Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#201

Post by aylmao » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

aylmao wrote: post #130

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

+1. I personally think this near-constant bashing of social media is getting ridiculous. These past two weeks have been all-in, article after article, non-stop. Is social media bad? You can definitely have a non-healthy relationship with it. But it didn't "break politics" [1] or "elect Trump" [2]. It was mostly just another vector for advertising. We've known of the privacy issues with Facebook for a while and the wh…

If you downvote, please comment a counter argument. I'm posting this to contribute a perspective to the discourse, and would love to know where people disagree specifically.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#202

Post by sifoo » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

How can you be so sure that's the case? It's generally very difficult to get a wider perspective from within the fish bowl, you need to step out to feel the difference. What I found, and the reason I ultimately dropped out; is that social networks make me think less of others, because it makes them look stupid and desperate; and I'm pretty sure that goes the other way as well. The corporate incentives to fuck around with our minds for profit in these networks are just too much to deal with; the entire game is rigged, there's no way to win.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#203

Post by crispyporkbites » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

AlexCoventry wrote: post #120

hashkb wrote: post #2

Social Media is so obviously bad for you/society and good only for platform owners and advertisers. Most obvious thing in the world. To me, it's not at all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different.

> not at all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different. I don't know; I'm addicted to reddit right now, and haven't noticed any greater tendencies to risky behaviors or violence.

you're not addicted to reddit, at a molecular level your body doesn't even know what reddit is

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#204

Post by wu-ikkyu » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

npsimons wrote: post #185

kragen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming's Closed Door Paradox: I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do i…

First and foremost, what evidence is there for Hamming's claim? > is worth a single disrupted morning. We're not talking about a single "disrupted" morning. We're talking about chronic depression, which can lead to suicide. Many people I tell that I don't keep up with current events like to claim I'm ignorant. At which point I ask them to name the most important thing they learned from news two weeks ago. Haven't had…

>I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today. Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least.

The "news" has been like that for a long time.

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."

-Thomas Jefferson, 1807

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_spe...

While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#205

Post by swat535 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

jacobkg wrote: post #69

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll…

I don't understand your argument...

These headlines are all over the news. It's not like not logging to facebook will magically prevent one from seeing them.

All you need to do is turn on a local news channel and voila..

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#206

Post by RandallBrown » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #126

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

> If I wouldn't do something in public, I wouldn't post it to social media. Not everyone has that freedom. Gay people in rural Alabama, women in the UAE, undocumented immigrants in Arizona. People fleeing abusive spouses. > Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? Doubtful, but you are a person who doesn't face serious consequences for existing.

If you're gay in rural Alabama, and you feel uncomfortable posting about it on Facebook because someone you know might find out, you probably aren't super comfortable going to the store or out on a date with your SO either.

But you do bring up a good point. My place of privilege in society makes it a lot easier to use Facebook without fearing the same repercussions as other people.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#207

Post by mygo » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

swat535 wrote: post #205

jacobkg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll…

I don't understand your argument... These headlines are all over the news. It's not like not logging to facebook will magically prevent one from seeing them. All you need to do is turn on a local news channel and voila..

I don’t use facebook and I didn’t even know that stephen hawking died before someone texted it to me.

Same with that famous pastor who died last month.

same with the bridge that collapsed in Miami near Florida International University.

The thing about it is, I don’t watch the news much already. I lost all respect for the news during the election when they would literally spend a week covering some sensational / gossip topic. It’s not news it’s entertainment with the occasional coverage of actual news topics. So without social media beaming every trendy headline into my eyes the moment I log in, I am ignorant to a lot of depressing stuff. Someone has to go out of their way to text it to me or I probably won’t see it. And that’s fine by me. (Yet somehow Tomi Lahren still finds a way to make it onto my SMS conversations -_-.)

In any case, aside from the depressing sensational media, facebook is also toxic because it can make you compare every aspect of your complicated life to other peoples’ highlight reels.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#208

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

turc1656 wrote: post #166

"The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom." While I do not use social media (have FB but don't use it, never had Twitter, Instagram, etc.), and have taken steps to minimizing distractions like using the browser add-on Distraction-free Youtube (which is gre…

[deleted]

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#209

Post by spondyl » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

jacobkg wrote: post #69

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll…

As horrific as it was, the NYT's "Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards, Indictment Says" bizarre headline actually made by day :)

I had to do a double take and check that I hadn't been redirected to The Onion.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#210

Post by whatyoucantsay » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

kolpa wrote: post #175

kragen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming's Closed Door Paradox: I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do i…

1.5% chance of a 5-20years cancer-induced loss is an expected gain of at most 4months of life, in exchange for giving up not just bacon but all "processed meat" for an entire lifetime , while also taking care not to replace that meat with any other carcinogens such as sugar. It's not a "single disrupted morning"

> carcinogens such as sugar.

Has any major medical body ever classified sugar as a carcinogen, or is this bro-science?