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The benefits of staying off social media

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Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#271

Post by nobody9999 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #258
nobody9999 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The filler small talk content isn't the substance, it's the launching point for those more substantive conversations. While that's certainly possible, it doesn't need to be a launching point for anything . It can just be an offhand remark, a chuckle and a reply and off you go. Not every interaction needs to have some sort of agenda or goal associated with it. At least that's how I see it.

The "launching point" is often the scary part . If I knew that every remark from a stranger was just a remark and I could say thanks and move on with my life I'd feel much better. Instead it's a tightrope walk. You have to be appreciative but not too appreciative, you need to be disinterested but not too disinterested. Sometimes it doesn't matter and you lose anyway. Appear too appreciative and you're hounded by some…

>The "launching point" is often the scary part. If I knew that every remark from a stranger was just a remark and I could say thanks and move on with my life I'd feel much better.

>Instead it's a tightrope walk. You have to be appreciative but not too appreciative, you need to be disinterested but not too disinterested. Sometimes it doesn't matter and you lose anyway.

You don't have to do anything. A polite nod and walking away isn't bad, but not even that is required.

>Appear too appreciative and you're hounded by someone (or worse, I've had friends that have been followed)... look too disinterested and you've earned their ire.

Well, yes, there are crazies out there, and it's probably best to stay away from them. But IME, those folks are few and far between.

>I will note that this is largely a problem of male strangers talking to women (it's not universal of course, I've personally witnessed these issues across all varieties of people).

Yes. That's definitely a problem. And one that pisses me off a great deal. But that's not a problem with small talk, that's a problem with entitled assholes and the aforementioned crazies.

That's not about small talk though. That's about power and, sadly, that's always been, and likely always will be, a problem.

And women have had to come up with a variety of ways to deal with this. Whether it's to ignore the person and walk away or politely (or not so politely) decline to continue the interaction.

Until every human is well-adjusted and relatively sane (meaning never), that will be an issue.

You appear to be arguing that because a small group of jerks make interaction occasionally uncomfortable, no one should ever interact with anyone. That seems a little extreme to me.

Note that I'm not telling you (or anyone else) what to do or not do.

Edit: clarified my prose.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#272

Post by GDC7 »

tayo42 wrote: post #261
GDC7 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social anxiety spurs from not being popular or commanding a presence in a room, not being in the "in" crowd. In short it spurs from not being a winner. The socially anxious person maybe knows at the intellectual level that social wins can be achieved by working the numbers game, but they are too apathetic or nihlistic or scared that their first attempt is going to be a loss which will further depress them. When you i…

I don't get what a social win/loss is?

Again success, dominating the room, being at the center of the attention at parties, people being receptive when you go talk to them, after the aforementioned positive reception also showing openess for a second encounter.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#273

Post by Domenic_S »

watwut wrote: post #255
Domenic_S wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many strategies and pacing that exposure therapy can take (the link I provided has several examples); the slow, deliberate process you describe is one of them, as is what's being described upthread.

If you don't do it deliberately, it is not therapy tho. And there is effect of becoming oversensitive when encountering strong stressor randomly and often. I stead of getting less sensitive people can start reacting more aggressively at smaller threat.

Saying to yourself, "I will respond with 1 line of dialog to the next person who hits me up" is deliberate, although the event itself will come randomly.

Your train of thought here reflects classic avoidant behavior -- it's not therapeutic unless I'm in control of all the variables. Certainly you're correct depending on the type of fear being extinguished -- dropping buckets of spiders randomly on someone afraid of spiders isn't likely to help things at all, nor is dropping someone with GAD in the middle of a crowded concert -- but for the particular phobia (social anxiety) and exposure (small talk with strangers in public) we're talking about in this thread, it's definitely the low-stakes kind of exposure exposure therapy aims to provide.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#274

Post by nobody9999 »

ipdashc wrote: post #267
nobody9999 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The filler small talk content isn't the substance, it's the launching point for those more substantive conversations. While that's certainly possible, it doesn't need to be a launching point for anything . It can just be an offhand remark, a chuckle and a reply and off you go. Not every interaction needs to have some sort of agenda or goal associated with it. At least that's how I see it.

I agree completely. Continuing the conversation, and using it as a launching point for something substantial, is a reasonable reaction. Stopping the conversation with a friendly dismissal, a "chuckle and a reply and off you go" as you said, is a reasonable reaction. Reacting rudely and thinking "who are you, why are you subjecting me to the labor and chore of talking to you?" is not a reasonable reaction.

>Stopping the conversation with a friendly dismissal, a as you said, is a reasonable reaction.

To clarify, I didn't mean that "chuckle and a reply and off you go" was the means to extricate oneself from such a situation although, as you said, it's a reasonable thing to do.

