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Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

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Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#81

Post by brianmcc »

mlang23 wrote: post #49
xivzgrev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally don’t find TV a time waster. If you enjoy it, as I do, then do it, guilt-free. However if you find yourself addicted ie you want to do other things but you keep getting “sucked in” then by all means stop - it will have a noticeably positive impact.

I wasn't feeling like TV directly prevented me from doing anything else, but it still felt like a big relief when I finally sold my TV. It didn't feel like it was stealing any of my time, still, my daily activities at home changed to something that feels much more productive and healthy. I read more, and spend more time with my personal projects. TV is sneaky, you don't realize how much time of your life it consumes.

Glad the change is working for you. There's definitely such a thing as overdoing TV binges. But all of us need to be cautious about ditching a legitimate entertainment and relaxation medium because it's not "productive", productivity isn't the only goal in life. It's OK to chill out and recharge!

(Not in any way criticising you - just the community here often appears obsessed with maximising personal output and I think jeez just relax sometimes guys!!)

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#82

Post by Angostura »

tyfon wrote: post #61
mlang23 wrote: post #27

I totally quit television about a year ago, and it had a very noticeable positive impact on me. I also mostly quit Facebook with the end of last year. I say mostly, because I still use its event calendar, and occasionally check my stream. But I significantly reduced the amount of comments I leave on that platform. I feel like, while the criticism of FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit and co is pretty much warranted, we manage…

I stopped watching regular TV around 2005 due to the influx of "reality-tv" and other crappy formats. What I used to watch before was real documentaries on discovery and it's family of channels. Now I just watch Festival of Science or Royal Institution lectures on YouTube and some anime on wakanim :) There are also a lot of real in-class lectures filmed on various topic on YouTube that I find very nice. I don't miss…

I don't think there's any particular need to cold-turkey quit watching TV, just to be a little strict with yourself about what you watch.

Similarly with Facebook; I use it but I don't follow friends particularly - I follow pages, mainly a useful local neighbourhood page that mainly seems to concentrate on who has lost a cat and who can recomnend a plumbe. Similarly with Reddit, just select a few decent subs that you are interested in.

I look at Fscebook every couple of weeks. Reddit - too frequently.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#83

Post by Angostura »

bedobi wrote: post #32
mlang23 wrote: post #27

I totally quit television about a year ago, and it had a very noticeable positive impact on me. I also mostly quit Facebook with the end of last year. I say mostly, because I still use its event calendar, and occasionally check my stream. But I significantly reduced the amount of comments I leave on that platform. I feel like, while the criticism of FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit and co is pretty much warranted, we manage…

Same here! I haven't had a TV in many years and since quitting the news (on every medium) I'm much happier and have much more time and energy to devote to fun and productive things.

How do you know what is going on in the world around you? Or don't you realy care that much?

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#84

Post by rubidium »

brianmcc wrote: post #81
mlang23 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't feeling like TV directly prevented me from doing anything else, but it still felt like a big relief when I finally sold my TV. It didn't feel like it was stealing any of my time, still, my daily activities at home changed to something that feels much more productive and healthy. I read more, and spend more time with my personal projects. TV is sneaky, you don't realize how much time of your life it consumes.

Glad the change is working for you. There's definitely such a thing as overdoing TV binges. But all of us need to be cautious about ditching a legitimate entertainment and relaxation medium because it's not "productive", productivity isn't the only goal in life. It's OK to chill out and recharge! (Not in any way criticising you - just the community here often appears obsessed with maximising personal output and I thi…

The bigger point is TV is a poor way to ‘chill and recharge’. It zaps your creative process, deadens your judgment, and isolates you from those around.

Reading, conversation with friends/family, poetry, painting, sitting and enjoying a good meal/cigar etc... all have the quality of chill and recharge without the negative effects of TV.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#85

Post by mlang23 »

brianmcc wrote: post #81
mlang23 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't feeling like TV directly prevented me from doing anything else, but it still felt like a big relief when I finally sold my TV. It didn't feel like it was stealing any of my time, still, my daily activities at home changed to something that feels much more productive and healthy. I read more, and spend more time with my personal projects. TV is sneaky, you don't realize how much time of your life it consumes.

