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Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

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Re: Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

#41

Post by mabub24 »

One way to rethink your relationship with social media is to, for lack of a more succinct phrasing, get a life.

I don't mean "don't be a loser", I mean have a life with goals, projects, and real relationships. Once that life flowers, you see social media as merely a tool for the further flourishing of that life. This mindset also makes you take a hard look at the connections you make through social media. Most are 1 dimensional, and based on emotional extremes or hits of "content". Instead, follow people you actually know. Then do stuff with them out in the world.

Doing stuff, and not just surfing social media, with other people is far more rewarding than being amongst 3 billion users.

Re: Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

#42

Post by playpause »

Calvin02 wrote: post #21
tharne wrote: post #4

I'm starting to get annoyed with these articles. Most people cannot use things like smartphones and Facebook "responsibly". To think you can compete with companies that have virtually unlimited financial resources available to highjack your attention and get you hooked is completely naïve. It's like telling a heroin addict to "rethink your relationship with heroin and use it more moderately". The only realistic way t…

I think you're cherry picking a bit. How much time do you spend on HN? HN is a social network for folks who are interested in technology and general interest topics -- much like other social networks. Do you think that people can use HN "responsibly"? The feed is algorithmic and designed to surface topics to elicit responses/engagement with the community.

HN can be addictive, but it’s different in several relevant ways. It has no notifications. Its user base is relatively small and industry specific. It has no infinite scroll. It is plain text so it doesn’t reward semi-mindless scrolling like media rich social networks. It has a dead simple noprocrast feature that doesn’t play games. It virtually never changes its design, unlike social networks that are constantly tweaking things to increase engagement. In fact the people who run and moderate HN seem pretty intent on slowing down growth, so they can keep it focused and stay on top of moderation. Of course it can still be addictive but it’s in a different category from TikTok etc.

Re: Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

#43

Post by jjulius »

rmah wrote: post #10
tharne wrote: post #4

I'm starting to get annoyed with these articles. Most people cannot use things like smartphones and Facebook "responsibly". To think you can compete with companies that have virtually unlimited financial resources available to highjack your attention and get you hooked is completely naïve. It's like telling a heroin addict to "rethink your relationship with heroin and use it more moderately". The only realistic way t…

Um, I use social media "responsibly" and it's quite easy. I look at various social media sites I'm on perhaps two or three times a week. Takes up maybe 30 minutes of my time a week. I feel no addictive urge to use them more. Most people I know may use them a bit more, but not much. The only adults that I know who use social media a lot more do it for work. I submit that the majority of adults use social media sites a…

There is a lot of "I" and "my" usage in your post. I submit that you're only arriving at your conclusion anecdotally, using a dataset (you and your like-minded peers, whose use you can't actually track) that is not reflective of average users worldwide.

Re: Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

#44

Post by tharne »

paganel wrote: post #17
derwiki wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What basic phone did you switch to? I ended up getting a cellular Apple watch because it’s “smart” enough but no distraction apps (unless you count iMessage)

Not the OP but I'm personally using an iPhone SE. It's good enough for HackerNews and i.reddit.com but when it comes to apps like FB or Instagram I get bored pretty quickly, maybe the smaller screen plays a part in that, I can't tell exactly.

I used the SE for a long time too, for the exact same reason, the small screen. It's a fantastic phone. I have a fairly addictive personality when it comes to tech so I had to end up taking more extreme measures.

Re: Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

#48

Post by dont__panic »

Calvin02 wrote: post #21
tharne wrote: post #4

I'm starting to get annoyed with these articles. Most people cannot use things like smartphones and Facebook "responsibly". To think you can compete with companies that have virtually unlimited financial resources available to highjack your attention and get you hooked is completely naïve. It's like telling a heroin addict to "rethink your relationship with heroin and use it more moderately". The only realistic way t…

I think you're cherry picking a bit. How much time do you spend on HN? HN is a social network for folks who are interested in technology and general interest topics -- much like other social networks. Do you think that people can use HN "responsibly"? The feed is algorithmic and designed to surface topics to elicit responses/engagement with the community.

I've done something similar, cutting Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and all other major social media apps out of my life over the past few years. I would agree that HN is an issue as well, and that I should probably moderate my time on it.

However, I also can't deny that I've genuinely learned a lot from links shared on HN, and I can also attribute nearly my entire push to eliminate social media from my life to HN.

Additionally, HN, like a few other "hobby forums" I belong to, doesn't try to manipulate me to spend more time on the site so it can show me more ads. It only shows me content that other users have posted and shared -- unlike Facebook or Instagram, I don't see an ad every 2-3 posts or comments. That means something to me. Right now, all of those "hobby forums" teach me more about things I care about than they stress me out or piss me off or steal my time. Toward the end, Facebook was just a thing that ate up 10-15 minutes of my time multiple times per day. I can at least point to genuinely interesting facts I've learned from browsing HN.

And most importantly, I mostly do it during work hours anyway :-).

Re: Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

#49

Post by qolop »

Last year at the start of the pandemic, I stopped using Facebook, Youtube, Reddit and Linkedin. Just stopped, no exceptions. It took an incredible amount of discipline at first, but now it's become a habit. Its had a net positive effect on my life and I highly recommend others to try it.

Its incredible how little I'm tempted to open these apps now. Once you're properly out of the hyper-addictive ecosystem that they create, that's it, you're unlikely to want to get back in.

Re: Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

#50

Post by colordrops »

game_the0ry wrote: post #5

Delete Instagram and Facebook from your phone. I did and I recommend everyone do it. You can still access via browser, but obviously not as good UX (which may make you less addicted). I get how people can get addicted to social media apps (I got addicted to FB when I was in college 2005-2007 ish), and I am happy to see articles like this and other media outlets cover social media addiction and spread awareness, its a…

I ended up using at least Twitter and Reddit just as much through the browser after deleting the apps. Had to install the NetGuard firewall on my phone to block them.
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