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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#321

Post by mrweasel »

scarface_74 wrote: post #226

I think commenters here are missing out on one beneficial part of social media - Facebook groups and communities of interest especially private, moderated groups. Broadcast and discussions are a perfect use case for it. And people talk about how bad Facebook is, LinkedIn is far worse. Everyone is trying to be a “thought leader” and no one is genuine on it. I have a decent LinkedIn Profile with recommendations, up to…

> I think commenters here are missing out on one beneficial part of social media

A small group of people surely do, but for others the benefit doesn't outweigh the negative. Social media is great, in theory, but Facebooks implementations suck and I won't support a company like Facebook who I believe negatively impacts society. The problems and much of the anger stems from feeling almost forced to use the products of a company I think manipulates and exploit it's users. It's almost impossible for my kid to have a social life and for me to be involved without a Facebook account and I can't even offer an alternative form of communication because pretty much anything else would be more work for everyone else.

Agree on you with Linkedin. It's basically an account to a job board, that you keep active in case you need to look for work. The people trying to get engagement on their posts are almost all pretty much insane.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#322

Post by lm28469 »

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 they're close enough they'll tell you irl, if they don't tell you they're not that close and it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things

Even with close friends who live far away, I prefer catching up once a year around a beer and some food than get a week by week journal of their lives on social media, it makes you feel like you're connected but you really aren't

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#323

Post by stiray »

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 never had any social media account. Never. When Facebook was still in diapers I have predicted what will happen (while what really happened was far worse) and distance myself from it and warned all the others who, normally, didn't listen.

Dont have FB, twitter, reddit, linkedin, tiktok, not even google account... none of that crap. I am successfully avoiding getting my name anywhere on the internet, I am not posting my photos, videos,...

I have 7 friends I meet regularly, I have friends where our life separated years back and we meet once or twice per year and I have phone with 473 phone numbers of various contacts, from former colleges to dishwasher repair technician, etc.

And guess what, people call me, sms me (oh yes, it works so much better than having 20 various clients installed for different groups of people) or send me email if something important has happened and I am actually physically invited to birthdays, "i got son" celebrations, notified about death (luckily only one, former schoolmate).

When we meet, in person (i hate long phone calls), we have a quality chat as I dont know anything about their ingrown hair on the tip of their toe and they don't know anything about me changing job or having knot on hair in my beard.

For anyone else, I dont care. I dont disillusion myself how I have 473 good friends on some stupid online platform who need to share every intimate detail with me. I cant even handle so many people.

So maybe those tradeoffs are not really the real tradeoffs but rather self deception, how much you matter to the people and to how many people.

I can count them using my fingers. Which is perfectly fine.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#324

Post by mariusor »

physicsguy wrote: post #314
mariusor wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I somewhat agree, but that does not require face to face interaction in my opinion, which was parent's thesis I was arguing against.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#325

Post by littlecranky67 »

skoczko wrote: post #289

This all sounds to me like complaining about fast-food restaurants because you’re overweight. Do they serve trash? Yes. But there’s a simple solution: don’t eat it. And don’t feed it to your kids. I have a facebook app and the only time I use is to check updates for my son’s soccer practice. I also go to McDonalds to buy coffee because it’s good and cheap over here. No corporate entity will ever put your health amd w…

While not wrong, your advice of simply not doing it is as usefull as telling a smoker "simple don't put another cigarette in your mouth" or telling the overweight person "just diet and excercise". Been in both camps, and I know that neither is that easy. Giving up addictions are simple, but they are not easy.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#326

Post by Mashimo »

austin-cheney wrote: post #306
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…

> 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. That seems so bizarre. Just 20+ years ago this sort of sympathy seeking broadcasting action was associated with mental health illness, like Munchausen Biproxy. Yes, back in the day if tragedy happened people would take deliberate effort to call each other.

20+ years ago you would have put it in the local news paper.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#327

Post by i5heu »

I stay in touch with ppl that are important to me by writing or calling them once every 2 months.

I do not care if they do the same. I am old now (almost 30) and came to the realization that all of our lifes are packet and busy and ppl are very bad at keeping up with other ppl that are not continuously presented to them.

This is the price I have to pay to not be on instagram: writing my friends and ask them how they doing.

And it is a very nice price to pay.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#328

Post by Sander_Marechal »

i5heu wrote: post #327

I stay in touch with ppl that are important to me by writing or calling them once every 2 months. I do not care if they do the same. I am old now (almost 30) and came to the realization that all of our lifes are packet and busy and ppl are very bad at keeping up with other ppl that are not continuously presented to them. This is the price I have to pay to not be on instagram: writing my friends and ask them how they…

> I am old now (almost 30)

I'm 45 and wondering if I should be offended by this....

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#329

Post by standardUser »

ozim wrote: post #147
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.

You write like somehow there would be something to miss out on by not valuing keeping up with people who are far away and most likely have no place in our lives.(by far away I mean you don’t actually get to talk or meet with them or even chat by messanger or so, even if they could live in the same city - I have friends who live far away but we actually meet at least once a year and chat once a week we are far in dist…

> You write like somehow there would be something to miss out on by not valuing keeping up with people who are far away...

Yes, absolutely. The paths our lives take can lead us to have more in common with someone we knew in the past then when we first knew them. And there's a lot of value in having a history with someone, compared to getting to know someone new from scratch. Maintaining loose contact takes virtually no effort but can lead to meaningful interactions down the road.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#330

Post by worthless-trash »

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 they don't talk to you personally, you have overestimated your value in the relationship.
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