I meant that an "offhand remark, a chuckle and a reply and off you go" was the whole point of such an interaction -- not some sort of prelude to something beyond that.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#275

Post by honkdaddy »

tremon wrote: post #222
munchbunny wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an over-correction around the introversion/extroversion divide. It's true that sometimes I just don't want to be bothered while I'm running errands, but I wouldn't consider someone making small talk, cracking a joke in the elevator, etc. to be some sort of social transgression. As an introvert, chatting or small talk isn't really a chore, and I waste enough of my own time on my own time, so what's a few…

cracking a joke in the elevator I disagree with this. What people consider funny varies a lot from person to person, and a stranger trying to joke with me comes across as rude. A friendly nod, saying hello, that's fine. Approaching me and immediately assuming that we have enough in common to enjoy the same humor? Sorry, but that's creepy.

>a stranger trying to joke with me comes across as rude

This is such a miserable perspective.

Yes, in theory, humour varies significantly amongst different groups. But if we're in the elevator together and I mistakenly press the Door Open instead of Door Close and I jokingly apologize for the delay and that we'll be taking off shortly, the idea of you being offended or "creeped out" by such a harmless joke is ridiculous to me.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#276

Post by honkdaddy »

irrational wrote: post #113
ipdashc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

> Most of us consider (or used to consider; and I'm not even old) that enjoyable. Eh, I’m 50 years old and don’t really use social media (certainly not Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, twitter, etc.). I don’t even really text other people. But, I don’t agree with your sentiment. I’ve never understood people who want to have small talk with strangers. It is the opposite of enjoyable.

Someone complimented my hat in the subway today. I mentioned I got it back in Toronto, and we chatted about how disappointed we are in the Leafs.

What is so unenjoyable about that? How can one spend 50 years on this earth and find human conversation, something we literally evolved to do, so uninviting? I just don't understand.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#277

Post by jgon »

jimbokun wrote: post #147
etothepii wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a hard to substantiate claim, IBM, HP and Oracle didn't become "also rans" due to government intervention. I'd like to hear the pitch for why FAANG is "different".

Microsoft arguably did. The anti-trust action against them did not cost them a lot of cash directly, but it did lead to heightened scrutiny on further anti-competitive practices. And it wasn't too long after that the FAANGs came to displace Microsoft as the dominant technology companies. Could be a coincidence, but I personally feel like there was a connection.

You'd have to think that if Microsoft hadn't been hit with the anti-trust baton, that they would have never tolerated a program like Firefox becoming as popular as it did, let alone Chrome, and that they would have been much more successful at keeping the web neutered or at least highly captive to whatever they let Internet Explorer define, and at that point how do you get things like Facebook and Google coming about and becoming as big as they did?

Imagine a world where IE6 never has to compete against Firefox because every version of Firefox is mysteriously "broken" by the latest windows update. "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" for the late 90's early 2000s. I think that its a very realistic thing to think that anti-trust played a huge part in allowing the open web to flourish as it, even with MS fighting as hard as it could to stall it out with IE stagnation.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#278

Post by perrygeo »

tumblewit wrote: post #105

I deleted FB 2 years ago, Twitter 2.5 years ago and Instagram 1 year ago. Most close friends found zero problems connecting with me. That’s cause they call, text or we just meet. It’s almost like I started to live in the ‘real’ life rather than a made up one. It felt weird and underwhelming at times but it is horrifying how much we can get sucked into social media without even knowing most of the times. The withdrawa…

Agreed. I deleted my accounts on (almost) every social media provider who I did not feel respected my basic human rights and didn't look back. Did I loose touch with anyone? Maybe, but if my connection to them was mediated only by social media, it's worth it.

It's a basic matter of self-respect. Do you want to choose how you control your attention? Or do you want to give up that control (and respect) by letting facebook et. al. choose for you?

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#279

Post by [deleted] »

nobody9999 wrote: post #271
micromacrofoot wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "launching point" is often the scary part . If I knew that every remark from a stranger was just a remark and I could say thanks and move on with my life I'd feel much better. Instead it's a tightrope walk. You have to be appreciative but not too appreciative, you need to be disinterested but not too disinterested. Sometimes it doesn't matter and you lose anyway. Appear too appreciative and you're hounded by some…

>The "launching point" is often the scary part. If I knew that every remark from a stranger was just a remark and I could say thanks and move on with my life I'd feel much better. >Instead it's a tightrope walk. You have to be appreciative but not too appreciative, you need to be disinterested but not too disinterested. Sometimes it doesn't matter and you lose anyway. You don't have to do anything. A polite nod and w…

[deleted]

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#280

Post by seoulmetro »

afavour wrote: post #43

Not to dispute anything the article says, but a reminder: Hacker News is social media too. Which is fine! But I often see comments on here (typically under any article about Facebook) where the poster says they’ve deleted all social media and their life is much better for it, etc etc. No you haven’t because you’re still on here. No problem with that as long as you’re getting value from the time you spend here, but it…

>Hacker News is social media too.

Nope. Not even close.

Video games aren't social media either. These places can be used as a form of social media, but that requires quite a bit of work and a lot of profile browsing, setting up, etc.

In no form are they social media by default though.

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