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My life after quitting social media

durmonski.com

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Re: My life after quitting social media

#51

Post by tfandango »

ArtDev wrote: post #13

I quit sometime last Spring. I don't know what happened but I finally was able to. I think I feel happier because I have lower expectations and my small successes feel big in my mind because I am not comparing to others. For example, a few minor home repairs over the weekend feels huge to me. I really feel great about them. One of my best friends is a carpenter and I know shouldn't compare.. but I think I do it uncon…

I still have my accounts and browse through them once every day or two in order to see what people are up to, but I consciously made a decision to stop posting a few years ago, and then to stop commenting on contentious threads maybe a year or so ago. I agree life has been much better, there's no lingering obligation to respond to someone who disagrees with you N times/hour. I see some of my friends posting things to "make people think" or whatever but somehow the discourse is never constructive.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#52

Post by gonehome »

lolpython wrote: post #38
gonehome wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also remember it - I’m pretty sure he was 42? Some other things: - might have been the Atlantic - he talked about etiquette around things like flicking ash and smoking circles - he talked about asking his doctor about starting smoking It was definitely an interesting one

I also remember the article. I think he smoked in an airport and said nearby people overreacted (his words paraphrased) like a woman clutched her child. And maybe the airport security came too? I really want to read it now. But can’t find it by Google.

I found it: https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/health/a4263/learning-to-s...

Search terms I used were: starting smoking at 40 cigarettes

It was the sixth google result for me.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#53

Post by jhickok »

Zelphyr wrote: post #49
mariodiana wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forget what magazine carried this essay, and it was from maybe about 10 years ago, but a journalist decided to take up smoking (temporarily) at the age of 30-something or 40-something, with the idea of writing a story about it. One of his takeaways was the sociability of it, especially since everyone nowadays is forced to exit the office building to have a smoke.

Early in my tech career I realized pretty quickly that, despite not being a smoker, I needed go outside with the smokers during their smoke breaks because that's where a lot of ideas were discussed. It was where I could continue learning from guys who were almost all senior to me at the time in a more relaxed, informal setting. The smoking was terrible--don't get me wrong--and I'm glad its much more rare now than it…

Same here, but I took up smoking outside with them and it put me in the inside group on projects/tasks. I never picked up smoking outside of these little daily excursions and I realize it's playing with fire, but at least for my career it was one of the best things I could have done.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#55

Post by dayjah »

cortesoft wrote: post #21

I always find these "quitting social media" blog posts a bit ironic... "social media is addictive and encourages doing and posting things just for the attention and to make other people think I am interesting... so I wrote this blog post about quitting social media, and am posting it to hacker news and other sites... I hope lots of people read it and think I am insightful"

I understand your POV on this, I quit social media relatively silently[1]. From my POV, ex-social-media-addict now "clean" for 838 days[2], there is a strong degree of FOMO attached to not being on SM. Here are a few examples of where I wish I had "told folks" that I was quitting:

* For the first 9 months folks would often say: "I missed you at my such-and-such event last month", and I would reply: "email me next time". Perhaps if I had quit loudly I'd have felt less FOMO-y and been invited to more events.

* Births / Deaths / Marriages; I'm completely out of the loop, which is almost always a worse off situation. I've come to learn that I want to know sooner rather than later when folks have died because going through grief a week or two after other folks absolutely sucks. I wonder if I quit loudly folks would reach out more proactively in these situations?

* Generally feeling connected: a "personal talent" of mine is a relatively strong ability to remember what I read about folks on their FB timelines. Without that I feel pretty disconnected; and there are a lot of folks I "miss" as a result. Would this have been different if I quit in the open? Would folks have said: "oh you can follow my photo stream and see what I'm up to?"

That final example, when coupled with deaths, is particularly acute. You're left wondering whether you could have helped prevent self harm, etc.

[1] https://twitter.com/ossareh/status/1133957584153694214

[2] I mean this jovially, apologies to anyone that struggles with a more manifest addiction if this phrasing comes across as trite.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#56

Post by system16 »

cortesoft wrote: post #21

I always find these "quitting social media" blog posts a bit ironic... "social media is addictive and encourages doing and posting things just for the attention and to make other people think I am interesting... so I wrote this blog post about quitting social media, and am posting it to hacker news and other sites... I hope lots of people read it and think I am insightful"

> so I wrote this blog post about quitting social media, and am posting it to hacker news and other sites

I'm not sure if the fact that the author includes "Share to Facebook/Twitter" links at the bottom of the blog post is more comical or downright insulting to the reader.

They spend several paragraphs describing all the harm social media causes to themselves and society as a whole, then describe their epiphany and the joy of freeing themselves from its psychological chains, and then ask you to contribute to it. At very least it's extremely insincere.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#57

Post by InitialLastName »

m90 wrote: post #11
brightball wrote: post #4

> Social media is like cigarettes and alcohol. Toxic. Addictive. Yet widely accessible. I never thought I would say this...but I have to wonder if cigarettes and alcohol may be healthier options than social media, simply because they usually accompany real social lives? EDIT: To be clear, any addictive substance is a bad choice. Please entirely disregard this analogy in that sense.

You can drink a lot when alone.

^ This.

In a cursory survey [1] of the alcoholics I've known (both recovering/acknowledged and not), for 80% social drinking hasn't been the problem. The problem was what they did when they were alone with a bottle.

[1] Not an SRS, clearly anecdotal and entirely in my head, so all caveats apply, etc.

Re: My life after quitting social media

#59

Post by [deleted] »

cortesoft wrote: post #21

I always find these "quitting social media" blog posts a bit ironic... "social media is addictive and encourages doing and posting things just for the attention and to make other people think I am interesting... so I wrote this blog post about quitting social media, and am posting it to hacker news and other sites... I hope lots of people read it and think I am insightful"

[deleted]

Re: My life after quitting social media

#60

Post by jancsika »

cortesoft wrote: post #21

I always find these "quitting social media" blog posts a bit ironic... "social media is addictive and encourages doing and posting things just for the attention and to make other people think I am interesting... so I wrote this blog post about quitting social media, and am posting it to hacker news and other sites... I hope lots of people read it and think I am insightful"

If the point of the attention-seeking is to encourage others to leave the attention-seeking platform, then it belongs in the set of special self-subverting cases.

Same logic applied to Stallman using a proprietary compiler to build a free-software compiler that obviated the need for said proprietary compiler. He really did do that. (Unironically, at that.)

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