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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#181

Post by johnnyanmac »

angoragoats wrote: post #124
johnnyanmac wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much the only upside to that blue checkmark these days. Making anyone able to buy one was a huge mistake, but they will at least do the minium check to see if someone else with that name already has a checkmark.

Will they? I'd actually be surprised if there are many people that, upon receiving a suspicious message from someone who claims to be Joe Schmoe, will actually go and check to see if a different account from Joe Schmoe with a blue check. I think it's much more likely that they're either going to recognize it as a scam right away, or they won't and they'll fall for it. In either of those cases, it doesn't help for the…

There will always be someone falling for scams. No amount of safeguards will protect them if they do zero due diligence and the scammer is persistent enough. The checkmark isn't an end-all-be-all, but it's another small step someone can use to verify without too much hassle.

also, I just noticed "they" is ambiguous here. I meant "the twitter staff giving checkmarks". At least I hope they do some basic check before handing out a checkmark to an obvious impersonator.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#182

Post by noman-land »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #113
noman-land wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it. You go where the people are. That doesn't really negate anything I said except the rush part. Although being able to afford food is certainly a rush.

The part I'm raising an objection about is "[that it's] not a place for serious things". It's in many ways key to being able to do serious things, if used deliberately. It's the mindless consumption part that is bad, and the point of my original post is that you can largely engineer that away.

Let me clarify. I'm not saying serious things aren't happening there. I'm saying serious things don't belong there. You're doing serious things there despite the fact that it's an addiction machine engineered for mindless consumption. You're at the casino selling to the gamblers while they're gambling because it's the only place in a 50 mile radius where people can hang out.

I'm not talking about lowercase social media which is generally socializing online. I'm talking about the massive survelliance and engagement bait economy that props up these horrifying data behemoths that cynically run these networks for giant profits.

You're there because you have no choice. You have no choice because that's where everyone is. That's where everyone is because of inertia, addiction, and novelty.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#183

Post by johnnyanmac »

bluGill wrote: post #126
johnnyanmac wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. TBH I have no idea where or if my friend post stuff on social media anymore. I know maybe 1 person that posted updates often on Facebook, and that was pre-pandemic. Some post more business stuff on twitter. But overall I just kind of accept that sometimes I'll meet up with someone after a few years and realize "oh yeah, t…

Problem is facebook decides what you want to see unless you go to the feed which they make hard. Even then the vast majoritiy of what you see is garbage they share instead of life updates that you want. I wish there was a better way but life updates still a posted there only. Facebook is the only one that has a concept of this is a for my friends only.

Yeah, I couldn't put it into words on why "Facebook got worse over the years". But that was definitely one of the keys shifts (outside of my friends leaving). I was getting less updates from people I know and more "news that will make you angry" kind of stuff. I probably really "left" around 2017. But 2020 is when I finally got around to freezing the account.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#185

Post by hipadev23 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #180
dehrmann wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It went weirdly assumed that HN is somehow different. I don't believe in social media addiction, but addicts are known for lying to themselves and making excuses. If you're quitting social media because you don't think it's healthy, you need to look at any social media you're still on really closely.

There are several key things that make HN different: - no followers / following (no incentive to increase engagement) - no notifications of responses to comments (maybe there's a way to do this with RSS but at least it's not obvious) - no ads - no endless feed HN is much more like an RSS feed of interesting articles, where people can leave comments -- there is some back and forth (as in this case) but not a lot; it's…

HN may survive if upvote/downvotes are removed, but until then it will continue to be astroturfed and manipulated heavily to push narratives and subconsciously teach the startup/hacker community which opinions are favored and disfavored today.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#186

Post by slg »

hypeatei wrote: post #88
nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

> Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post blasted to hundreds (or thousands) of people. Or, to put it another way: if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them. I'd argue that social media has normalized keeping up with people who aren't supposed to b…

>if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them.

That ignores the asymmetry of a lot of life events. For example, if a parent died, I'm not going to call everyone in my life to tell them, I would have more important stuff on my mind. I might post it on social media and then the onus is on other people to reach out to me. And if someone doesn't reach out, it will hurt the relationship a little even if I'm not conscience of it because when I think of people who were there for me during a tough time, the friend who never knew my parent died wouldn't come to mind.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#187

Post by johnfn »

AOsborn wrote: post #138
aaarrm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's perfectly fine to learn about huge life updates from people the next time you actually speak with them. That seems normal. Seeing people's updates on a wall isn't truly keeping up with friends. Keeping up and staying in touch requires consistent deliberate effort from both parties, via phone calls, messaging, and seeing each other in person. If you're not doing that with someone, then yeah, learning abou…

No, I disagree. This is about lifestyle ergonomics and your community. Like it or not, social media has significantly reshaped the world. Issues aside, it has brought people together and made communication significantly easier than in the past. There is a reason 1/3 of the world is on Facebook. So, my point is that if you're choosing to be difficult, that is fine but you need to accept the burden falls on you. This i…

I don’t understand how you’re being “difficult” by not keeping up to date on the Facebook updates of your friends. I will of course update all my close friends 1:1 on any life changes, and I expect they will do the same to me. For everyone else, there’s nothing “difficult” about asking for a life update the next time you see them. If anything, it shows interest and is a kind thing to do.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#188

Post by zapzupnz »

hypeatei wrote: post #122
standardUser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post The landscape of human relationships is deep and broad an varied, and if making bold assumptions about what other people should value is your starting point, you're liable to miss a lot of potential connections.

Maybe I could've worded that better, but I was just providing perspective on the obsessive nature that we have on social media now. IMO, it's not "normal" to keep up with acquaintances and people from past times. They're no longer part of your life and you need to let go. If others find the life updates useful and beneficial to them, then so be it. I don't care either way.

> IMO, it's not "normal" to keep up with acquaintances and people from past times.

Fully recognising that you said "IMO", I'll say that keeping up with acquaintances and people from the past is normal in my culture. Social media helps to make that more direct and easier to manage than the gossipy grapevine of yore.

What's normal depends on your culture and context, of course, and I suspect that's not true in yours — but it is in mine, so ditching something like Facebook is just out of the question for me and many people whose cultures place a heavy emphasis on those connections between people.

The middle ground for me has been to check Facebook less and less, accelerated by the algorithm delivering me fewer life updates and more slop reposted from reddit.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#189

Post by vFunct »

slg wrote: post #186
hypeatei wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post blasted to hundreds (or thousands) of people. Or, to put it another way: if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them. I'd argue that social media has normalized keeping up with people who aren't supposed to b…

>if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them. That ignores the asymmetry of a lot of life events. For example, if a parent died, I'm not going to call everyone in my life to tell them, I would have more important stuff on my mind. I might post it on social media and then the onus is on other people to reach out to me. And if someone doesn't reach out, it will hurt the relationship a little…

Indeed and in the olden times a lot of these life events would have been announced in the local newspaper.

But these days, I don’t even know where to even buy a newspaper, let alone make sure everyone is reading it and keeping up with local news.

So social media it is, which sucks because they’re extremely edited and filtered out by the algorithm.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#190

Post by itbeho »

nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

You could just call the people most important in your life and speak and hear their updates. It would mean more to them than a comment on FB or whatever other social they are on.
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