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I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

nytimes.com

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Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#121

Post by jodrellblank »

foxhop wrote: post #37
mabbo wrote: post #4

I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice. Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good. Going to…

If you want trade the cocaine that is HN with a weed variety, you should blog. It's really fufilling. I blog publicly but also journal privately using git and vim. I have been on and off for about 5 years. The raw thoughts rarely show the light of day, but sometimes I synthesize my journal entries as blog posts or HN comments. I refine my true self for the public. This saves me from letter downvotes sway what I belie…

> you should blog. It's really fufilling.

In what way? Do you write for yourself then make it public not caring if anyone sees? That doesn't sound fulfilling; I have blog posts over the years which I have no idea if anyone ever saw and it feels a bit of a waste. Do you write as if you're trying to contribute to the world? Then doesn't that depend on feedback to know if you are succeeding or failing, and put you in the mind of "I have to create something good" as a competitor in the world of content-creation competition?

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#122

Post by jotm »

IanDrake wrote: post #67
mabbo wrote: post #4

I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice. Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good. Going to…

How did you get 17,000 HN points? Did look something like this: https://serendipitygreece.com/wp-content/uploads/comforting-... To me, this is the problem with seeking validation through these systems. You are rewarded for saying pleasing things and for conforming to group think. Why don't you spend down your points by playing devil's advocate? Then, when you run low on points, you can fill-up-the-tank by saying nice…

Spend down? You mean get flagged and banned? Because that's what will happen.

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#123

Post by arkitaip »

xurias wrote: post #87
toomuchtodo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a user script in chrome to hide my HN karma count from myself. Super helpful for focusing on what is important when contributing (along with a lot of constructive feedback from the mods over the last 8 years).

Is this publicly available? I've been looking for something like this.

If you use an adblocker like uBlock Origin, you can use the following filter to remove the top navbar:

news.ycombinator.com##.pagetop

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#124

Post by dave5104 »

polygotdomain wrote: post #118
vonseel wrote: post #21

I quit social media for a long time too. And then I noticed how disconnected I was from all my old school friends and contacts. Even close family that still uses Facebook but I otherwise don’t talk to much directly (brother’s wives posting about their kids and stuff like that, maybe even more extended than that). Really, I’m starting to think that opting out of social media altogether is a bit like opting to be a her…

The thing that makes this so much harder is that there's still an algorithm between you and your FB feed. Even if you feel you're good the check in once a week, you still don't see the "important" posts and there's still mindless noise in your feed. I don't know if there's a way to curate this, but I've found that FB is all or nothing for me (and I feel better with nothing)

One thing that helped my Facebook feed a lot was going through and unliking EVERY page/interest/book/movie/whatever (or most of them). My news feed is now only populated by actual friend posts and ads.

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#125

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

mabbo wrote: post #4

I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice. Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good. Going to…

So I've never had "Social Media", but I read Hacker News too much, and contribute a bit.

I'm wondering if Hacker News is better or worse than Facebook/Instagram.

At least on Facebook and Instagram, you usually interact with your friends, right?

Here, I feel like I read a lot of insightful posts and stories and have good discussions. But I'm not making any friends or strengthening any friendships.

Is it worth the time? I don't know. I'm definitely addicted.

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#126

Post by blobbers »

vonseel wrote: post #21

I quit social media for a long time too. And then I noticed how disconnected I was from all my old school friends and contacts. Even close family that still uses Facebook but I otherwise don’t talk to much directly (brother’s wives posting about their kids and stuff like that, maybe even more extended than that). Really, I’m starting to think that opting out of social media altogether is a bit like opting to be a her…

Perhaps missing out will create a forcing function in your life where you start to focus on the people that are important to you - whether that's your children, neighbors, parents.

Maybe you'll move locations to be closer to the people you love. I've often wondered if I might have lived in a different country if I couldn't watch my friends from afar.

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#127

Post by jniedrauer »

jonfw wrote: post #14
mabbo wrote: post #4

I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice. Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good. Going to…

I really do feel like I get a lot out of having conversations with random people on the internet. Especially a place like this, filled with intelligent people. It's really healthy to have people challenge your ideas sometimes, which happens a lot more on the internet than in real life in my experience. And there is obviously some degree of benefit in being a software developer who is tune with his fellow tech dorks.

Having my ideas challenged by strangers on the internet has been very valuable to me over the years. I do wish conversations on forums like this were transient though. It's one of the reasons I really enjoy IRC. I fear that my opinions from $CURRENT_YEAR might come back to bite me someday in the future. I should probably not use my name as a username, but ultimately I think that the BigCorps can resolve usernames to real identities without too much hassle either way.

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#128

Post by riversflow »

Swizec wrote: post #120
tyfon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone can't be arsed to call me or send me an email inviting me to their birthday then I don't consider them a friend. I have not had this issue since quitting facebook around 2011. But then again I have clearly notified those people that are actually my friends that if they want to include me they need to call or email or something like that. Nobody has issues with that and fully understand my desire to stay aw…

> If someone can't be arsed to call me or send me an email inviting me to their birthday then I don't consider them a friend. And they think the same of you. If their preferred method of communication is Facebook message, are you really a friend if you don’t care?

I do care about my friends though, which is why I’m trying to fight against the current and get them to also opt out of Facebook which I see as a toxic cancer upon society. I miss out on socializing by not smoking cigarettes too.

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#129

Post by dharmab »

compiler-guy wrote: post #52
ZWoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt similar, except in creater scale. There used to be forums and portals, where people share their experiences and knowneledge. Now many forums are almost dead, some are spam towns, some are closed. Few weeks ago was closing party for biggest local music community website. There was heathy forum but owners saw bigger picture and didn't want wait, until place dries up. Facebook seems taken over all kind communicat…

This is the most disappointing thing about the facebook revolution to me. Facebook is useful for a lot of things, but specific forums covering specific community topics have mostly died out.

Reddit kind of fills the gap for larger niches but some of the smaller niches aren't well filled

Re: I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

#130

Post by [deleted] »

mabbo wrote: post #4

I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice. Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good. Going to…

[deleted]
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