I analysed 20 years of my chats • Hacker News Board

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#131

Post by cloche » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #34

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #30

>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances. I think I simply never developed any useful social skills which would help me make and keep friends or acquaintances. I wish I had (somehow) kept in touch with at least some people I have met throughout my life. It has never been easier to stay in contact tha…

My advice is to go somewhere in person and to keep going there consistently. It could be a club, a meetup, volunteering, etc. The internet is the fast food of socialising. While it might be quick and easy, the quality is terrible. You’ll make real life long friends just being in the same room as someone regularly and chatting face to face.

I'm the same as the parent. I've done this. I've been in groups for 2+ years and attend regularly and am not able to get any close friends out of it. I just don't form the connections that other people do. There's just something about the way I interact that doesn't cause me to get close to people. It might be something I'm doing subconsciously and I just don't know what it is. It's not like people can't stand me or anything. There's many people I can interact with normally at work or whatnot. I just don't seem to "click" with people. If anyone knows a coach or course that helps to address this, I would be interested.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#132

Post by cootsnuck » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

Nition wrote: post #7

NDlurker wrote: post #2

I wanted to do this so bad back in like 2009. I archived MSN messenger chats and my texts and everything and I figured sometime in the future I'd be able to analyze them and maybe even train a chat bot to imitate me. But over the years I lost hard drives and cell phones and accidentally deleted stuff and yeah it didn't happen. Very cool this guy was able to do it

I used to have saving turned on for my MSN Messenger chats back around 2001-2004. I didn't lose them. 10-15 years later or so I had a look through them and the cringe was so powerful that I deleted them all anyway.

I have my original gmail address from 20 years ago still and even old youtube videos my friends and I uploaded from ~18 years ago.

The cringe is rough but at some point the cringe becomes so bad it loops back around to me just feeling nostalgic and grateful that there's proof I was able to do things, create, be silly, whatever without worrying about appearances so much.

Also, I figure if I ever become a megalomaniac then old youtube videos of my teenage self doing parkour should go pretty far in humbling me (although, honestly, I think 13 year old me was way cooler than I am now, so I guess it could backfire).

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#133

Post by dan-bailey » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #30

>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances. I think I simply never developed any useful social skills which would help me make and keep friends or acquaintances. I wish I had (somehow) kept in touch with at least some people I have met throughout my life. It has never been easier to stay in contact tha…

Dude, you can still recover some of those friendships. I went through a phase during college where I alienated a TON of my friends, and that was on me. For a variety of reasons we don't need to expound upon here. I eventually reached out to them, made my apologies, and would occasionally check in and see how they were doing. A few of those friendships are repaired and growing again. I think that there's a tendency toward second chance for people who've recognized their shortcomings, worked on them, and then taken responsibility for their actions.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#134

Post by ifh-hn » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:45 PM UTC

inanutshellus wrote: post #88

ifh-hn wrote: post #69

Why do people keep chats? I have none, oldest is 6 months which is when I set my chat app to delete them. I'm the same with emails. Genuinely don't understand why you'd want to keep this stuff. I'd never go back and reread them.

Did you keep your high school yearbooks?

Hell no, I don't even think my school (British) did them. Nor would I turn up to a reunion. I'm not in contact with anyone I went to school with.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#135

Post by ifh-hn » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

pingou wrote: post #71

ifh-hn wrote: post #69

Why do people keep chats? I have none, oldest is 6 months which is when I set my chat app to delete them. I'm the same with emails. Genuinely don't understand why you'd want to keep this stuff. I'd never go back and reread them.

Why do you feel the need to delete your chats? Is it to save space? Would you still do it if you had unlimited storage?

I wouldn't keep them in any context. I literally cannot see the point. Like I said I genuinely can't understand why you'd want to.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#136

Post by ifh-hn » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

salviati wrote: post #70

ifh-hn wrote: post #69

Why do people keep chats? I have none, oldest is 6 months which is when I set my chat app to delete them. I'm the same with emails. Genuinely don't understand why you'd want to keep this stuff. I'd never go back and reread them.

I'm not sure if it needs to be said, but one thing that is possible only if you keep your old chats is the analysis TFA made.

That's a weird reason.

Thought process: I'm going to keep all my chats and in 20 years time run an analysis on them and write a blog post about it...

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#137

Post by ifh-hn » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

momento wrote: post #73

ifh-hn wrote: post #69

Why do people keep chats? I have none, oldest is 6 months which is when I set my chat app to delete them. I'm the same with emails. Genuinely don't understand why you'd want to keep this stuff. I'd never go back and reread them.

The author didn't keep the chats, the companies he interacts with did. >Armed with GDPR and data access laws, I got myself archives with all my messages, reactions, and social graphs.

So a third party stored them for the OP. Same difference. I tend to delete all my stuff.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#138

Post by ifh-hn » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

olcay_ wrote: post #89

pingou wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel the need to delete your chats? Is it to save space? Would you still do it if you had unlimited storage?

I set my chats to be automatically deleted in 24 hours. This way when we have a small argument with someone, there's less chance of someone being triggered/angered by re-reading the chat. Although there have been rare cases where I had big arguments and would've liked to have the receipts.

The only reason I default to 6 months is because 6 months appears to be the cut off after which the history is useless. It's occasionally saved my an arguement about what was agreed / said / planned. Otherwise I'd burn them after an hour.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#139

Post by dangsbrother » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #30

>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances. I think I simply never developed any useful social skills which would help me make and keep friends or acquaintances. I wish I had (somehow) kept in touch with at least some people I have met throughout my life. It has never been easier to stay in contact tha…

Zero follow ups. The perfect bait.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#140

Post by sowbug » Thu, May 28, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

ifh-hn wrote: post #69

Why do people keep chats? I have none, oldest is 6 months which is when I set my chat app to delete them. I'm the same with emails. Genuinely don't understand why you'd want to keep this stuff. I'd never go back and reread them.

Might depend on how old you are. If you're in your 20s or 30s, you probably still remember the silliest details like a childhood friend's middle name. But after that, bright memories start to fade, and trust me, it only gets worse. That's when you realize that having a little bit of memory scaffolding like old email, chats, and calendar is helpful for once-easy questions like "where did we go camping that one time when I was 28 or 29?"