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The benefits of staying off social media

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Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#91

Post by ellinokon »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #80
Isthatablackgsd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this won't happen unless something or someone takes actions. If governments is not going to bother to do the enforcement of the laws, then nothing changed until they do it. If there is a new player in the field, what or who is going to stop FAANGs from buying the competitors (even it violated the antitrust law)? Sure we do have Sherman Antitrust Act for this... but no one bothering to do the enforcement…

What prevented Oracle, IBM et al to buy out Google, Facebook and Twitter ? Yahoo refused to buy Google.

Nothing more than complacency, maybe? A mistake I think the newer batch of Big Tech is eager not to make.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#92

Post by [deleted] »

ipdashc wrote: post #90
pkdpic wrote: post #12

> A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social…

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

[deleted]

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#93

Post by [deleted] »

smoldesu wrote: post #84
Isthatablackgsd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this won't happen unless something or someone takes actions. If governments is not going to bother to do the enforcement of the laws, then nothing changed until they do it. If there is a new player in the field, what or who is going to stop FAANGs from buying the competitors (even it violated the antitrust law)? Sure we do have Sherman Antitrust Act for this... but no one bothering to do the enforcement…

> Frankly, the Congress prefers to listen to their corporate masters over their constituents. There's the crux of it all. We know firsthand that our addiction to companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are unhealthy, but the only thing stopping us from keeping them in check is our government. I've been saying this for a while now, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the SEC cuts deals to FAANG comp…

[deleted]

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#94

Post by 5faulker »

pkdpic wrote: post #12

> A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social…

Maybe we're all living in our dreams...

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#95

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

ipdashc wrote: post #90
pkdpic wrote: post #12

> A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social…

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

I think it's because reddits user base has significantly decreased in age. I have been using it since late 2012, which even then I felt like a late adopter. The content on Reddit back then was like a more ”normie" version of HN and slashdot. It had good articles consistently with maybe 1 or 2 default meme subreddits. Then Reddit started cutting down content it didn't like and now it's just a leftwing cesspool of antisocial, antiwork rhetoric. It's not even worth posting or commenting because if your comment veers slightly off course, instant downvotes. Not to mention the monetizing of posts with stickers. It's just turned into out of touch people who glorify mental illness imo.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#96

Post by saltcured »

systemvoltage wrote: post #36
ehnto wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once asked here about how you would start an online business without interacting with Google, and I think that somewhat echoes the problem you've mentioned. While totally possible to do these things without social media, there is a challenge posed by the fact that the big platforms have captured the audiences you might have engaged with if they weren't already occupied. If it weren't for those big platforms, many p…

We desperately need new companies emerging and taking over FAANGs. It’s been too long. I think about big tech same as what we thought of HP, Oracle and IBM 20 years ago. Time to conquer them and make them obsolete. If we don't, we're guaranteeing absolute stagnation of the society in many insiduous ways. Always watching, always controlling Big Tech dystopia.

Why do we even lump together FAANGS and compare them to tech companies of that era? Sure, some of them have products (devices, applications, and operating systems) but many are primarily service providers who mostly need tech to function. To my eye, the social stagnation will come from the part of those conglomerates which is more in line with the big media, marketing, and info brokers of the same era. Do most of us even know who those companies were?

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#97

Post by GuB-42 »

zivkovicp wrote: post #52

The internet was a much more interesting place pre-2004, but I am not holding my breath for a return to those times.

It will never happen and I don't want it to happen.

Early 2000s internet = Flash ads, Internet Explorer, dotcom bubble, popups, ... Yeah right, great time... At least, DSL/cable was an upgrade from dial-up.

Pick any time in the history of the internet, and you can find something wrong. Eternal September was in 1993, I think it marks the start of the "old internet was better" times.

Personally, say all you want about social media and the evil tech giants, but for me, every year, the internet becomes bigger and more useful, and the traces of the "good old times", whatever you want them to be, are still there.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#98

Post by renewiltord »

ipdashc wrote: post #90
pkdpic wrote: post #12

> A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social…

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

Internet people are usually a lot angrier than real world people. Hard to explain but they always seem a bundle of neuroticism and mental pathologies. HN is no exception.

I find that when I participate I also start mimicking this behavior and insulation is required.

Fortunately, nothing happened to small talk. I’m a talkative fellow and people still react cheerfully and converse with me. One can only suppose that everyone who hates this went online.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#99

Post by version_five »

politelemon wrote: post #29
version_five wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is definitely social media. It has some features that stop the feedback cycles that others have (I mean no notifications of replies, de-emphasizing the person posting in favor of the content, etc). I think the biggest difference is that social media amplifies the lowest common denominator view (I don't mean stupidest, but more most risk averse, most easily offended, angriest, whatever) and the lowest common denomi…

What about Github, could someone comment on that? I know at some point they used to call themselves 'social coding'. I use it quite regularly for several of my projects and dealing with issues that users raise. It has reply notifications via email. It has emojis. You can star and watch repositories. I've never used IG, FB, WA etc but I assume they have similar concepts.

You can use github that way - you could also use mailing lists that way. But you'd need to find a repo with the critical mass for a real social media style discussion to happen. I expect this does happen occasionally, but certainly it wouldn't be the experience of most github users.

Re: The benefits of staying off social media

#100

Post by munchbunny »

ipdashc wrote: post #90
pkdpic wrote: post #12

> A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social…

> Where people consider talking to someone a chore. This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack. I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or somet…

I think it's an over-correction around the introversion/extroversion divide.

It's true that sometimes I just don't want to be bothered while I'm running errands, but I wouldn't consider someone making small talk, cracking a joke in the elevator, etc. to be some sort of social transgression. As an introvert, chatting or small talk isn't really a chore, and I waste enough of my own time on my own time, so what's a few words with a stranger?

That said, it should be considered perfectly acceptable to signal that you don't want to stay engaged in a conversation if it's someone trying to explain their theory on building a perpetual motion machine. That actually happened. I did not want to stay in that conversation. But even extroverts don't like dealing with crazy.

It only becomes a chore when the talking itself is the work, such as dealing with Comcast charging you for a modem you totally did return, or dealing with the hospital when they incorrectly billed your health insurance and now they're trying to make you pay for the difference.

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