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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#201

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

incoming1211 wrote: post #117
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…

I think if people want to 'quit' social media, then just use it to keep up to date with friends/family. You follow ONLY friends/family, and limit consumption to only that, don't consume content outside of that circle. These full fledged 'quit' posts are nothing more than an attempt at a political statement that falls on deaf ears.

Does that really work? I haven't used one of these for a while but if I recall they're quite keen to take content that your friends/family have engaged with and ram it down your throat in hopes that you will too. It seems like you'd need all of your friends/family to do the same thing.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#202

Post by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 »

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…

If someone relies on broadcast notifications to communicate, whether it be by snail mail, SMS, email, megaphone, or otherwise, maybe it is not really worth hearing?

To me, it seems like if someone has so many friends or is so busy that they need to manage their life using this strategy, you probably aren't going to have much of a connection anyway.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#203

Post by nradov »

vFunct wrote: post #189
slg wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

On Facebook at least, the algorithm is heavily tuned to prioritize major life events: births, deaths, graduations, marriages, etc. Occasionally those posts get filtered out but usually they do get prioritized near the top of your feed.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#204

Post by skeeter2020 »

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…

>> For example, if a parent died...

and yet people died quite often before social media; what did we do then?

If the realtionship is built upon the foundation of social media, it's actually not that strong, absent social media. We'll be fine.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#205

Post by skeeter2020 »

zapzupnz wrote: post #188
hypeatei wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 —…

if the goal is easier to manage and more direct, I'd argue it's not that important. Is your culture 20 years old? What did they do before?

There are lots of things in the world where the work required IS the value. Think of a hand written note from your CEO; is it still valuable if it was their assistant and a picture of the signature? "keeping in touch" is not inheriently valuable; it's the effort required that makes it so.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#206

Post by Kerrick »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #204
slg wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>> For example, if a parent died... and yet people died quite often before social media; what did we do then? If the realtionship is built upon the foundation of social media, it's actually not that strong, absent social media. We'll be fine.

Obituaries were published in newspapers. The news spread to local strangers, not just friends of friends of the deceased.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#207

Post by harvodex »

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.

I agree with you but I think we are kind of the oddballs at this point.

It does seem quite normal now to keep up with people you haven't seen in 10 years in person and will never see again. Maybe even people you would go out of your way to make sure you don't see in person but you can give them a thumbs up when they post a picture of their lunch.

I have no idea why anyone does this but it would be hard for me to say that not having any social media like us is "normal".

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#208

Post by syndicatedjelly »

qwertytyyuu wrote: post #32

Does hacker news count as social media?

No, it’s a forum. Everyone sees the exact same website (except for user-setting tweaks). There is no concept of “friends” or “followers”. The wensite intentionally looks boring so that the design doesn’t lure you too stick around too long.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#209

Post by jader201 »

nradov wrote: post #200
jader201 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know a lack of social media meant that I have lost touch with old acquaintances completely I think that’s a feature, not a bug. Most of the life updates people post on social media are the best of the best, which is what triggers so much fomo and trying to measure up. That’s why social media makes most people feel worse about their own lives. (Not to mention all of the other garbage these platforms try to push on…

I don't know about other people but social media doesn't make me feel worse about my life. There's no fomo when my 2nd cousin in another state posts about having a baby. She's important to me, and I don't expect her to waste time emailing me directly when the rest of the extended family is all on social media.

Sure, events/posts like that are the main upside to social media.

Unfortunately, that makes up a tiny fraction of most feeds.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#210

Post by supriyo-biswas »

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote: post #202
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…

If someone relies on broadcast notifications to communicate, whether it be by snail mail, SMS, email, megaphone, or otherwise, maybe it is not really worth hearing? To me, it seems like if someone has so many friends or is so busy that they need to manage their life using this strategy, you probably aren't going to have much of a connection anyway.

Let us just say that not all friendships, even the ones that start out strong, end up having the same depth to them because of the loss of shared context (e.g. moving out of the same city for jobs, new responsibilities caused by marriage etc.)

In such cases, there's still some reason for the two people involved to at least have a general idea of what's going on in other people's lives, and even reach out should there be something significant, such as a birth of a child or a loss in their families, etc. Without the broadcast aspect, once communication has ceased for some amount of time, it is very difficult to restart it, at any level.

As an introvert, I still find broadcasts weird, because there's that tingling notion that people wouldn't care anyway; and was one of the reasons I ceased to be on social media many years ago. However, I understand why some people choose to do things differently.

(There are similar anecdotes throughout this thread, I'd encourage you to read it for perspectives on this matter.)

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