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The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

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Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#511

Post by seec »

mrandish wrote: post #435
noduerme wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any way you cut it, "feeds" are more addictive. Your family and friends only post a couple times a day, but you have all day at work to look for some quick stimulation. I watch my girlfriend devolve into this stuff. Waking up and scrolling endless feeds from reddit and insta; it's her entertainment. It's not so much worse than me waking up and scrolling Google News...maybe it's better, in that she gets less depressed…

> It's that I'm Jewish, with Israeli family... This was a hard-to-get real world experience in how fucked up people can be for no reason. Don't be too discouraged. IMHO it's as simple as there being a significant portion of the population who tend to talk shit about other people in their circle when those people aren't around. If asked, they'll often attribute this oddly unmotivated malice to some conveniently proxim…

I do have a similar experience and it's almost impossible to find groups of people that value honesty above everything else. That's because truth hurts and is hard to accept (it can also cause all kinds of emotional reactions that may not be desirable).

I think you are attributing too much psychology nonsense on the matter; it's a pretty bad tendency of our times to try to make every behavior some sort of mental illness.

While part of the behavior might look schizophrenic, the reality is that it is that way for plenty of reasons, you being unable to understand/sense them doesn't mean they doesn't exist. Before even going too deep, you can always assume it's some kind of power play or a cheap way to grab attention and support. The people doing this are always working "from behind", because the whole point of it is to gain power without risking a direct confrontation (that could in theory lead into physical altercation or have them loose much more than what they want to bargain for).

I don't like this behavior for many reasons but you can't go around and pretend its mental illness or some nonsense like that; summarizing it as shit talking is a mistake. It's actually the whole point of politics and while you may have an autistic view of the world (no offense intended, I am one) it's how regular people work things out. Not everything can be a perfect competition or a science project with pure facts...

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#512

Post by seec »

alabastervlog wrote: post #349
blitzar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love LinkedIn cringe on instagram and twitter - but on LinkedIn itself you have to confront the reality that these people, often colleagues / former colleagues etc. are being serious

> but on LinkedIn itself you have to confront the reality that these people, often colleagues / former colleagues etc. are being serious I doubt many are being serious. Business culture (at least in the US) is so steeped in lying and general fake-ness that in-group signaling as "real business person" involves public performances of bullshit. It's what you're supposed to do in interviews: bullshit just the right way,…

That's probably one reason that business degrades over time. With that type of "requirement" you can't get anyone worth a dam to work for you, past a certain point.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#513

Post by seec »

sojournerc wrote: post #285
prmoustache wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it really depends if you have fed the algorithm with your preferences already.

Here's the thing, Instagram figured it quickly that I might spend another second or two looking at an attractive lady, but that isn't my preference for what I would see in the feed. Merely because I have libido Instagram became absolutely unusable no matter how many times I tell it I'm not interested in insta-bitches showing skin, it knows I'll look, so Instagram is gone out of my life. Too bad because other topics l…

That's hilarious, I got a bit of the same "problem" but with Facebook (I don't use Instagram), but it's generally pretty actress or (for some reason) ballerinas. I'm not gonna lie, I kinda like it.

I have found out that the algorithm will adjust itself relatively quickly if you don't click on stuff (at some point it decided I was into foot fetish and it disappeared quickly). With that I get stuff about philosophy, math (memes), science and technology stuff with a lot of animals videos.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#514

Post by solumunus »

zpeti wrote: post #326
erkt wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This is what Facebook was when we all signed up almost two decades ago. No one ever wanted a feed of people they didn't know. Free social media is inherently corrupt as they chase profits abusing the user base.

I think this is what your conscious mind thinks but your actual desires don’t. Facebook was refocusing on friend and family content before TikTok came along. But they had to adjust to the TikTok trend otherwise they would have lost market share or potentially lost the entire market. You might think you want friend and family content, but actually you don’t. Not as much as you want engaging content.

