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Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#21

Post by dfex »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13

Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps from your phone; and finally…

For those struggling with the above, I'd add one more step that I learnt here on HN - go to assistive settings and set your phone's screen to Black & White. On the iPhone, triple clicking the lock button will do this for you.

You would be amazed how much taking colour out of the equation lowers the addictiveness of the content. I guess the people that make poker/slot machines knew about this decades ago, but I think this one step helped me more than anything else.

Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#22

Post by jaredcwhite »

I quit Facebook in 2017.

I quit Instagram in 2019.

I quit Twitter in 2022.

I quit Reddit in 2023.

I'm primarily on Mastodon and Threads at this point, but I soft-quit Threads recently because it was bad for my mental health.

I just don't think commercial social media is compatible with my brain at this point. The algorithms pull you in at first, but then they go sideways and you're addicted to garbage. It's like tabloid culture took over blogging. I hate it.

Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#23

Post by boznz »

purple-leafy wrote: post #15

I already have if you don’t count HN. You don’t need social media, and I think less of people who need the acceptance of others. I quit all social media about 10 years ago, when I wasn’t yet 20. I don’t watch or read the news either. People are sheep though, so they thought that odd. But I’m not a sheep. You soon learn the important relationships, and the pointless ones. I have nothing but HN. I don’t even have a Lin…

Hot tip. also delete and create a new HN account often then you're not invested in the replies to your posts or how many upvotes you get

Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#24

Post by skydhash »

Desafinado wrote: post #19
purple-leafy wrote: post #15

I already have if you don’t count HN. You don’t need social media, and I think less of people who need the acceptance of others. I quit all social media about 10 years ago, when I wasn’t yet 20. I don’t watch or read the news either. People are sheep though, so they thought that odd. But I’m not a sheep. You soon learn the important relationships, and the pointless ones. I have nothing but HN. I don’t even have a Lin…

Social media has it's uses. For most people it's a way to kill time, which they usually have too much of. I don't see anything wrong with that. Like you I find a lot of what people share boring, but I have had a few nice friendships made possible by social media. Without it we would have lost touch a decade ago. And there are many others who are only a click away because of it. Maybe some of these relationships aren'…

It has its advantages as you pointed out, but the issue is the torrent of garbage information it pours out. If it was possible to restrict your feed to only what you follows and have working filters, it would be great. But you don't.

And this amount of information on a singular person was only available if it was a roommate, coworker or a close friend. Which amounts to a small number of people. I don't think we were meant to deal with this.

While we also have a lot of information, interactions are starved. No real conversation is taking place. And it tends towards selfishness.

Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#25

Post by batch12 »

boznz wrote: post #23
purple-leafy wrote: post #15

I already have if you don’t count HN. You don’t need social media, and I think less of people who need the acceptance of others. I quit all social media about 10 years ago, when I wasn’t yet 20. I don’t watch or read the news either. People are sheep though, so they thought that odd. But I’m not a sheep. You soon learn the important relationships, and the pointless ones. I have nothing but HN. I don’t even have a Lin…

Hot tip. also delete and create a new HN account often then you're not invested in the replies to your posts or how many upvotes you get

The points I get, but why replies? I thought the point of this site was conversation.

Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#26

Post by austin-cheney »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #22

I quit Facebook in 2017. I quit Instagram in 2019. I quit Twitter in 2022. I quit Reddit in 2023. I'm primarily on Mastodon and Threads at this point, but I soft-quit Threads recently because it was bad for my mental health. I just don't think commercial social media is compatible with my brain at this point. The algorithms pull you in at first, but then they go sideways and you're addicted to garbage. It's like tabl…

I quit Facebook and Twitter around 2010 or so. I quit Reddit maybe around 2018. I quit IRC in 2023. I haven't deleted my account on LinkedIn yet, but I haven't updated anything on there for a while now.

Reddit felt like an echo chamber. My biggest learning from combining social media and professional programmers is that in general most developers (90% or more) cannot measure things at all. Its the same in the real world too, but its just so much more noticeable online.

Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#29

Post by BOOSTERHIDROGEN »

TRiG_Ireland wrote: post #7

As much as everyone hates it, Facebook is the only social media site with an actual clear use case. If you drop out of general interest group pages, and join only pages with people you know in real life, mostly dedicated to planning events you'll attend in real life, Facebook is a mostly pleasant experience. There's far too much advertising, of course, but I've developed some tricks to deal with that, too. I was on T…

What is the most impactful you get from AskAmanager?

Re: Have You Wanted to Quit Social Media?

#30

Post by syndicatedjelly »

boznz wrote: post #23
purple-leafy wrote: post #15

I already have if you don’t count HN. You don’t need social media, and I think less of people who need the acceptance of others. I quit all social media about 10 years ago, when I wasn’t yet 20. I don’t watch or read the news either. People are sheep though, so they thought that odd. But I’m not a sheep. You soon learn the important relationships, and the pointless ones. I have nothing but HN. I don’t even have a Lin…

Hot tip. also delete and create a new HN account often then you're not invested in the replies to your posts or how many upvotes you get

I love this idea, but have to ask - why is your account 8 years old?
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