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The benefits of staying off social media

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Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#131

Post by gameman144 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #102
ipdashc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

>I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or something, trying to make friendly conversation with another shopper next to them, along the lines of "oh that's a cool hat". And the consensus of the thread was "yeah that's awful, why would you do that, why are you subjecting them to the labor of talking to you" or such. This is kind of an American way o…

I hear this all the time I'm these discussions, but I call bunk. Sure, small talk is filler content, but you're not going to jump straight into the more meaningful conversations with people you don't yet know.

The filler small talk content isn't the substance, it's the launching point for those more substantive conversations.

For instance, maybe you got the hat at a concert in Wichita, and this person at the gas station grew up in Wichita. Maybe they spent their career designing hats. Maybe their deceased kid used to love hats and seeing it reminded them of their kid. You don't know what the "actually interesting" topics available are until you actually spend ten seconds talking to someone.

As with almost anything, people are free to ignore you or reject social conventions, that's totally their right. But it's also totally fine to try to start a conversation with someone.

You're right that some people, for one reason another, might not want to carry a conversation. In those cases, they can simply not carry the conversation. One of the joys of being human, though, is commiserating with fellow humans. If the location isn't one where conversation is strictly verboten (e.g. movie theaters, gym machines, library study rooms), I see no reason why people shouldn't (respectfully) see if the other is up for a conversation.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#132

Post by ianbicking »

After long being skeptical of approaches that just cut out social media I'm giving it a serious consideration. (I know, very brave of me.) But my main reason is that I feel, over years of consumption, that it has put me in a constantly critical perspective. I'm always wondering "is this a good take?" or "is this thing in the world good or bad?" or "am I doing the right thing?" – there's a kind of toxic self-reflection, both of myself and the world, and I have to untrain my mind.

Facebook is fairly low on the list of places with this perspective. Twitter, some of Reddit (really depends on the sub), Hacker News, and a lot of regular media and podcasts are centered on this critical perspective.

Yet I don't want to just cut things out. I'm getting something from this media consumption. But I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly what, and if I can figure it out then maybe it will be clearer what can replace that consumption, satisfy my healthy desires, and exclude these psychologically negative feedback cycles.

Something that I am feeling right now is that self-improvement culture is in this same constellation of negative feedback cycles. The image of the Perfect Me Without Social Media is a barrier of its own... the me that quietly reads a book in the evening, that joyfully exercises each morning, that is just super present for my children, that is pondering all of life's big questions and just killing it at each of these things. It's unreasonable, it's absurd. I have a set of revealed preferences in the way I live my life, and that ain't it. I am sure I could satisfy those desires in a more healthy way, but I need to start with some basic respect for the real me.

So, bringing it back to the article: "I believe that these days you should focus more on doing, not on consuming." And man, I don't know...

Going deeper, I think this critical mindset is this domination of my superego, of some judging force looming over my own consciousness. That judging force is ME of course, but I've created enough stories and spectral visions of this force that it feels real.

I've started consciously putting that bit of myself aside lately, and it's worked better than I would have expected... but as soon as I tell myself "I should focus more on doing and not on consuming" then I'm inviting that little fucker right back into my head.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#133

Post by adventured »

ipdashc wrote: post #90
pkdpic wrote: post #12

> A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social…

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

> Guys... we're humans. It isn't a crime to make small talk. It's not a chore to open your mouth.

That's not uncommon in many parts of Europe, Germany for example. People in Germany are commonly rude (compared to American standards) in response to attempts at small talk (by strangers). Some cultures plainly frown upon small talk with strangers and in those cultures people find it uncomfortable at best.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#134

Post by GingerMidas »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #95
ipdashc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

I think it's because reddits user base has significantly decreased in age. I have been using it since late 2012, which even then I felt like a late adopter. The content on Reddit back then was like a more ”normie" version of HN and slashdot. It had good articles consistently with maybe 1 or 2 default meme subreddits. Then Reddit started cutting down content it didn't like and now it's just a leftwing cesspool of anti…

Have you considered the target age hasn't changed, but you're just a decade older now?