Glad the change is working for you. There's definitely such a thing as overdoing TV binges. But all of us need to be cautious about ditching a legitimate entertainment and relaxation medium because it's not "productive", productivity isn't the only goal in life. It's OK to chill out and recharge! (Not in any way criticising you - just the community here often appears obsessed with maximising personal output and I thi…

Maybe I didnt express myself well enough. I didn't raise the issue of spending too much time in front of television to promote 24/7 productivity, not at all. I know quite well how important it is to just chill out and wind down. However, most TV programs that I was watching before I quit it completely felt like they were slowly poisoning me with stupidity. It is really the lack of quality and frankly, intelligence, that drove me away from classical TV.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#86

Post by PaulRobinson »

I would love to see similar studies done on other social media platforms.

I quit Facebook a couple of years ago and went back to take a look recently. Whole bucket of "nope" right there. I am now concerned about other platforms I find quite sticky though, including Reddit, HN and particularly Twitter.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#87

Post by mlang23 »

Angostura wrote: post #83
bedobi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here! I haven't had a TV in many years and since quitting the news (on every medium) I'm much happier and have much more time and energy to devote to fun and productive things.

How do you know what is going on in the world around you? Or don't you realy care that much?

Wow, I typically only get that question from people way older then 70 years... That feels weird, to read this on HN. No, sorry, I don't need a TV just to get a few news bites daily. There are other ways to stay up to date.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#88

Post by mlang23 »

vidarh wrote: post #51
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most books that have been published in the past 100 years will disappear because they aren't worth the e-/paper they're written on. What makes reading more valuable for your brain is that it requires active engagement. films might be valuable too (I love films such as sci-fi, crime and comedy) - but binging 6 hrs on movies/shows every days is sure not as valuable as reading 6 hrs every day. It becomes even more damag…

Most of my sons screen time is spent socializing. He rarely watches TV, but he spends a lot of time in multiplayer games where he is simultaneously on discord and building friendships. Yes, he needs face to face socialization too, and he gets plenty of that at school and various other activities, but the point being that screen time can be very passive or it can be active and involve lots of social contact.

When I was younger, I spent quite a lot of "active screen time" with IRC. Back then, it felt like I am connected to other people. In retrospect, it would have been far better for me if I used that time to socialize with real people IRL. If I could go back in time, I would force myself to go out and meet real people, instead of simulated friendships in a chatroom...

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#89

Post by bedobi »

cocoto wrote: post #40
bedobi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here! I haven't had a TV in many years and since quitting the news (on every medium) I'm much happier and have much more time and energy to devote to fun and productive things.

I don't think browsing a website named Hacker NEWS is really "quitting the news (on every medium)".

Haha granted, I do enjoy Hacker News, because it's just random interesting links, not politics or current events, which is what I'm very deliberately chosing to cut out.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#90

Post by frereubu »

Related to reducing media exposure and the attendant increase in the sense of wellbeing, this is a lovely article by the Serbian / American poet Charles Simic, about discovering how his dad had attained "Olympian calm":

"Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old movie I had seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet. My late father, in the final year of his life, claimed that he finally found that long-sought serenity by no longer reading the papers and watching television. Even then, and I was thirty years younger than he, I knew what he meant. What devotees of sadomasochism do to their bodies is nothing compared to the torments that those addicted to the news and political commentary inflict on their minds almost every hour of the day.

My own inordinate interest in what the lunatics are up to in every corner of our planet has to do with my childhood. When I was three years old in Belgrade, German bombs started falling on my head. By the time I was seven, I was accustomed to seeing dead people lying in the street, or hung from telephone poles, or thrown into ditches with their throats cut. Like any child growing up in an occupied city during wartime, I didn’t think much about it. I was as serene then as I will ever be, sitting among the ruins smoking my first cigarette, riding on a Russian tank with a friend, or watching our school janitor hang the portraits of Marx, Stalin and Marshal Tito in our classroom after the liberation."

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-serenity/

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