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Are we tired of social media? (2025)

danielbrendel.com

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Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#81

Post by schoen »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #80

I'm not tired of social media as a concept , but I'm certainly tired of rage bait and engagement bait. But my tiredness of those pales in comparison to people's utter inability to recognize it and react accordingly by not responding to it. How many times do I have to see the question about whether an airplane takes off if it's on a reverse treadmill? How many times do I have to see simple math questions that test you…

Surely things like the airplane on a treadmill were debated back on classic Usenet? I mean, think of the recurrent Monty Hall Problem debates! But the other examples you give do seem to be elaborately engineered (or evolved) sorts of clickbait.

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#82

Post by butlike »

cal_dent wrote: post #44
p-e-w wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that often gets overlooked is that 25 years ago, “the Internet” was essentially educated people from North America and Western Europe, with everyone else being a rounding error. This made it very easy to connect on a level beyond just memes. Users had a lot in common personally, and that’s why they were able to engage on a personal level. Today, the majority of the world’s population is online, and memes ar…

> Today, the majority of the world’s population is online, and memes are often the only cultural language shared by all users in a community I've always wondered how sure of this are we actually? Particularly now in the age of easy bot activity too. I buy that a significant % of population is online but I'd hazard at a decent guess that the majority are passively online content rather than actively engage in it so ho…

I'm thinking out loud with this one, but memes tend to be a comedic way to relate to the topic in my eyes. Comedy tends to be lower friction, so it stands to reason memes would be a good shibboleth for an online community.

Now, in the modern age, you have 'creators' who make the memes and are the original posters, but you also have easy mechanisms for sharing already-created content. Sharing content is _SOMEWHAT_ akin to the original meme creation since you're putting skin in the game and standing behind the meme's sentiment. Akin to wearing liberty spikes to show you're part of a punk community. You didn't create 'liberty spikes,' you're just representing them. In using the sharing button, I think average people can interact online in a much different way than it used to be.

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#83

Post by platevoltage »

nephihaha wrote: post #66
platevoltage wrote: post #29

Absolutely. The worst part about this by far is the fact that you are virtually required to participate in at least one of these platforms if you want to exist in the professional world.

I'm only on FB for work. It's dire.

I actually tried to get back on Facebook in order to get a Meta business account because I wanted to use the WhatsApp API. They wouldn't let me back on. Instaban every time. I left by my own accord as well.

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#84

Post by cmpalmer52 »

There is no “social” media anymore, there’s just algorithmic feeds of dubious news, memes, ads, AI generated content (and AI generated ads), promoted content, and short form videos by people you don’t know. You have to really dig to keep up with your friends and people who have interesting things to contribute unless they have the numbers to break through. Or you click and filter a lot.

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#85

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

kevinsync wrote: post #20

I hate to say it (not a doom and gloom kind of dude) but to the general population, social media either is, or at the very least appears to be , one of the only ways up and out of the deep, terrifying economic chasm that our societies have been carving to separate the haves from the have-nots. Statistically, of course, the overwhelming majority of people who try to secure the bag from social media either fail, succee…

Facebook is the opiate of the masses.

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#86

Post by marcus_holmes »

nephihaha wrote: post #63
marcus_holmes wrote: post #17

I'm totally not tired of Facebook circa 2008 - a bunch of my friends, people I actually know, posting about our lives and having conversations. A fantastic way of reconnecting with old friends and staying in touch with people. I'm utterly tired of what it is now.

Wasn't a fan of it back then. Saw people fighting on it the first day I was on there. Deleted my account. Now back on for work and limit my usage a lot.

Interesting.

So presumably the people fighting were actual friends (since back then there was nothing else in the feed but posts by people you'd friended)? Do those people fight a lot in real life? How do you cope with that?

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#87

Post by efilife »

eager_learner wrote: post #74
elorant wrote: post #72

The difference for me is that 20+ years ago if you went to an online community there was no filter to protect you. You’d have to choose wisely what to say and avoid being confrontational because there was the very possible chance of someone more knowledgeable than you putting you in place. With social media that exposure diminished because everyone can build a bubble of like-minded people. I like been corrected, whil…

Try posting something that majority of HN disagrees with and see the barrage of downvotes.

I love tailwind. AI chatbots are useless. Old internet was bad. Asians are proven to have the highest IQ. There's no logical reason for humans to exist. DOOM was a bad game.

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#88

Post by nephihaha »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #86
nephihaha wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't a fan of it back then. Saw people fighting on it the first day I was on there. Deleted my account. Now back on for work and limit my usage a lot.

Interesting. So presumably the people fighting were actual friends (since back then there was nothing else in the feed but posts by people you'd friended)? Do those people fight a lot in real life? How do you cope with that?

The interactions were far worse online. A few of them were what I would call acquaintances rather than friends in real life, but yes, I knew them.

On the first day, one guy I did know was attacked by someone I didn't know, who made fun of him for having the middle name Ralph. I think he ended up blocking her. They appeared to have known each other for years. This was within hours of joining Facebook. I stayed out of it, but was taken aback by it.

Another individual I found easy to get on with offline, was very aggressive about a number of issues. I have tended to avoid him since. I think he took some kind of breakdown and Facebook may have even been part of that. His online behaviour cost him his relationship too.

I do have an FB account now, but I rarely go on it (last time was weeks ago). I have to have it for work. I do limit friends to people I've met in person, which does help a bit. But I still see toxic interactions on there as well as bizarre claims (such as someone claiming all countries have nuclear weapons, which was more down to their personal ignorance than conspiracy theory.) As far as the website goes, I got a temporary ban for some weeks for making a short post asking about the mental health cost of lockdowns.

Re: Are we tired of social media? (2025)

#89

Post by S_Bear »

aomix wrote: post #31

I find it interesting that the same process that played out in the forums to feed transition also took place in video games with dedicated servers to matchmaking. I joined a random Counter Strike server in 2005 and ended up becoming close friends with regulars on the server and I'm still in touch with some of them this day.

My wife has been on the same minecraft server for 15 years. We meet up with the other members fairly regularly; a few of them even flew out to Hawaii with us for vacation last year. This year we're going to Canada for vacation, and we'll probably have a group of 7-8 of the Canadian members meet up and go do stuff.
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