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#136

Post by sysadm1n »

You can have the best of both worlds. This article makes it sound as if using social media saps your creative output and potential. I've never been more creative because of social media because I've essentially trained it to be high signal. I want to follow a bunch of artist friends on Instagram because it inspires me, and helps me keep up with my contemporaries. The artists of olde would be jealous of today's platforms.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#138

Post by pjc50 »

justapassenger wrote: post #15
civilized wrote: post #5

I have no idea how HN does it (I hear this "dang" guy plays a big role) but HN shows the possibility of a largely positive and edifying social media IMO. I have maybe needed a break from time to time though. I generally don't take that break but maybe I should... EDIT: I know we're not supposed to comment on downvotes but it was very funny to me that the first vote I got on this comment was a down. Like, "HN sucks! H…

HN is a huge echo chamber. That’s a characteristic of a most of social medias, and can have very bad consequences. But in this case it’s just geeks talking about tech. If you’d make HN general network, it wouldn’t be any better than other todays networks, as growth to general public is what kills them.

I don't think it's possible to have a functioning long term community that someone doesn't denounce as an "echo chamber". A more favourable view would be to call it "shared values" and "common ground".

> as growth to general public is what kills them.

Negative returns to scale.

What we want is perhaps not one big social network, but lots of little fragmented ones with no particular expectation that everyone will be on the same ones. Kind of like not expecting everyone to be in the same friends group in the real world.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#139

Post by supernovae »

pkdpic wrote: post #12

> A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social…

I sort of raged on twitter the other day that what we call "community" (while online) is sick. I'll take my example of Astrophotography - the "online community" is soul sucking, competitive and not nice at all - sort of hundreds of assholes all competing to be the biggest asshole... Yet, the astronomy clubs that meet in person that are shrinking in numbers and dwindling over the years (the comet just a little while ago was a saving grace here for sure - hope we get more!) are the nicest, most sincere people but they have other drawbacks..

The in human ones tend to socialize around being social in permanence - always meetup at every start party, volunteer, join the board - help it survive - it's hard to do with our terrible work life balance we have today - stay up all night to look at stars and go to work and volunteer? ouch...

But the online communities? All it is is bragging rights - nothing is ever good enough, fun enough unless you dedicate yourself to being "That asshole" - and it boggles my mind that astrophotography has that concept at all... Those assholes are often depressed jerks with more money to burn than anyone else can burn and the "community" loves it up.

It ends up being all about the insta... all about the reddit points... all about the discord infamy

10 years ago, it was all about "how to buy this web cam and modify it for astrophotography to get fun shots"... today its "dump 50 grand to buy this or your spending money on meme gear lol gtfo you dumbass"

how did we get here?

The irony of raging on twitter is hardly anyone replied because twitter is all about playing to the algo and it feels like everyone on twitter who has a following just uses it to complain about burnout, depression, ADHD and other illnesses that to me - seem to be a symptom of the "twitter community" - which isn't as bad as Facebook, but is still largely biased to suffering

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#140

Post by harlanji »

There is a pretty big omission which is life before and after the lockdowns. I was not on social media until about a year before lockdowns when I was set back and lost my ability to be employed in tech, and used Twitter as a way to stay plugged into the news and engage.

Enter pandemic, I was isolated in my car and would have had literally had no casual human contact without the T. Couldn't go sit in a library or cafe and chat with people, etc., as I have for most of my adult life. Granted this is an extreme case, but it illustrates an upside of social media during lockdowns at least.

I'm working on the data of this, receipts and Tweet archive, while I seek employment and acclimate to refuge in a new city which shows little trace of a lockdown. I want to be off social media ASAP, don't get me wrong. I could probably quit now but if lockdowns come again then I will be back on, so I'm waiting it out--and I've taken a month off recently.

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