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I deleted my social media accounts

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Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#81

Post by ToucanLoucan »

nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

Because the reasons to quit social media aren't that it isn't useful and that, absent the market conditions it exists within that denotes it's ability to continue existing, it isn't a good product. People love the stuff, it's why it's been the primary use case of the internet, arguably since it's inception depending on whether you consider early stuff like BBSes and news groups/email newsletters to be social media. We had early prototype social media functionality online before we had commerce.

The problem is that these platforms aren't satisfied merely providing a third place within which we can find and build communities, speak with and learn from others with similar interests, and otherwise, be human. Instead we each become a hamster locked in our own little cage, and the principle reason we're there is to sit on our wheel and run, and while we run we're shown a handful of things from people we actually want to hear from and see, and interspersed with those few things are a ton advertisements for products we don't want and aren't interested in, a few we might be, AI generated nonsense that prompts us to engage with the platform to bump metrics up, the dipshit of the day who's said something infuriating that makes us click into the comments and make sure they're getting dunked on (and possibly join!) appropriately that the social media site dug up from obscurity and is now parading to the entire world, and of course, the same posts again.

Genuinely, the way people talk about going back in time to kill baby Hitler, if I had a time machine, I would spend the rest of my days sabotaging whatever countless number of people invented or would invent the Curated Fucking Timeline, on however many platforms it was invented, by however many data scientists. I would argue it is the single most destructive thing Silicon Valley has ever turned out.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#82

Post by bee_rider »

nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

People drift apart over time sometimes. I’m on Facebook still (TBH it is hard to see much by my friends, between all the algorithmic stuff). Despite being on there, there are some folks I’ve just kind of… lost contact with.

Maybe have a text chain for your friends or something? The folks I really expect to know things about… they’d tell me while we were interacting.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#83

Post by angoragoats »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #22
wordofx wrote: post #17

Facebook removing 'fact' checkers is good, they weren't fact checkers, they were bias enforcers. Community notes is far superior to the bias enforcers.

Yea it’s odd how so many people have become pro-censorship.

It’s odd how so many people have developed the attitude of “censorship bad” without thinking about the consequences of removing it or whether “censorship” on private, profit-driven, opaque-algorithm-powered social media should even be considered bad.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#86

Post by DougN7 »

nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

I just deleted my FB account yesterday. Believe or not, your experience makes me feel OK about it because even with FB, I’ve drifted apart from all but a few close friends. That makes me think it’s the norm and social media doesn’t do nearly as much to keep us connected as it would like us to believe.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#87

Post by kristianc »

bee_rider wrote: post #82
nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

People drift apart over time sometimes. I’m on Facebook still (TBH it is hard to see much by my friends, between all the algorithmic stuff). Despite being on there, there are some folks I’ve just kind of… lost contact with. Maybe have a text chain for your friends or something? The folks I really expect to know things about… they’d tell me while we were interacting.

> People drift apart over time sometimes.

It's admittedly a little easier to drift apart though when you deliberately delete your access to the place where they post all the shit that's happening in their lives...

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#88

Post by hypeatei »

nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

> Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on

This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post blasted to hundreds (or thousands) of people. Or, to put it another way: if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them.

I'd argue that social media has normalized keeping up with people who aren't supposed to be part of your life forever. But, we should take a step back and realize that not everything should or will last forever. If you cross paths again then you can catch up, but having life updates constantly? No thanks.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#89

Post by coffeefirst »

nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

I quit on and off and came to the opposite conclusion. The acquaintances I never heard from, we weren’t really in touch in any way, seeing their posts had just tricked me into thinking we were.

And that’s okay. It means 5 years later when we cross paths for real there’s lots to catch up on.

Re: I deleted my social media accounts

#90

Post by suzzer99 »

nindalf wrote: post #38

This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on socia…

Yes, everyone uses social media differently and gets different things out of it.

I've got my Facebook feed so well-curated that it rarely causes me distress. And like you, I like keeping up with old acquaintances, seeing their kids' milestones, etc. I get real enjoyment out of that.

Instagram I post pics when I travel and otherwise ignore it.

Twitter OTOH is probably a net negative for me. I still keep it around to follow sports pundits during games, and I usually only follow my sports list. But I do check in on my main feed during major events, and then inevitably end up doomscrolling. For example, the LA fires hashtags are so far beyond toxic - nothing but engagement farming, malicious misinfo, political nonsense, etc. Amidst all that crap, maybe 1 in 10 tweets has good info, but I have to destroy my psyche to find it.

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