41–50 of 164 posts
TikTok/Instagram is full of people posting a glossy, edited lifestyle that makes your life feel bad by comparison.
Facebook/Twitter filled with more miserable people being miserable about one thing or another (politics/culture wars/news/etc) and allows you to spiral in misery.
A cynical comment about regulation or curtailing this. Everyone agrees smoking causes health problems, is costly and doesn't offer anything. Smoking is regulated (taxes, labels, etc), but cigarettes are readily available everywhere - gas stations, convenience stores, etc. You would imagine that something so universally recognized as detrimental would cease to exist (either outlaws or society would just abandon it com…
What's a solution ? A ban of all social media? The same toxic environment can occur in a forum on any website.
But as long as there is tech that connects people, you will see these effects. Regulation, moderation, etc are just nerfing the tech itself.
A perspective shift I try to apply to myself is to view these things are tools, rather than a part of my identity that I am strongly tied to. I've got a power drill, but I don't check it everyday.
I started using FB again recently because a group of friends use it, and I regret it. It's so toxic. Even the reels/short videos posted there are absolutely toxic- full of pointless garbage mixed with outright fake stuff like "free energy". I'll keep it because of Groups, which are handy for what they are, but the moment those move elsewhere, I'm out.
Same thing works for Twitter - you can tune it pretty well by selecting "I'm not interested in this tweet" for all the crappy ones. After someone told me that, it took about a day before it stopped feeding me scam crypto trash.
Adtech and social media are like secondhand smoking, something we've accepted as annoying but harmless, but actually extremely deleterious to our mental health. In 50 years, we'll look back at our current social media addictions in the same way people today look at Mad Men characters smoking everywhere 24/7.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might even be "sitting inside, looking through the window at other people sitting inside but surely having a better time than you" . Social media is for presenting the highlights of your life. For a lot of depressed or even just gullible people it is easy to generalize from that. I have acquaintances who blew up their personal lives in a search for that elusive "perfect life".
> I have acquaintances who blew up their personal lives in a search for that elusive "perfect life". Is this in the typical sense of spending beyond their means, or do you have other anecdotes? I am a highly compensated tech worker at a FAANG who overcame US immigration and other challenges to get here, and many people would trade their spot with mine. Yet, I am so unhappy and burned out by work that I don’t think ab…
A cynical comment about regulation or curtailing this. Everyone agrees smoking causes health problems, is costly and doesn't offer anything. Smoking is regulated (taxes, labels, etc), but cigarettes are readily available everywhere - gas stations, convenience stores, etc. You would imagine that something so universally recognized as detrimental would cease to exist (either outlaws or society would just abandon it com…
It's always a trade-off between the values of a society and the degree to which something like cigarettes causes harm. Even the most authoritarian government isn't able to ban everything that it wants to ban. There are also hidden costs and economic incentives created by doing a complete ban that need to be considered, which might make a ban less effective and less appealing than other solutions.
The absurd part to me is know strong the industry is STILL. I think CVS is the only pharmacy that does not sell cigarettes, out of principle. Every other incentive tells merchants to sell cigarettes.
I kinda feel the same way about gambling. But I can do that with a poker game in my house. Tobacco needs an entire supply chain for someone to smoke. The fast that infrastructure is still profitable is kinda wild.
A cynical comment about regulation or curtailing this. Everyone agrees smoking causes health problems, is costly and doesn't offer anything. Smoking is regulated (taxes, labels, etc), but cigarettes are readily available everywhere - gas stations, convenience stores, etc. You would imagine that something so universally recognized as detrimental would cease to exist (either outlaws or society would just abandon it com…
I'm not defending smoking, but > costly Cigarettes are really cheap in places that don't heavily tax them > doesn't offer anything Human brains like nicotine. It is mildly effective as a mood stabilizer. I think we both agree that the bad health effects are not worth it, but it's not accurate to say there's nothing on the other side of that equation.
All social media and news does this. Every person who says their hobby is 'news' are the most angry and depressed people you will ever meet.
I enjoy reading the news and then discussing it with friends that are also news readers. That's the hobby aspect for me (and aforementioned friends). Together we try to predict what will happen in the world (wars, inflation, energy transition, stock market, ...) and quite often at least one of us is completely right or spectacularly wrong, which makes it fun for us.
I know it's not very useful but I enjoy it and it doesn't make me depressed or angry. Just let me have my fun.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have acquaintances who blew up their personal lives in a search for that elusive "perfect life". Is this in the typical sense of spending beyond their means, or do you have other anecdotes? I am a highly compensated tech worker at a FAANG who overcame US immigration and other challenges to get here, and many people would trade their spot with mine. Yet, I am so unhappy and burned out by work that I don’t think ab…
From someone else who was well compensated in tech and burned out, wishing you the best.
A cynical comment about regulation or curtailing this. Everyone agrees smoking causes health problems, is costly and doesn't offer anything. Smoking is regulated (taxes, labels, etc), but cigarettes are readily available everywhere - gas stations, convenience stores, etc. You would imagine that something so universally recognized as detrimental would cease to exist (either outlaws or society would just abandon it com…