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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#391

Post by [deleted] »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #325
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 .

[deleted]

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#392

Post by abc123abc123 »

stiray wrote: post #323
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 postin…

Amen! Same situation, same preferences, same values, same result. Only difference is I have about 70 phone nrs on my dumbphone, I don't own a smart phone, and my vices are this site, usenet and mastodon.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#394

Post by short_sells_poo »

watwut wrote: post #369
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

> but we live in the bowling alone era, where we're increasingly isolated 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…

I don't think the parent poster was arguing to exclude themselves from social life or do coding instead of talking with people. They merely argued that it's better to have fewer but meaningful and deep connections with people you genuinely care about (and they care about you), rather than having a 1000 meaningless connections with people who are basically strangers on facebook.

The role social media plays is in encouraging large numbers of superficial relationships, rather than a small handful of deep ones. It stands to reason: I don't need facebook to keep in touch with a dozen close family and friends. I can do that perfectly well in person, or over phone calls/messages. What the various social media apps did was kill the close circle of friends in favor of having 1000s of followers and turn everyone into a one-way broadcaster.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#395

Post by labster »

latexr wrote: post #380
labster wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1999 we had obits and mail, just like in 1899. Of course now all of the newspapers are gone (what’s black and white and dead all over?), so notifying the local community is much harder than 25 years ago. Also some people back then would brag about not having a TV, the same way vegans still do today.

> Also some people back then would brag about not having a TV, the same way vegans still do today. This is the toupée fallacy mixed in with something else I haven’t yet put a name on. Most vegans don’t brag about being vegan, just like most TVless people don’t brag about not having a TV. Some people are assholes and brag about anything , and some of those do the things you mentioned. It’s orders of magnitude more com…

Cool idea, but it’s based on my own experience in life, from a girlfriend and various people in college. And even a newspaper article I read literally this morning. Vegan folks who I knew and talked to every day.

That said I could have used airplane pilots for the same example (also based on personal experience).

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#396

Post by Arch-TK »

slg wrote: post #186
hypeatei wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post blasted to hundreds (or thousands) of people. Or, to put it another way: if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them. I'd argue that social media has normalized keeping up with people who aren't supposed to b…

>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…

When my father died, the last thing on my mind was trying to tell as many people as possible. I didn't (and still don't) have any social media accounts so that was out of the question but I didn't tell almost anyone for a long time until it came up in conversation.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#397

Post by Over2Chars »

Mashimo wrote: post #334
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.

He said meet OR talk. I think if you don't talk to someone in a few years it makes them less of a friend.

Exactly, have a video call even!

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#398

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#399

Post by flakeoil »

slg wrote: post #186
hypeatei wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post blasted to hundreds (or thousands) of people. Or, to put it another way: if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them. I'd argue that social media has normalized keeping up with people who aren't supposed to b…

>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…

It must be quite common sense to actively contact the people you know were friends or family to your parents. Not necessarily by phone unless you also know them well, but by email or text or whatever contact details your parents have in their contact book.

I very much would think your parents would expect that of their children.

>I'm not going to call everyone in my life to tell them

It's particularly the people in your parents life you should inform, not necessarily the people in your life.

Don't forget that your social media network is not the same as your parent's social media network (if at all they use it).

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#400

Post by amelius »

layble wrote: post #9
chmaynard wrote: post #6

I love this: "Maybe I’ll go old-school and write more blog posts. Like back in the early 2000s, when you actually had to think before sharing your thoughts with the world. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it?"

I use croissant to cross post on social media accounts but I never use the services themselves to read any content. I’m screaming into the void and I’m fine with it.

Interesting. Do SM companies have an API that allows croissant to do its work? Or do they use unofficial means?

Can we also get the other direction, i.e. scrape posts from SM platforms and implement our own (non-toxic) feed algorithms?

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