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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#231

Post by ncr100 »

ofcourseyoudo wrote: post #230
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…

Thinking you can blast something on social media and your friends and family will see it is an old mentality. Even non super tech-savvy people know now what the algorithms are, and they know that everyone regularly misses updates from everyone else. And that light connection to people through social media wasn't a thing that created "close friends" anyway. It add to those weak connections that do have value but I dou…

Nice.

Maybe part of the seeming increasing anxiety of society is that we don't have friends in the correct sense and instead we have "friends" in the "just another user ID attached to a database query for your user ID" sense.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#232

Post by eGQjxkKF6fif »

dehrmann wrote: post #137
amikaeel wrote: post #42

I deleted social media around 2.5 years ago. After feeling extreme anxiety and withdrawal for about a week I realized this was the right move. I gained massive amounts of productivity, felt more awake than ever, and realized just how many HOURS I was killing browsing. It sounds like the usual rant, but I truly think that in 10-15 years there will be a huge anti social media movement after we fully realize the damage.…

What if I told you Hacker News is social media?

Rather like minded nerds than fear mongering, fake, AI generated, influencer, 'look at how amazing my life is', 'buy this', new age spirituality 'let go of what doesn't serve you' narcissistic brainwashing the algo machines are pushing.

I like technology. I like making things I love and others can enjoy. I like when others make something they think is cool and love and enjoy and I can enjoy them too.

That's why this place is dope. I can't press 'Share' so that's not social media to me.

Plus I can have my name be FJsdkfhKFsdffflKJSHFl and nobody cares. I can just be me.

Kindness > *

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#233

Post by mr_mitm »

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…

You forgot a big one: content shown to you is not selected by an algorithm developed by a large group of talented psychologists and computer scientists that targets a very human reaction to emotion to maximize dopamine production, addiction and attention.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#234

Post by tomlockwood »

ofcourseyoudo wrote: post #230
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…

Thinking you can blast something on social media and your friends and family will see it is an old mentality. Even non super tech-savvy people know now what the algorithms are, and they know that everyone regularly misses updates from everyone else. And that light connection to people through social media wasn't a thing that created "close friends" anyway. It add to those weak connections that do have value but I dou…

Yeah! Facebook is too busy showing me content farm AI slop to show me my cousin's baby photos.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#235

Post by shaky-carrousel »

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 your acquaintances didn't take the time to update you directly, then maybe either the updates or the acquaintances themselves aren't really relevant for you. And that's ok.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#236

Post by godelski »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #93
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. 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…

  > Of course, the first thing men will say after that meeting is simply "I've been fine, can't complain. How about you?".
Some of this is natural (though I don't believe healthy) but I think some of this is due to social media where people expect others to be aware of all their major events. Ironically I find this aspect of social media fairly dehumanizing. It disincentivizes direct communication. Why tell someone about things they already know? Getting the first account always coveys so much more than a facebook post. Sometimes I think we've forgotten how to talk to one another and read all the communication besides that in text. Text is at such a higher compression rate and it certainly isn't lossless. No matter how many emojis, memes, or images you include.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#237

Post by jhbadger »

Kerrick wrote: post #206
skeeter2020 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

They still are. The issue is not many people read newspapers (whether paper or online) these days.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#240

Post by junto »

I quit Facebook recently when I realized that the only reason I was going there was for the targeted Amazon ads.

They were so good and knew exactly what kinds of things would interest me, that it kept me coming back (subconsciously).

However in Amazon’s own app and website, they really have poor suggestions.

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