were there any successful experiments with paid social media?

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#7
post #3

I quit any non small community social media a few years ago and it's been really nice. My tolerance for trolls and thinking with people on the Internet is has dropped away down and I think I'm better for it. Certainly feels better

>thinking with people on the Internet is has dropped away down

What?

Also, congrats for being less tolerant. I like that.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#8

Isn’t it on the decline yet? Facebook is for boomers. Twitter is weird and we all realised how pointless it is to spend time falling out on there. Instagram feels a bit long in the tooth. LinkedIn is a parody of itself. Reddit feels like it’s growing but I think that avoids the worst of social media. TikTok and YouTube shorts seem popular but aren’t really social media. It’s just time wasting junk. All in all, social…

Twitter/X is fantastic for breaking news. For example during the first assassination attempt you would find new details on there that would then appear on MSM newscasts one to two hours later.

It also helps immensely to curate lists of interests to help filter out the noise and politics.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#9
(2016)

Especially important because most of his commentary focuses on the dominant social media paradigm of the time. Mastodon barely existed when this post went live, Mike Masnick was years from writing the paper that inspired Bluesky[0], and it would be strange if someone whose whole thing is getting away from social media kept up on new developments.

This post is an interesting historical artifact, but shouldn't be mistaken for contemporary commentary.

[0] https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a...

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#10
post #8

Isn’t it on the decline yet? Facebook is for boomers. Twitter is weird and we all realised how pointless it is to spend time falling out on there. Instagram feels a bit long in the tooth. LinkedIn is a parody of itself. Reddit feels like it’s growing but I think that avoids the worst of social media. TikTok and YouTube shorts seem popular but aren’t really social media. It’s just time wasting junk. All in all, social…

Twitter/X is fantastic for breaking news. For example during the first assassination attempt you would find new details on there that would then appear on MSM newscasts one to two hours later. It also helps immensely to curate lists of interests to help filter out the noise and politics.

How is your life improved by getting that news minute by minute instead of an hour, or even a day, later?
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