Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Doomscrolling ourselves to death

edwest.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 333 posts

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#121

Post by dd8601fn »

Aurornis wrote: post #99
Escapado wrote: post #69

On a personal level I have become more anxious and it has become more difficult to deal with my tendency to procrastinate the more screen time I have and the more I am exposed to social media. I have in essence deleted the vast majority of my social media accounts years ago, but stayed a passive and rather anonymous consumer on Reddit, X and YouTube. A few weeks ago I blocked them too. I would say in totality I read…

> I have in essence deleted the vast majority of my social media accounts years ago, but stayed a passive and rather anonymous consumer on Reddit, X and YouTube Most of the people I’ve known who struggled with doomscrolling had established a similar set of social media sites at their worst point. I think we’ve seen so many articles about how social media is bad that reference mainstream sites like Facebook and Instag…

I have a predisposition for that, and Reddit is indeed poison for some of us. I blocked it with pihole, along with most other social media sites, years ago.

Just the friction of a dns record (that yes, I can easily override) was enough to keep myself away from all of it.

And when I need the rare bit of practical information from one of them, I can hit the 5m override from a widget on the phone.

It’s ultimately self control, but that’s easy for me when there’s just a tiny bit of hassle in the loop.

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#122

Post by dd8601fn »

esskay wrote: post #109
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X is honestly among the worst of the worst. People give purposefully bad takes just for the engagement and it's overall super toxic Reddit is awful too, completely accurate things can get downvoted to oblivion because of the hive mind YouTube is still overall decent but mostly brainrot I habitually watch/listen to in the background to such a high degree it's hard to even imagine completely cutting it out of my life

I'm mostly passive on reddit these days but really struggle to leave it as I do enjoy seeing things like cool projects people are making on /r/selfhosting and such. Every time I think of leaving it I just think well I cant because where will i find out about cool new projects now.

I know it’s not the same but I watch stuff like hackaday and others with an rss reader, now. Old school approach. It helps jail the types of content I passively consume. I blocked reddit and most other social media with the pihole I was using anyway.

After having been away from Reddit for a couple years now, I think it was a good trade. But obviously that’s a very personal thing.

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#123

Post by Escapado »

FoundAnotherOne wrote: post #108
Escapado wrote: post #69

On a personal level I have become more anxious and it has become more difficult to deal with my tendency to procrastinate the more screen time I have and the more I am exposed to social media. I have in essence deleted the vast majority of my social media accounts years ago, but stayed a passive and rather anonymous consumer on Reddit, X and YouTube. A few weeks ago I blocked them too. I would say in totality I read…

> I quit all social media! > No for real! Even YouTube! And yet here you are

I did not claim I quit it all, just the majority and said I was struggling with this topic. Not sure if you are trying to help or are just mean.

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#124

Post by colechristensen »

puppymaster wrote: post #62
marliechiller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples of what weird stuff they would say? Im having a hard time imagining what you mean exactly.

if i hear 'aura farming' or 'xxx-maxing' one more time I might punch someone.

I'm sorry to break it to you but this isn't social media, it's you getting old.

Most language is invented by children and most of what they invent dies pretty quickly. You transition from not noticing it's new because you weren't alive before to keeping up to falling behind to getting annoyed.

rizz no cap sus swag YOLO such wow pwned that's what she said fo shizzle crunk bling talk to the hand as if homeskillet not! take a chill pill grody gag me with a spoon

Thank you for attending my TED Talk.

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#125

Post by omraty999 »

doginasuit wrote: post #55

I don't read less, but I do read fewer books. It is hard to find a book that is the best source for what I want know about, and that changes too frequently now to outlive the time it takes to read a book. This is what you'd expect in a world where the sheer volume of things that are important to know about has grown beyond a sustainable capacity. What has taken their place, for better or for worse, are various inform…

I can understand how this makes sense for javascript frameworks and linux distributions but as an advid reader of non-fiction, I can't think of how this applies to almost anything else as it relates to books.

For most subjects, the deeper you go means you need to read more books if you are really learning something new.

Even arvix papers eventually lead me to a book I am not familiar with.

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#127

Post by tmikaeld »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #104
Aurornis wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have in essence deleted the vast majority of my social media accounts years ago, but stayed a passive and rather anonymous consumer on Reddit, X and YouTube Most of the people I’ve known who struggled with doomscrolling had established a similar set of social media sites at their worst point. I think we’ve seen so many articles about how social media is bad that reference mainstream sites like Facebook and Instag…

X is honestly among the worst of the worst. People give purposefully bad takes just for the engagement and it's overall super toxic Reddit is awful too, completely accurate things can get downvoted to oblivion because of the hive mind YouTube is still overall decent but mostly brainrot I habitually watch/listen to in the background to such a high degree it's hard to even imagine completely cutting it out of my life

I’m on X for tech interest, new hardware, robotics, coding. If X didn’t allow blocking words/phrases, I could not use it! And yes, my blocklist is huge..

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#129

Post by colechristensen »

mikestew wrote: post #93
codingdave wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Asking for a friend" is a great example.

That’s…not weird, that’s just a turn of phrase that’s in the same category as “that’s what she said”.

eventually you lose most of your friends, your neuroplasticity dies down, you stop trying to look cool, fall out of the zeitgeist, and whatever strange things the kids are saying these days becomes annoying because you've stopped participating in culture and it starts to scare and confuse you

Re: Doomscrolling ourselves to death

#130

Post by gregcohn »

Tarsul wrote: post #14

Killer line: "Having written extensively about how no one reads books anymore, he decided to turn the subject into a book"

Yeah, I think the elitist part of the book being reviewed is that it elevates books per se. I have a degree in literature and a home full of books, so I’m as sad as the next guy about no one reading anymore, but I think the argument (such as it is reconstructed by the reviewer) is better when focused on the types on things one could be doing, and the self-reflection and self-improvement that comes from doing them, rather than bemoaning the specific works not read.

“No one reads Shakespeare anymore” is probably true, but it’s just as sad that families talk at dinner less, kids spend less time outside, watercolors and paint brushes gifted by grandparents are tossed aside, and kids don’t ride bikes, go camping, explore the woods behind school, bake brownies (that aren’t viral recipes), and so on. Instead of measuring IQ in correlation to technology, you could probably measure VO2 Max.

I would be willing to bet that it turns out that the algorithmic feed, and especially TikTok, are specifically correlated to some of these deleterious things, and have outsized effects on kids, teens, and the neurodiverse. Not everyone possesses the self-control to put the phone away after a 15-minute scroll break the way grandpa would shut off the tv as soon as the 6 o’clock news was over, and the algorithm is designed to prevent that and ultimately probably wears down native willpower over time.

“Let’s ban TikTok” sounds stupid and reactionary, but what to do about it is a discussion we ought to be having.

Post reply on HN