Does this include HN? Asking for a friend.
Snark aside, why is this a recurring obsession of HN posters?
Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
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Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#12There's some real things I want to appreciate & root into here, but as a geek growing up, one of my greatest & most persistence annoyances was how easy & happy it was for so many around me to pick being so ignorant, so blind, so insular. Heck yes ignoring the world & big matters makes you happier. Heck yes keeping blinders on & seeing less is safer, more secure, simpler. But fuck that. Fuck ignorance. Face things, se…
You can certainly hear about a lot of things on social media, but I don’t think reading a bunch of underinformed, overangry people fire memes, half-truths, and occasional outright lies back and forth constitutes facing anything in any meaningful way, nor will it make any difference in the world.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#13At Facebook / Meta, employees often questioned Mark Zuckerberg whenever a study like this came out. Zuckerberg noted that the same held true for news media. Reporters do not like to mention this.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#14I feel like most of my anxiety has nothing to do with social media, so I'm not so sure if I'd feel better just because I stopped reading Twitter.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social media isn't the world, or a big matter. One can still read/engage with the news without having to deal with as many dark patterns. We don't have a public digital square, but I'm not going to help Zuckerberg et al further privatize it at my own mental expense.
idk about that, a lot of news sources feel like they're optimizing for clicks too. where is some boring neutral news? then am i to broken to even stick with something like at this point lol maybe i need the clickbait i agree with the main point, social media isnt the world. i think people forget that
They are, because they're competing for people's attention through social media.
And so, Facebook's dark patterns to some extent poison everything.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#16Does this include HN? Asking for a friend. Snark aside, why is this a recurring obsession of HN posters?
This is a real struggle for a lot of people, myself included. Hence the hype.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#17There's some real things I want to appreciate & root into here, but as a geek growing up, one of my greatest & most persistence annoyances was how easy & happy it was for so many around me to pick being so ignorant, so blind, so insular. Heck yes ignoring the world & big matters makes you happier. Heck yes keeping blinders on & seeing less is safer, more secure, simpler. But fuck that. Fuck ignorance. Face things, se…
I think that in the context of social media it is less about ignoring the world & big matters but rather that you're getting a very biased view of the things that in the end is often useless and cause no tangible behavioral change in you.
The "fuck ignorance, face things" can be used to shove information down someone's throat that adds nothing to the person's life except maybe misery. Being informed about stuff you can do nothing about that won't cause any tangible behavioral change (except maybe adding stress and anxiety) is not novel for the sake of it.
A rock that can't move, act or communicate that know the truth of the world, or Kardashians family dynamics, is no better than a rock that don't.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#18Does this include HN? Asking for a friend. Snark aside, why is this a recurring obsession of HN posters?
> why is this a recurring obsession of HN posters?
Most of us would have doom scrolled in one form or another, many do it regularly, which can be hugely detrimental to life satisfaction in the same way any addiction could be, and can also increase anxiety. It's also in the interest of app makers to encourage these mostly destructive habits.
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#19I did the same for Twitter. I turned off notifications. And I check it only when I feel like it. Read up on some things. Comment. And then go away. It’s been amazing.
I read more. I have much more time to spend doing other more social things in meat space. It’s been amazing to just turn off and the notification thing was the key: turning them off allowed me to control when I used the app and not the other way around (because a red notification counter triggers me to check it out etc.).
Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious
#20At Facebook / Meta, employees often questioned Mark Zuckerberg whenever a study like this came out. Zuckerberg noted that the same held true for news media. Reporters do not like to mention this.
My Twitter feed is basically the news. The first 4 of 5 posts are from established news organizations or about current events. Social media vs news media is a distinction without a difference.