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7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

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Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#321

Post by abnry »

LightG wrote: post #231
alnorth wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that whoever you follow (whether they're friends, family or just interesting people) they ARE following the outrage parts. And of course there's the "trending" sidebars, and ads and other stuff that gets injected into your timeline without you asking for it. So things bleed in no matter how careful you are. The platforms are designed to drag you in and outrage you. Trying to avoid that is a constant ba…

Exactly this. My current move is to delete Facebook completely (well, deleted that years ago). I just didn't find as much value there as elsewhere on the internet. And the psychological cost wasn't worth the little value there was there. So, complete deletion. Twitter, I've deleted the mobile app and I follow no one. I have a separate list of profiles I find interesting. I have to physically go to that list and click…

> Twitter, I've deleted the mobile app and I follow no one. I have a separate list of profiles I find interesting. I have to physically go to that list and click on their profiles.

Interestingly, this is the same solution I came to with Twitter, except I don't even keep a list of profiles, I just navigate based on memory and auto-complete in the address bar.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#322

Post by StanislavPetrov »

lmm wrote: post #216
dhosek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My outrage quotient has dropped significantly in the two and a half months since I deleted facebook and twitter. Just removing those two things from my life has made a measurable improvement in my quality of life.

Did you try just... not following the outrage parts? Not getting outraged? If you want to spend more time connecting with people you care about, getting rid of facebook feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That's like saying you should swim in the ocean because you like fish, but just ignore the water. There are numerous ways to connect with people you care about that don't involve a corporate mediator (and many of them are much more fulfilling than Facebook!).

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#323

Post by splithalf »

Smithalicious wrote: post #310
splithalf wrote: post #308

People rationalize with “I don’t look at the bad parts” and “I can quit anytime I choose, I just choose not to right now.” People don’t see that they’re addicted to something that is destroying all that is good. Using Facebook or Twitter on a regular basis is bad, in some cases it turns lethal. Even worse is functional addiction, where it warps you slowly over the years, too gradually to notice. We regulate big pharm…

This sounds suspiciously like "websites I use good, websites I don't use bad" Disclaimer: never did get into Twitter and Facebook though I periodically give Twitter another try every half year or so

No I think when you get into the business of doing even very innocent things like ab testing you are doing human subject research and should be bound by the same standards as have been the tradition in the social sciences. We don’t allow pharma companies to try out fun new addictive pills that serve no purpose beyond profit. That’s unethical. Why do we exclude the brain from our realm of health concern? Why do we care more about our bodies than our brains? Dollarinos.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#324

Post by StanislavPetrov »

Johnny555 wrote: post #75

My brother is one of them -- hard core blue collar worker, eschews a lot of modern technology, still carries a flip phone, and doesn't even use SMS. If I want to talk to him, I need to make a voice call, like a caveman. He doesn't have his cell phone turned on most of the time so his landline is the best way to reach him -- he even has a home answering machine. Not voicemail from his carrier, but an actual answering…

I'd be willing to bet your brother is happier and more mentally stable than the vast majority of Americans.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#325

Post by scottious »

lmm wrote: post #216
dhosek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My outrage quotient has dropped significantly in the two and a half months since I deleted facebook and twitter. Just removing those two things from my life has made a measurable improvement in my quality of life.

Did you try just... not following the outrage parts? Not getting outraged? If you want to spend more time connecting with people you care about, getting rid of facebook feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

anecdotally, I felt like my only option was to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It was too hard to avoid the outrage. Everybody has that childhood friend who won't stop posting BS conspiracy theories or that aunt who thinks the world is ending. Do I unfollow these people? if so, what's the point of it all?

I only ever posted positive things like videos of me playing piano and only tried to interact with others in a positive way but I found myself becoming more and more angry over time so I just quit the whole thing and never looked back.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#326

Post by minikites »

pradn wrote: post #315
random5634 wrote: post #76

I used to work in the Caribbean when internet there was ridiculously expensive. Local social life was fantastic - I missed nothing about the internet. Also - I missed nothing about not keeping up to date on latest news - locals just didn't care what was going on for the most part - the latest "outrages" were 100% irrelevant. If you went to bar at night, and IF they had a TV on, it was sports. So you'd come back to th…

I was walking around my neighborhood and saw that someone posted a printed sign making a snarky remark about the Matt Gaetz news. I could not believe someone would care enough about a random politician's demise. Please get off Twitter.

You don't think it's important to participate in our democratic government? Why shouldn't we hold powerful people accountable for their actions?

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#327

Post by busterarm »

lmm wrote: post #216
dhosek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My outrage quotient has dropped significantly in the two and a half months since I deleted facebook and twitter. Just removing those two things from my life has made a measurable improvement in my quality of life.

Did you try just... not following the outrage parts? Not getting outraged? If you want to spend more time connecting with people you care about, getting rid of facebook feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Here's the guy telling everyone they're using heroin wrong and the fact that it destroys their life is their problem.

No, guy. The concensus is growing around social media being really fucking toxic.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#328

Post by matwood »

lmm wrote: post #216
dhosek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My outrage quotient has dropped significantly in the two and a half months since I deleted facebook and twitter. Just removing those two things from my life has made a measurable improvement in my quality of life.

Did you try just... not following the outrage parts? Not getting outraged? If you want to spend more time connecting with people you care about, getting rid of facebook feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

> Not getting outraged?

This mostly works for me for Twitter. FB is just garbage so I haven't been on it in months. I don't need to delete it though, I just stopped going.

HN for the most part is still unique. Even when I see a comment I disagree with, most of the time it's articulated well and I can see their point. There are discussions that can happen.

FB is/was just nonsense, and Twitter is more comedy/entertainment than anything.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#329

Post by akiselev »

cwhiz wrote: post #266
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its any more likely for an illiterate person to pass through the immigration system than it is for same person to get AWS certification.

Most of the immigrants in the US are not authorized to be here.

In what fantasy universe?

In reality, there are about 44 million documented immigrants in the United States. The number of undocumented immigrants is a fraction of that.

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