361–370 of 500 posts
I don't oppose deleting social media, but I can't see to understand one simple thing. LinkedIn is the de-facto standard for looking for a job in certain places. I wonder, people who deleted LinkedIn, how do they get along with looking for a job?
LinkedIn is merely a glamour social network + "pro" dynamic address book + kind of a standardised CV, nothing much more.
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> 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.
There was another discussion where this came up on HN recently, but people get quite emotionally defensive when you start scrutinizing their reasons for staying on social media, so it is hard to have an honest conversation about it without a bunch of hyperbolic takes.
In my experience, it was designed to be addictive, partly by using our own behavior against us and partly by vindicating the desire for attention. The idea that we need to be sharing every aspect of our personal narrative with the world is problematic, as it turns out, but we are so steeped in it that's there's no chance of purifying those waters, again.
To your point, yes, there was some aspect of this back in the day, what with obituaries in newspapers being out there to both acknowledge that a person lived, but also put out the call to any old acquaintances to come say goodbye, but it was a laughable effort by today's standards of maximum self-aggrandizing and competitive social engagement. We have to ask ourselves if that is a socially and mentally healthy position to be in, which is an admittedly scary question.
"So, I quit. Twitter, TikTok, Facebook — all gone" I'm always curious here what counts as Social Media, and what's just a useful site? Github? HackerNews? Reddit? Facebook, but only for FB Marketplace which is now a better local sales site than Craigslist? What makes it social? Originally with FB and before it with MySpace it was the ability to put up a page about yourself, and then chat with others. HN has a profile…
For the modern definition of social, nowadays: incentives to generate engagement (connect with people, post, like, comment) to build up data to drive advertising sales.
Instagram went first and then I realized I hadn't logged on to Facebook in 2 years so why bother keeping it around?
I think for people who can just decide to keep the account and no longer use it, they should keep it just to stay in touch with some folks. But I realize that as long as I'd have an account, I'd keep using it.
Personally, for me the tradeoff between 2+ hours every day on Instagram for an occasional few hours with an acquaintance isn't worth it.
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>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.
We got a real pot, meet kettle situation here. It is absolutely wild to suggest that doing something standard like arranging for an obituary in the local newspaper would be viewed as a sign of mental illness.
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>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.
The aggressiveness of your response is absurd. No, it was not seen as a mental health illness at all.
When you expect personal one to one call, it is equivalent of removing yourself from other social structures in the past. You can do it, but your relationships will weaken and eventually die out. Just like it happened in the past.
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> 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.
Right but it's not 20+ years ago. 20+ years ago when my family visited relatives abroad, our relatives would get to the airport and often have to wait for our delayed flight because they had no way of knowing and half the day would be lost. If your flight arrived early then you just waited. That was normal. Now we update each other over a web messenger, arrive at our destination, hop onto the free WiFi, then wait unt…
Apart from phoning the airline or airport and checking whether the flight was on time. We used to do that all the time 30+ years ago.
20 years ago you could check on websites IIRC.
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20+ years ago you would have put it in the local news paper.
Most of us would not have even done that, though yes, the option was there, but that sort of thing was much more popular 40+ years ago. There was another discussion where this came up on HN recently, but people get quite emotionally defensive when you start scrutinizing their reasons for staying on social media, so it is hard to have an honest conversation about it without a bunch of hyperbolic takes. In my experienc…
What does this mean?
> The idea that we need to be sharing every aspect of our personal narrative with the world is problematic
I know about one or two people who does this. And it's far away from an obituary.
I'm not quite sure I get what you a saying. I just meant in my upbringing it was quite normal to share publicly when someone died. And they still do it today.
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…
also in the old days, your friend bob would have told cory, "hey, did you hear alice's dad died? we should all go out for drinks". but we live in the bowling alone era, where we're increasingly isolated. quitting social media is not, on its own, going to fix your social life. and being on social media can make you more connected, or more miserable. the responsibility is yours
What I see over years is that, especially in developers online groups, any usual and normal way of socializing is stigmatized. I remember reading comments about how lazy people who socialize with friends are and how we are better if we code every evening. I remember people being proud about spending christmas coding supposedly being superior to the rest of the family that is socializing.
Now we are proud if we remove ourselves from social media.
It is always the same - however other people socialize is wrong, they are stupid and lazy. We remove ourselves, because it is superior to not participate. Eventually those places die out or change, but we do not like the new places either.
And in each iteration, we expect other people to do work of keeping and managing relationships while feeling superior over not doing that.
I don't oppose deleting social media, but I can't see to understand one simple thing. LinkedIn is the de-facto standard for looking for a job in certain places. I wonder, people who deleted LinkedIn, how do they get along with looking for a job?
LinkedIn is closer to other portfolio sites (ArtStation, Behance, SoundCloud, etc). It’s basically professional achievements with comments.
I suppose it is social media in the broadest sense. But a lot of evils of social media aren’t there, just how perfect people pretend their lives are. But there aren’t many echo chambers, instances of shock content, manufactured outrage, cancel culture, politicking, lord of the fly-ing, etc.