All I know is I used Facebook 10x more when it was family and friends content.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#515

Post by amatecha »

donatj wrote: post #111

Before its fall, I had over 700 followers on Twitter. I could post any random thought and within minutes be having an interesting conversation with some rando about it. For example I pondered why phone manufacturers didn't use a p2p protocol for distributing updates and had an enlightening conversation with a person who worked for a major telco chiming in as to why that would be problematic for their infrastructure.…

I started using Twitter in 2007 and eventually got up to around 1400 followers. Indeed, it was amazing for a while, and I had many experiences that were only possible due to my connecting with many people on there. Unfortunately it had been getting worse and worse, even before it was taken over and renamed and so on.

Fortunately, Mastodon has completely taken its place for me, and it actually affords me a good degree of agency over what I see. It's a linear feed of posts by the people I follow, with comprehensive filtering (and even better, people voluntarily put content warnings on their posts about potentially-difficult topics). It's actually pretty badass, even if it isn't perfect.

You can certainly keep having cool conversations with people on Mastodon, like the good old days of Twitter. That's all I do. I follow people who post about neat stuff, and they follow me cuz I post about stuff I (and apparently they) find interesting. Just people hanging out, basically. You don't need to worry about growing an audience or whatever (though I'm sure you already knew that heh :))

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#516

Post by amatecha »

rubicon33 wrote: post #336
donatj wrote: post #111

Before its fall, I had over 700 followers on Twitter. I could post any random thought and within minutes be having an interesting conversation with some rando about it. For example I pondered why phone manufacturers didn't use a p2p protocol for distributing updates and had an enlightening conversation with a person who worked for a major telco chiming in as to why that would be problematic for their infrastructure.…

Everything you’ve described is exactly what forums are for. We didn’t need social media, we had everything we needed with the old PHP forums

Yeah, every single forum I ever regularly posted on is long gone. Some moved to Facebook, which, well, I ain't using that shit. Sad times :\

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#517

Post by amatecha »

veunes wrote: post #227
donatj wrote: post #111

Before its fall, I had over 700 followers on Twitter. I could post any random thought and within minutes be having an interesting conversation with some rando about it. For example I pondered why phone manufacturers didn't use a p2p protocol for distributing updates and had an enlightening conversation with a person who worked for a major telco chiming in as to why that would be problematic for their infrastructure.…

That era of Twitter where you could toss out a random thought and instantly end up in a rabbit hole with strangers who knew stuff...

Some people I seriously admired followed me on there (maybe they still do, I don't use it now), like legendary game devs, authors, musicians... and I could have candid conversations/exchanges with them. That was awesome. I'll forever appreciate the awesome moments, conversations and even opportunities that arose from that site. :)

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#518

Post by svnt »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #420
svnt wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe just phrasing but free social media isn’t the problem. VC-backed corporations masquerading as public services to gain user networks they can later monetize is the problem.

VC is just a lazy boogieman. Facebook IPO'ed 13 years ago. I dont think it would be different if was owned by the other boogie man private equity, owned entirely by Zuckerberg, or publicly traded.

This is a response that lacks imagination and depth of understanding of capital markets.

No, VC money is what enables the entire multi-billion-dollar loss-leading front end effort that creates the network that is sold in an IPO.

No one else will take that level of risk, and the first eight years of its existence wouldn’t occur without VC money.

You’ll also notice how I didn’t say VC money was the problem. That was a long list of very specific qualifiers I wrote that you strawmanned very efficiently.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#519

Post by metalman »

smelendez wrote: post #90
8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back. Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances. Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into…

While I never have used "social media" I recently changed my online viewing(news/reading) habit, to after work only, limiting myself to one or two forum comments before first coffee. And as a self employed person this has changed my whole day and work flow..,,.snappier.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#520

Post by lazide »

mrguyorama wrote: post #483
ethbr1 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'm really nice to the LDS when they drop by. My experience has been that Mormons are generally self-aware, polite, and willing the engage in interesting conversation. In contrast, LinkedIn influencers' eyes glaze over whenever you try to dig into the details of what they're purporting to talk about. Because, ugh, nerd stuff that's beneath them.

It's not because "nerd stuff that's beneath them" but because to a significant portion of the middle management class, the bullshit IS reality . The bullshit is how they get their job, how they function day to day, how they explain themselves to others, how they THINK about themselves etc. It's much the same as the people who get books ghostwritten and say "I wrote a book". It doesn't matter if you understand someone…

yup, and some people are very insecure about this, and will try to destroy you if you ruin the illusion.
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