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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#381

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #360
austin-cheney wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What has that got to do with social media?

Instant messaging and group chat, I’d argue, are distinct services / protocols / products vis-à-vis social media.

Strained analogies are weird. I like to call them sieved analogies, the other definition of strained.

I strained your analogy and threw out the dross.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#382

Post by Karrot_Kream »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #264
nradov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about other people but social media doesn't make me feel worse about my life. There's no fomo when my 2nd cousin in another state posts about having a baby. She's important to me, and I don't expect her to waste time emailing me directly when the rest of the extended family is all on social media.

It didn't make me feel worse but it did bring out the worst in me. It's too easy to slip into bragging about your life and how well it's going.

Pretty mugh all my friends stopped doing that after their mid 20s. Eventually everyone figures out that social media status games give little.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#384

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

graemep wrote: post #367
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 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.

Back in my day, we had to walk fifty miles in the snow, up hill both ways, and we couldn’t afford shoes, just to phone the airline.

Back when men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#385

Post by pmontra »

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 recently learned that the daughter of a friend of mine got married and had two children. That happened in the last 5 years, when I actually didn't hear from that friend of mine. Given that we didn't feel the need to send messages to each other for 5 years, are we really friends or only acquaintances? In the latter case it's OK not to be informed about what is going on.

My social media are WhatsApp and Telegram. I get in touch there with people I care about and I don't get streams of useless information like I would if I'd be on FB, X, Instagram or TikTok. I do look for videos on YouTube when I want to learn something for which watching is better that reading.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#386

Post by mellosouls »

The motivation is basically "social media now its more diverse in thought". He even signs off with an acknowledgement he might try BlueSky.

Honestly, there are good reasons to quit social media because of their intrinsic toxicities, but at least if you are doing it for ideological motives admit that its about you.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#387

Post by Karrot_Kream »

wruza wrote: post #29

I'm just not reading any of it - not interested. SM addiction is so 2015. I have technical accounts to be able to search for something (e.g. while training loras) or to watch without annoying popups when someone links me to it. This dramatic deletion is overreaction, solve the underlying problem instead. Rather than scrolling instagram and tiktok, visit /news and /newest, and then /ask, /show. If nothing interesting…

Wait what do you mean? HN isn't social media, it's a breath of fresh air! I'm only here to talk to the folks in my life I care about like … uh oops.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#388

Post by noufalibrahim »

KronisLV wrote: post #346
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 can’t speak for everyone, but I know a lack of social media meant that I have lost touch with old acquaintances completely. I have a few close friends and that’s it. I feel like that's the downside of social media in general, like the network effect - since most people are on social media, that's the place where people will post life updates, as opposed to talking to others about that stuff directly as much. Mayb…

I think some way of batching information from the people/sources that you're interested in (and then perhaps running an LLM over it to surface the most important information) which is then emailed or texted to one might be a solution.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#389

Post by chrisvalleybay »

I have mostly left social media, but I have not seen the need to delete my accounts yet. For Twitter, I never use the feed but rather bookmark links to one specific account that I read. Facebook I open about twice a month just to see if I have been invited to a birthday party or anything like that. Instagram I just went 7 weeks without opening.

Turning off the machine feeding stuff to my brain really has helped me. I feel better, cleaner and less disturbed/distracted.

Now I am actually considering leaving YouTube as well, although it has been such a lovely place at times, since I notice it is deteriorating my health.

I recommend you try it; nothing has to be deleted. It's simply removing the habit of using it. It does make life a bit better :)

Oh, and a good first step is to install the extension `News Feed Eradicator`. This is how I got started. I run it on everything.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#390

Post by [deleted] »

jahsome wrote: post #220
anxoo wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm a firm believer being loosely connected to so many people isn't the fix many seem to think it is. I find shallow connections, which is about all social media can support IMO, are worthless at best and detrimental at worst. YMMV, but my quality of life increased in ways I can't even begin to describe by severing all the dozens or perhaps hundreds of shallow connections social media was encouraging me to cling to.…

[deleted]
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