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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#311

Post by kelnos »

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…

> But overall I just kind of accept that sometimes I'll meet up with someone after a few years and realize "oh yeah, they're married now, took a trip to Japan for 6 months, and is getting some local attention from their band they made a few years ago"

This was a big thing I realized, too. For some people in my life I do genuinely want to know about those sorts of things as they are happening, and for those people I'm in frequent contact with them through text, group chat, real-life meetings, etc. But for everyone else, it is completely fine if I hear about those big life updates months or years after they happen, on the less-frequent occasions when we get together and catch up. Some relationships are different, and that's fine.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#312

Post by dep_b »

I only use social media for work and WhatsApp for staying in touch with people. WhatsApp is really the killer one that keeps me hooked into the Zuckertrump empire. Just not enough iPhones around me to use Messages, Signal use is very low even among tech friends.

People often ask me why I don't have Instagram: I'm in the business of making these platforms and Pablo Escobar never used cocaine either. I know how these platforms are built and I know how we think about the people that use it.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#313

Post by austin-cheney »

bflesch wrote: post #2

I wouldn't delete social media accounts because they might become available to register for malicious actors who can then impersonate you. Keep the accounts, just don't use them any more.

That is poor advice. There are now roughly a dozen people who have social media accounts in my name, because it’s their name too. This isn’t impersonation. It’s also not a problem.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#314

Post by physicsguy »

mariusor wrote: post #273
Over2Chars wrote: post #155

How about a simple rule of thumb: you have to actually meet or talk with a "facebook friend" (every month or more) or else delete/unfriend them . If after a few months you have zero "facebook friends" nuke the account. Internet updates are no substitute for good old meat space.

Tell me you're young without telling me you're young. Friendships are more than just meat space meetings. Children, moving countries, crazy work schedules are all reasons that can prevent you being in the physical presence o your friends. Does not seeing them for years at a time make them less friends? No, not to me.

There's a degree to how much you continue to engage with people once they've made that decision to leave though. Once someone's on the other side of the world, you're not keeping the friendship up by viewing their Instagram/Facebook posts, it's a totally one sided consumption unless you continue to speak to one another at least semi-regularly.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#315

Post by kelnos »

jjulius wrote: post #132
aaarrm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's perfectly fine to learn about huge life updates from people the next time you actually speak with them. That seems normal. Seeing people's updates on a wall isn't truly keeping up with friends. Keeping up and staying in touch requires consistent deliberate effort from both parties, via phone calls, messaging, and seeing each other in person. If you're not doing that with someone, then yeah, learning abou…

Plus it's a lot more personal and meaningful when you can discuss the changes directly rather than on an impersonal "public" forum.

Right, and when I meet up with a friend in person to catch up (whether it's a close friend who I see weekly or a less-close friend who I see once or twice a year), we both give each other those life updates in a personally-tailored manner that perfectly fits the nature of our relationship with each other. That's how I want my interactions with people to be.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#316

Post by kelnos »

AOsborn wrote: post #138
aaarrm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's perfectly fine to learn about huge life updates from people the next time you actually speak with them. That seems normal. Seeing people's updates on a wall isn't truly keeping up with friends. Keeping up and staying in touch requires consistent deliberate effort from both parties, via phone calls, messaging, and seeing each other in person. If you're not doing that with someone, then yeah, learning abou…

No, I disagree. This is about lifestyle ergonomics and your community. Like it or not, social media has significantly reshaped the world. Issues aside, it has brought people together and made communication significantly easier than in the past. There is a reason 1/3 of the world is on Facebook. So, my point is that if you're choosing to be difficult, that is fine but you need to accept the burden falls on you. This i…

> Like it or not, social media has significantly reshaped the world.

Certainly! I don't think that fact is in dispute. But we can definitely debate the quality of relationships that have resulted from that reshaping, and make our own personal determinations as to whether social media has been a net positive or negative in our lives.

The problem is that, for some people, it really has had a negative impact on their lives, but they don't or can't see it.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#317

Post by pixxel »

dep_b wrote: post #312

I only use social media for work and WhatsApp for staying in touch with people. WhatsApp is really the killer one that keeps me hooked into the Zuckertrump empire. Just not enough iPhones around me to use Messages, Signal use is very low even among tech friends. People often ask me why I don't have Instagram: I'm in the business of making these platforms and Pablo Escobar never used cocaine either. I know how these p…

> Zuckatrump

Did the Hive approve this, or are you breaking the rules of individualism?

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#318

Post by kelnos »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #257
jjulius wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just said from my perspective and I understand that others might not share it - Fine with me. They're acquaintances. Nobody has 200+ "friends", we have a handful of them. Is it nice to know that someone I hung out with a handful of times twenty years ago but otherwise don't really know and haven't said a word to in a decade made a big life change? Sure, I guess, but for the most part it has absolutely no bear…

I was applying for a job once and recruiter told me I need to have at least 100 Facebook friends to be hired. Played Mafia for a couple of days and got 400 "friends". Was hired and HR presented me at the company meeting as a social media star)

If I'd been talking to that recruiter I would have politely declined to continue the interview process. Unless the job itself was directly related to interacting with people on Facebook, the number of Facebook "friends" you have has nothing to do with your ability to do the job.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#319

Post by ge96 »

I want to be a producer more than a consumer. I produce videos (admittedly that are technical and dry) so it's not like I get hundreds of thousands of views.

On my downtime I still participate in social media though usually anonymously in the form of shit posting. Or just watching YouTube. I did get sucked into that crap of posting everyday about my glamorous life. Eventually I found I didn't know what to post anymore. Had to find something to post. I'm glad I never got sucked into it completely like TikTok/Instagram.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#320

Post by kelnos »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #196
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 did the same thing. Now all I have is github, stackoverflow, and HN. I end up missing out on all sorts of things that I'd like to have been along for. I'm not about to go back, I think that being at the business end of somebody's propaganda machine was even worse for me, but it's still a significant sacrifice. Which is why I don't think the way forward is for everybody to leave social media. It's just not going to…

For me (been off social media since 2019 or so), the solution has been smaller, targeted groups of friends, as well as making one-on-one effort.

I have quite a few group chats with no more than a dozen people in each one, with many that have only 3 or 4 people. And I make a point to message people one-on-one to keep in touch, and set up time to meet in person for people who are local to where I live. For people who aren't local, we make a point to meet up in some city somewhere once a year or so, depending on the closeness of the friendships in the group.

It requires more work than scrolling a Facebook feed and commenting on people's posts, but it's orders of magnitude more rewarding. And I don't miss the other hundreds of people on Facebook who I don't hear about at all now.

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