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Quit Social Media (2016)

calnewport.com

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Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#71

Post by safety1st »

freediver wrote: post #6

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

Amend according to your preferences, run it whenever something annoys you, throw it in a cron job, etc.

.bash_aliases:

alias blocksocials='(echo ""; echo "127.0.0.1 reddit.com"; echo "127.0.0.1 www.reddit.com") | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts > /dev/null'

alias unblocksocials='sudo sed -i "/reddit.com/d" /etc/hosts'

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#72

Post by TSUTiger »

Several of the comments here certainly have some superiority complex issues as well as what would appear isolation issues. You seem cynical towards a large majority of modern society. If you need a hug, I’m here.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#73

Post by ikr678 »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #60
benjaminwootton wrote: post #5

Isn’t it on the decline yet? Facebook is for boomers. Twitter is weird and we all realised how pointless it is to spend time falling out on there. Instagram feels a bit long in the tooth. LinkedIn is a parody of itself. Reddit feels like it’s growing but I think that avoids the worst of social media. TikTok and YouTube shorts seem popular but aren’t really social media. It’s just time wasting junk. All in all, social…

Instagram is a must if you want to get any real benefit out of using dating apps in 2024. The only way to talk to anybody without paying is to look at the profile, get their instagram url, and talk over there. I'm an old millennial who basically only uses HN for social media, and unfortunately IG is a must have.

Devil's advocate: Not having an IG let me filter out a lot more unserious matches on said apps.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#75

Post by esperent »

safety1st wrote: post #71
freediver wrote: post #6

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

Amend according to your preferences, run it whenever something annoys you, throw it in a cron job, etc. .bash_aliases: alias blocksocials='(echo ""; echo "127.0.0.1 reddit.com"; echo "127.0.0.1 www.reddit.com") | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts > /dev/null' alias unblocksocials='sudo sed -i "/reddit.com/d" /etc/hosts'

Doesn't do much for phone usage, which is where I actually want to block things. The best solution I've found for that is NextDNS.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#77

Post by insin »

decasia wrote: post #26
freediver wrote: post #6

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

I would love to pay for social software on a coop model (like a food coop, etc) — we would be "members" and, theoretically, we pay a small monthly fee that covers the costs of hosting and platform development. I've tried to think about what I would want that to look like — spoiler, something different than the model of "posting + reactions" that is so familiar from twitter+fb — but then when I think about the barrier…

That can just be a forum - a forum I've been a member of for more than 20 years has been run by the members since 2010 [1], is registered as a co-operative/community benefit society in the UK and funded by voluntary memberships or donations, with members voting annually to elect people to positions required to run it.

A good chunk of those have been part of the same community on a newsgroup, then on a company-owned forum which got shuttered, then on a forum instance set up by a user who didn't want to run it any more after 6 years. The tech and platforms are ephemeral, always have been.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RLLMUK

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#78

Post by ryandv »

tropdrop wrote: post #62
ryandv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rephrase it further to "quit ad-based media." The problems and conflicts of interest introduced by an ad-based revenue model were discussed long before the advent of the modern Web and social media; the relationship between the advertisement industry and mass media (television, radio) was already discussed in depth in the late 20th century [0]: The advertisers' choices influence media prosperity and survival.…

Interestingly this changed somewhat with the clickbait-based model – now, I would disagree that advertisers "want, more generally, to avoid programs with serious complexities and disturbing controversies." I think this does describe legacy advertisers (and TikTok, for different reasons) – we might remember Tumblr's hyper-specific LGBTQ-friendly (often NSFW) communities being completely liquidated in the transfer of T…

As possible counterpoint consider the departure of several advertisers from X following the Musk acquisition, whose controversial online antics and positions (irrespective of one's potential value judgments of them) were deemed bad for business and a damper on the "buying mood."

In general though it is true that ragebait and sensationalism do tend to drive "engagement" and thus ad revenue (often to the detriment of society).

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#79

Post by watwut »

freediver wrote: post #6

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

We do not filter real world friends based on them paying for arbitrary product.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#80

Post by watwut »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #40
freediver wrote: post #6

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

> > Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry This depends on the definition of success, the most successful as in impressive achievements goal reaching are the ones that are open to anybody who can get noticed and brought in. ANd in the social sense even open to the ones who are most capable of monopolizing the discourse and creating a buzz in the public square. For example Trump did…

I would not call GOP and pro-Trump people to be "open" at all. The whole point is authoritarianism, exclusion and pure aggression toward others.
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