Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion • Hacker News Board

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#141

Post by diggan » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:33 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #140

diggan wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the discourse about social media, the term "algorithm" is exclusively used to refer to purposefully-maligned algorithms engineered to addict and abuse people. But I feel like it misses the point. What about a service where you can design and use your own "algorithms", and it's built into the platform? Such a platform would have thousands of algorithms, but none of them designed for chasing money or engagement, j…

Such a platform is not a hypothetical: https://docs.bsky.app/docs/starter-templates/custom-feeds

Was kind of hoping it'd take people longer time to notice where the idea came from :) But also kind of cheating for you to bring it up, but understand it's hard to resist.

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#142

Post by mallowdram » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:35 PM UTC

The acceleration (into automation) of language and images - both arbitrary units - requiring cost-benefit for shareholders inevitably reduces the input to noise and then chaos. Because the dark matter of language is control, bias, manipulation for status, status becomes the central factor, not the sharing.

That we bemoan sub-industries of media, rather than notice the system effects across it is suspicious.

“… if we say that linguistic structure "reflects" social structure, we are really assigning to language a role that is too passive ... Rather we should say that linguistic structure is the realization of social structure, actively symbolizing it in a process of mutual creativity. Because it stands as a metaphor for society, language has the property of not only transmitting the social order but also maintaining and potentially modifying it. (This is undoubtedly the explanation of the violent attitudes that under certain social conditions come to be held by one group towards the speech of others.)” Excerpts from Halliday Language and Society Volume 10

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#143

Post by gethly » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:39 PM UTC

internet too was a great place before there were too many people online. social networks met the same fate. there is a critical mass for the amount of interacting people that when reached, the system becomes the opposite of what it was built for - connection.

i guess it goes back to the Dunbar's Number, but on steroids. on the other hand, too much of anything turn from good to bad so it's not unexpected result either way.

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#144

Post by bdangubic » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:45 PM UTC

skydhash wrote: post #138

II2II wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The over generalization of the term social media drives me bonkers. In the olden days we had things like message boards , forums , and chat rooms . Then came social networks . All of those terms reflect some sort of connection between people. When I see the term social media , I associate it with one way relationships. It is about connecting businesses to customers, not the other way around. It is about connecting se…

> It is about connecting businesses to customers, not the other way around. A pet peeve of mine is when businesses reject the marketing channel they own (their websites) to adopt platforms like X or Instagram. Use them, yes, but do publish on your own site (and adopt RSS along the way).

except no one goes to their website or uses rss. it is unfortunately a waste of time for small niche group that finds it useful

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#145

Post by jfengel » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:45 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #88

mattikl wrote: post #15

When social media emerged, I remember how excited I was how it could connect like-minded people around the world. Now in 2025, the leader of the biggest platforms is talking about making people less lonely by connecting them to AI chatbots instead of making people find one another. That just feels like a huge lost potential.

> When social media emerged, I remember how excited I was how it could connect like-minded people around the world. I remember that feeling of being blown away at talking (typing) with people across the world without any limitations! But for me this was in the late 80s and earliest 90s on the Internet. When all communication was standards-based, fully interoperable and completely free. What we call today "social medi…

Email is still completely open. Even Usenet still exists. There may be more people on it now than there were in the 80s, just because it was so tiny then. (The entirety of Usenet before Eternal September fits on a thumb drive.)

I believe that what has changed is less about technology or even money, but about people. In your time frame, everyone on the Internet was an academic techie. You could bump into a random person on IRC and have something to talk about.

You can connect with vastly more people today, but they are less likely to be of interest to you. You're spoiled for choice: there are now a trillion chat rooms instead of a thousand. It's harder to find your people.

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#146

Post by fullshark » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:46 PM UTC

roomey wrote: post #9

Fall, or Dodge in hell, by Neil Stephenson has a take on this. The internet is flooded with slop and rage-bait on purpose. So filled as to be unusable, like a firehose of shit. So in there comes a role if "editor" whose job it is (you pay them) to only give you, well not even what's "true", rather what reflects your world view. So which editor you have becomes a factor in how you live, where your educated, your statu…

Algorithmic feeds, search result pages, and LLM responses with web citations are all different editors. It's just a computer doing the editing.

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#147

Post by darkpicnic » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:46 PM UTC

gethly wrote: post #143

internet too was a great place before there were too many people online. social networks met the same fate. there is a critical mass for the amount of interacting people that when reached, the system becomes the opposite of what it was built for - connection. i guess it goes back to the Dunbar's Number, but on steroids. on the other hand, too much of anything turn from good to bad so it's not unexpected result either…

I created an open source tool to help apps stay near the Dunbar Number: https://highlyprobable.io/articles/ten-cubed. I think the concept of social networks is interesting, but the ultimate unbounded result is a disaster.

Edit (missing link to github repo): https://github.com/darkpicnic/ten_cubed

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#148

Post by marginalia_nu » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:49 PM UTC

dsign wrote: post #125

marginalia_nu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's true but supposedly some birds will eat indigestible cigarette butts thinking they are food, then starve to death because their stomach is full. Feels a lot like what going all-in on social media does to your social life. Interacting with real people is rewarding and can boost your energy. Social media is exhausting and drains your energy so you don't feel like talking to real people.

> Interacting with real people is rewarding and can boost your energy. Not for everybody. Me and a work friend are considered "highly energetic" by our colleagues when we are at the office in person, to the point that people and things soon find themselves in orbit around us. But the truth is that when we come home, we both feel drained and exhausted for the next day or two. For me, it's as if my entire mind and soul…

You well as with anything you can definitely go overboard, and the type of social interaction matters fairly significantly. There's a difference between spending all day at work, and spending a few hours with a good friend.

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#149

Post by HPsquared » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 12:53 PM UTC

mattikl wrote: post #15

When social media emerged, I remember how excited I was how it could connect like-minded people around the world. Now in 2025, the leader of the biggest platforms is talking about making people less lonely by connecting them to AI chatbots instead of making people find one another. That just feels like a huge lost potential.

An AI chatbot is just the next stage on "like-minded people" continuum. It's a machine that bends over backwards to match what the user wants from it. (Maybe unhealthy but it's just the next step after interacting with anon posters over a shared niche interest)

Re: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion

#150

Post by Juliate » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:02 PM UTC

tumdum_ wrote: post #93

Juliate wrote: post #28

Tangentially related, I've read recently (Twitter? article?) someone longing for having separate devices again: one for music, one for social networks, one for photography, one for email, etc. Because unifying everything down to a single one dumbed us down and gave unwarranted control to fewer and fewer people on what we may listen to, what we may write, what we may photograph, what we may share. And how and where an…

> someone longing for having separate devices again: one for music, one for social networks, one for photography, one for email, etc. It’s is perfectly possible today. Sony still produces Walkmans and there are 100s digital cameras (not to mention analog ones). I don’t think there was ever a time when SM and e-mail had separate devices.

No, indeed, but^W and that would be an interesting use case. What would a dedicated social media device work, and look like? (actually, that may depend a lot on what privacy one can expect out of it)