[deleted]
Use social media mindfully
11–20 of 55 posts
Re: Use social media mindfully
#12I'd encourage the author to look into the difference between mindfulness and intention. From reading their approach, it seems like they are really encouraging people to use the platforms intentionally. From my experience, mindfulness is correlated more closely with awareness than it is intention.
I'm recently restarting an approach to social media and I'm looking at it with fresh eyes. One thing that I wish more of us would agree on would be to strongly prefer platforms that are friendly to privacy, or at least anonymity. Starting new accounts, I was surprised to find the level of intrusion required to get, for example, a new Twitter account up and running. Contrast that with a new HN account, which requires nothing but a username and password.
Occasionally going through the onboarding steps for these platforms can be a real eye-opener on how the platforms have changed.
Re: Use social media mindfully
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
What dod u replace them with?
What worked for me was just engaging in my local community more. There are a lot of great people out there, many of them are just a few houses down from you. I can assure you, whatever hobby or interest you have, there are others that want to do it with you too. Find those people. Also read the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger.
Volunteering especially
Re: Use social media mindfully
#14I can "finish" reading my Mastodon timeline because it's not designed to scroll endlessly. Then I read a book.
Re: Use social media mindfully
#15> With that said, social media still works for connections. DMs are good. Having actual conversations in comments is good.
No. DMs are not e2ee so you’re allowing an advertising surveillance company to leverage private conversations with friends against you and your friends. It’s also available to federal police WITHOUT A WARRANT. They can data mine it, associate it with your email and phone number, and sell it off to data brokers.
Friends don’t let friends use surveillance platforms.
Delete your instagram and facebook accounts. Today. Refuse to be the honey in the corporate trap that results in your friends and loved ones being placed under surveillance.
Re: Use social media mindfully
#16I can "finish" reading my Mastodon timeline because it's not designed to scroll endlessly. Then I read a book.
I open Mastodon many times a day, see what my actual friends are really doing, smile, and go back to my day. It's lovely.
Re: Use social media mindfully
#17I'm still on Facebook (and Digg for those HNers that hop on to all the tech boards - you know I see you), but it's to keep up with some family that are there. But I adopted a simple catchphrase (GET OFF THE INTERNET) and time my posts for Sunday mornings to get all them folks that were waking up and immediately scrolling. Repeat that for a few weeks, and I think its helped give people the "please disconnect" message.
I'm a huge wrestling and movie dork, so... screens. And the embedded videos on Reddit didn't help since I could watch wrestling on /r/SquaredCircle rather than support the product I like. In conversations, I've blamed The Walking Dead, as that was the first show I recall encouraging people to "hop online to chat" while the new episodes aired. Then "live tweeting" became a thing and here we are.
Friends and family are still there, but they've at least gone from the "grow your business online" or "complain about politics" to talking about the NFL, or a painting they finished, or some music piece they're working on.
I still want to disconnect more, but we don't really have a cure for "shiny rock addiction" yet.
Re: Use social media mindfully
#18It is such a relief to see someone say you do not have to delete your accounts to be healthy. I find myself opening these apps purely out of habit when I am bored or anxious. The idea of pausing to ask yourself why you are logging in is something I definitely need to try.
Re: Use social media mindfully
#19When I left Twitter and Reddit there felt like a loss of what those sites used to be. The sites I replaced them with are off-ramps, I'm not letting myself get as engaged with them. If they go bad too, they won't feel like a loss.
What dod u replace them with?
I use Bluesky and Lemmy a bit, but not as much as I'd previously used Twitter and Reddit.
Re: Use social media mindfully
#20My rule for 2026 is to limit short-form media. No Twitter/X, no Bluesky, no Mastodon, no Instagram, no TikTok. If it is designed to be short-form (limited characters, quick videos) then it is not for me in 2026.
I had already avoided short-form video but I added short-form text this year.