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My life after quitting social media

durmonski.com

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Re: My life after quitting social media

#151

Post by Karrot_Kream »

ceronman wrote: post #93

I don't use Facebook or Instagram. But I use Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and Hacker News. I used to think that this is not that bad, after all, I'm consuming actually good content, not silly stuff like in those other networks. But then I was shocked to see how much time I'm actually spending on these networks. This is easy to see in the "Digital Wellbeing" section of modern phones. It was hours, several each day. I was…

As someone susceptible to very similar social media addiction habits from the same media, I found that specifically circumscribing the content I consume from Youtube, HN, and Reddit helps a lot. I usually use RSS or build my own scrapers for sites and have them fetch new content every few minutes. That means I'm forced to consume content that I specifically opted-in for and I'm not in a constant consumption loop. For me that's enough distance that I can disengage easily, but enough connection that I feel social.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#152

Post by jimmygrapes »

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #63
lxm wrote: post #42

I recommended it in a similar discussion before, but Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" offers reasonable ways to introduce intermittent fasting patterns into your social media consumption vs quitting cold turkey. Some sample strategies to adopt: 1) Mobile sites only, never apps. Always log out when done to increase the friction of subsequent logins. The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bo…

What would Cal have us do on the can, if not doom scroll Twitter?

That's why Readers Digest existed

Re: My life after quitting social media

#153

Post by karaterobot »

valbaca wrote: post #66
lxm wrote: post #42

I recommended it in a similar discussion before, but Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" offers reasonable ways to introduce intermittent fasting patterns into your social media consumption vs quitting cold turkey. Some sample strategies to adopt: 1) Mobile sites only, never apps. Always log out when done to increase the friction of subsequent logins. The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bo…

> The most insidious pattern of mindless engagement is when you're bored at the checkout line, waiting in-between meetings with nothing to do, sitting on the toilet. Just curious, why is this considered the "most insidious"? Isn't that time wasted anyway? Before cellphones you would just stare off into space (you're not getting any deep thinking or deep work done waiting in line) or would just browse the gum or trash…

> Just curious, why is this considered the "most insidious"?

I think it's insidious not because it is inherently worse to check your phone than it is to stare into space at odd moments (that may be true, but I don't think that was the point). It's insidious because it's not a conscious decision you're making to do something because you want to, it's more like a tic, or a sign of addiction.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#154

Post by jcun4128 »

manuel_w wrote: post #134
jcun4128 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

low effort post: I've been thinking about a (real time) 3D point-cloud (news articles) NLP-summation visualization of the news, seeing it skew towards certain directions like war or something as the "absolute worst case". My data source would be for example Reddit's API for worldnews/news top rated.

That would be very interesting. Some other data researcher has dipped into this a bit: SpiegelMining – Reverse Engineering von Spiegel-Online (33c3): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YpwsdRKt8Q * English version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYviBstTUwo

Yeah this thing here https://youtu.be/bYviBstTUwo?t=1411 I gotta get to a point where I can make that, the weights/math part.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#155

Post by unraveller »

Zamicol wrote: post #19
kylegalbraith wrote: post #15

Interesting and insightful read. But the Facebook and Twitter share buttons at the bottom were....ironic.

Also, is Hacker News social media?

Sure is, I'd go one step further, if you can't stand having your karma hidden from you (via self-imposed adblocker rule) then you are still addicted to the social network feedback loop and somewhere making compromise for it.

  news.ycombinator.com###me
  news.ycombinator.com##td:nth-of-type(3) > .pagetop

Re: My life after quitting social media

#156

Post by jcun4128 »

jimmygrapes wrote: post #150
jcun4128 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

low effort post: I've been thinking about a (real time) 3D point-cloud (news articles) NLP-summation visualization of the news, seeing it skew towards certain directions like war or something as the "absolute worst case". My data source would be for example Reddit's API for worldnews/news top rated.

You might be interested in http://news-explorer.mybluemix.net/?query=Current%20Events&t...

Oh that's cool. Thanks for that link

Re: My life after quitting social media

#157

Post by unraveller »

winternett wrote: post #27

It's almost impossible to promote art and music organically these days without being involved in social media. It's different than traditional sinful addictions in that way... Product designers don't realize that each user has a different purpose for using social media, and totally different goals, while the basic narrative is that all of social media is dedicated towards selling products and building online celebrit…

Social sites were always on a quest to attract those with the greatest promotional capability, from start to finish. If the sites were about fairness they'd limit everyone/everything to not exceed the average reach.

They should really be called Promotional Networks. Their incentive structure is not set up to advance any intellectual specialisation except through a lens of promotion. Consider the fact that the biggest platforms must go "external" to find fact-checker organisations, it proves my point that no great intellecting is happening within the platform. It's ironic given that fact-checking is itself employed in an act of phoney self-promotion, to not-so-subtly suggest intellectual pursuits must be occurring here, excessively so, since "corrections" are needed.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#158

Post by auspex »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #133
legrande wrote: post #99

I quit social media for a year and nothing magical happened to me. I think it's because I never really had a problem with it, since all my feeds were heavily curated and I didn't scroll through mountains of noise. The content I consume is always high quality, because I made social media work for me. I avoid Instagram since it's too visual and full of posers. Twitter is more real and authentic. Facebook is mostly for…

I'm at almost a week since looking at Facebook. Like you, I curated the content pretty well, but also wanted to avoid it being an echo chamber, so I don't think I unfriended more than 5 people in a decade because I disagree with them politically. Those were only because they were constantly posting inflammatory memes, always picking fights, and full of negativity. I don't need that in my life or in my feed. A few wee…

Surveys to farm your password reset answers.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#159

Post by ldiracdelta »

m90 wrote: post #11
brightball wrote: post #4

> Social media is like cigarettes and alcohol. Toxic. Addictive. Yet widely accessible. I never thought I would say this...but I have to wonder if cigarettes and alcohol may be healthier options than social media, simply because they usually accompany real social lives? EDIT: To be clear, any addictive substance is a bad choice. Please entirely disregard this analogy in that sense.

You can drink a lot when alone.

I bought a time lock safe that only opens Friday and Saturday from 6am to 10am. "Pre-comitting" to not drinking was very helpful for me.

Used to do the same thing with gaming. Encrypted windows and whensend.com the key to me in the future. Can't game on the linux drive.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#160

Post by unraveller »

brightball wrote: post #4

> Social media is like cigarettes and alcohol. Toxic. Addictive. Yet widely accessible. I never thought I would say this...but I have to wonder if cigarettes and alcohol may be healthier options than social media, simply because they usually accompany real social lives? EDIT: To be clear, any addictive substance is a bad choice. Please entirely disregard this analogy in that sense.

The health experts have deemed cigarettes and alcohol extra unhealthy for covid spread reasons now. Social wellbeing is just not something I would entrust to a sector not very well adjusted to work-life balance and desperate for middle-class admiration.

I also have to wonder if the scientific community even wants to know if cigarettes and alcohol correlate with less covid deaths given their great hex on it. It's interesting to think what level of gain/detriment will bring them to get a mention, let alone advise increased uptake. Imagine a world where they dish out wine & ciggs at the hospital as often as they do other drugs of dependence.

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