The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state • Hacker News Board

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#91

Post by busymom0 » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:40 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #29

50 years from now, we are going to be looking back at Social Media and Smartphone addiction like we currently look at smoking. “How insane were we to have allowed it and allowed it to be promoted?” our grandchildren will rightly ask!

Hope you are right but I think it's different. Smoking has very visible side effects fairly soon though- types of cancer, photos of rotten lungs and throat everywhere on cigarette packs etc.

Social media only seems to have psychological side effects which aren't as openly visible to our eyes.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#92

Post by photonthug » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:41 AM UTC

nehal3m wrote: post #32

perching_aix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Append ?sk=h_chr at the end of its URL to get that. Can also be found by dumpster diving in the UI somewhere I'm sure. Be aware that they're very intent on redirecting you to the regular feed though.

Thanks for the genuinely useful tip. I didn’t know that was a thing, but I can’t test it since I deleted my account almost a decade ago. I’m tired of adversarially wrestling usefulness out of a trillion dollar company.

> I’m tired of adversarially wrestling usefulness out of a trillion dollar company.

Hopefully people will learn to get tired of this sort of thing a LOT quicker, and this will be one good thing about out our new improved and now extremely shortened attention spans. Impatience could actually have an upside if it prevents decades of escalating arms racing with enshittification vs new-current-work-around. It’s like with stages of grief, right? Denial / bargaining. Whatever is broken in a trillion dollar corporation is broken on purpose, and it's getting worse, not better.. waiting around and hoping for improvement is a fools errand.

Up until now, boiling the frog/consumer slowly has been one tactic. Or corporations can leverage their size and simply make things so bad for so long that a new generation arrives on the scene and has no idea how bad the stuff on offer actually is. Enough completely ubiquitous impatience in consumers really does undermine both of those strategies.. if there's actually meaningful competition that's still left around to choose from

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#93

Post by LtWorf » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:41 AM UTC

xyzal wrote: post #84

8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

I think the EU should flex their regulatory muscle and forbid algorithmic feeds on by default unless the networks break european society as the US is broken.

They should just say that algorithm is editorialised and needs to be subject to the same regulations as newspapers (fined for fake news, editor can lose his journalist status).

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#94

Post by steveBK123 » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:42 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #24

If people didn’t like the way these apps make them feel, they would stop using them. Many people prefer having anxiety about drama to being bored.

There really is something to this. Living in NYC you meet a lot of people from different walks of life and levels of wealth.

Over and over the most stressed out anxious people I meet are the underemployed/nonworking spouse in very wealthy couples. Especially the childless ones.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#95

Post by doubtfuluser » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:42 AM UTC

designerarvid wrote: post #79

8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

Intellectually many want this. But the feed shortcuts our reptile brain and gains more engagement minutes / day. As you say, the algorithmic feed is superior for creators wanting reach, and more importantly, advertisers who want eyeballs on their ads. Due to network effects, it is likely impossible to get friends and family to join a boring and non-profit alternative. Instead of pausing social media altogether, I rec…

> Intellectually many want this. But the feed shortcuts our reptile brain and gains more engagement minutes / day.

I’m not sure if that’s actually a “shortcut” to the reptile brain and it’s just about “I have to scroll more to get stuff I’m interested in. At least for me it feels like that and it causes me to use these social media things far less.

For me it feels more like intermittent rewards vs full rewards at once. Obviously for the ad-industry the intermittent rewards are more useful, that’s why we can’t have nice things

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#96

Post by LtWorf » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:42 AM UTC

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #64

8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

i used facebook back when it functioned like that. and it was still retarded then

But less :D

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#97

Post by d1sxeyes » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:46 AM UTC

ballooney wrote: post #5

revskill wrote: post #2

With ai, i hope the feed is more useful to me.

How could you _possibly_ believe a company like meta would use a new technology to act in your interests rather than theirs?

It is not _completely_ naive to believe that in order for a service like Facebook to continue being successful, they must do _something_ that makes their users want to use it.

And therefore, it is not completely illogical to think that Meta’s interests and users’ interests must align.

(Not my opinion, just responding to your question)

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#98

Post by raffraffraff » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:49 AM UTC

8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

You mean, what it was to begin with? Right now WhatsApp is basically my family Facebook. Images, videos, chat. Separate groups of people so you can remain friends with two former friends who are now mortal enemies. Facebook is just another toxic, addictive social media.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#99

Post by tianqi » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:50 AM UTC

8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

You're talking about something exactly like the ‘Moments’ of WeChat, China's largest social media. It doesn't have a feed, but only updates from friends and family. But still, people spend so much time on that - 900 million people spending an average of 1 hour and 42 minutes per person per day.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#100

Post by whatnow37373 » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:50 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #58

noncoml wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with stopping replyhing to HN. I just downvote and upvote. Emotional stress significantly reduced.

There’s a few things that help: - do not engage with the technically correct but missing the point people - don’t check your threads if you posted something that the groupthink disagrees with - don’t try to win arguments if you know you’re right

I can’t help but notice how all those points are centered around you being the bearer of truth and others being the source of dismay.

While these may be easy ways to avoid exposing yourself to sources of discomfort it might also not be a bad idea to learn how to deal with confrontation and dissonance in a productive manner.

Besides being contrarian, I am nothing if not that, I honestly think our society at large will benefit from learning how to deal constructively with opposing perspectives and mindsets - assuming we ever get to that point.