[HN Gopher] Dear self: we need to talk about social media
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Dear self: we need to talk about social media
Author : luu
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-12-21 23:09 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (acesounderglass.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (acesounderglass.com)
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| There is too much data out there for any human to manage.
|
| There is no algorithm that will be able to show the "correct"
| data (#) to any subset of people, whoever defines correct.
|
| So tommy simple mind we need automated help, and so need all data
| producers to make data available under common protocols.
|
| My pipe dreams are harder now there are no pipes anymore
|
| (#) this is a side fallacy of "management" - the idea that
| somehow senior management can wait for people to come to them
| with problems and they can decide on policy. You can't decide
| unless you are deep in the data. You cannot decide
|
| it's why we need experts and to trust decentralised decision
| making because we can trust the incentives.
|
| It's also why you should never trust any industry that has a
| weird business model (filmmaking, hedge funds, airlines) because
| we cannot correctly see the incentives from the outside. It's why
| regulators should have a one paragraph description of how the
| industry they regulate makes its money, posted at the top of all
| its stationary and web sites etc. It is I think the regulatory
| holy grail because it will freak everyone out.
| winternett wrote:
| Different things work for different people.
|
| My main frustration is with the need for social media to drive
| dependency, addiction, and engagement.
|
| I am weary of content and UI controls that increasingly are
| overly monopolizing my time just to get to a point that is often
| totally a waste of time, and/or not funny.
|
| If social media algorithms were actually accurate in determining
| what I really like to watch, instead of just being dedicated
| towards steering me towards consumerism (that I'm not going to
| engage in anyway) my feelings would be different about it not
| being a useful friend anymore.
|
| I just use it in small doses when I'm bored or waiting for a
| project to render or build now and as places to collect/share my
| shower thoughts and funny things I find.
| mikewarot wrote:
| I've never owned a smart phone, for fear of becoming addicted to
| it. It seems that was a well founded notion. The two things I
| think they are useful for are Google Maps (for the Traffic, I
| know where I'm going), and getting phone numbers to place carry
| out orders.
|
| I don't constantly check email, I don't have a stream of
| interruptions when I'm away from the computer. Now all I have is
| the almost daily non-disable-able "amber alerts" that jar me out
| of my life, and the occasional junk call.
|
| When I do consume sites, I try very hard to avoid letting their
| algorithm decide what I see. With Facebook, for example you can
| append ?sk=h_chr to the site name, and it will show you thinks in
| reverse chronological order. I use subscriptions on Youtube, and
| only use "Home" when I'm bored and want to veg. I curate my
| sources as best I can.
| Sosh101 wrote:
| The things I would miss without a smartphone:
|
| - Maps
|
| - Digital tickets / proof-of-something
|
| - Payments / Transfers
|
| - Taxis
| blueflow wrote:
| Things i use without a smartphone:
|
| - Maps
|
| - Tickets, Vaccination pass
|
| - Coins and Cash for Payments
|
| - Taxis
|
| I hoped for a moment you were kidding. Now i'm a bit sad.
| Sosh101 wrote:
| Yes I use those things without a smartphone too. I'm just
| trying share what I think the core sticky features of
| smartphones are for me. I'd probably also add notes and
| calendar. I could do without communications other than
| voice and sms.
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| "We need to talk about X" is a clickbait-y headline that I just
| never click on anymore. A one-line summary of the main idea would
| be much more interesting and useful.
| quocanh wrote:
| A bit off topic.
|
| I think it's fascinating when people say that meditation doesn't
| work for them but then discover the benefits of meditative states
| all on their own. That's what Quiet is anyway.
| dsaavy wrote:
| I liked the style of this blog post/self-addressed letter. I
| found myself brainstorming many of the methods for Quiet that the
| author mentions.
|
| Side note: I've always wondered how much potential is lost in the
| current generations because of the constant distractions (of all
| kinds). The type of deep and creative thinking that comes from
| boredom and a lack of interruptions can drive great change and
| ideas from a personal and societal perspective.
|
| The switching cost of focus changes is a real issue in thinking
| in deep ways. And the cost of doing it frequently is definitely a
| drain and cause of atrophy in overall focus ability. Trying to
| rein in your ability to focus for longer periods of time is HARD.
| It's mentally and even physically uncomfortable.
| andrejserafim wrote:
| This and also being able to satisfy an itch at any moment. Be
| it youtube or facebook, whatever your favourite drug is. It's
| infinitely available and is much easier than any other form of
| activity.
|
| But in an of itself doesn't create anything. Mindless content
| consumption doesn't even leave memories sometimes, what to say
| of ideas.
| wussboy wrote:
| I realize it is too late to get rid of mobile devices. But I
| have long advocated for "Techno-lent": a period of forty days
| and nights where you put your mobile devices off and in a
| drawer, you turn off your WiFi.
|
| Before you claim it is impossible because of your work, is it
| really? Did you try and think of a way that was possible?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Some good suggestions in here. Even the suggestions specific to
| the author's personal habits are portable to other habits.
|
| Worth noting that this is about more than just social media. It's
| about distractions in general and being specific about how you
| fill your time.
|
| Ironically, some of the most distracted people I've ever worked
| with had proudly sworn off "social media" long ago. Yet they were
| constantly buried in discussion forums (LessWrong, HN, Reddit,
| IRC) that weren't traditional Facebook/Instagram style social
| media sites. Whatever distinction you use doesn't really matter.
|
| More generally, it's important to be deliberate with the
| notifications you allow into your life and the activities you use
| to fill idle time. Both iOS and Android have facilities to limit
| notifications during certain periods. Use them liberally.
|
| Many apps, including social apps, work just fine with
| notifications disabled. I might check Instagram once a day and I
| can respond to any messages at that time. I'm not missing
| anything by using a poll instead of a push method for checking
| these.
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| > Yet they were constantly buried in discussion forums
|
| Well, I am like that. I find social media to be too
| addictive/distracting so I am off that shit completely.
|
| Older-school stuff is also addictive but to a lesser extent.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I don't have very healthy relationship with online
| communications, and especially social media. Generally I find any
| disruption from deep thought, especially notifications from my
| phone, chat, and email, to be very aggravating or even stressful.
| If I'm really into my work, I will audibly grumble or say "what!"
| loudly (I work at home by myself so this doesn't bother anyone
| else). I have to carefully curate all notifications (and in the
| case of email, be diligent about unsubscribing from
| newsletters/marketing material I didn't sign up for) to minimize
| disruption for my own sanity.
|
| Even when I'm not working, a generic notification from my phone
| is stressful because the thought that it could be something that
| I have to deal with right now doesn't go away until I check it.
| Because of this, I have to blacklist any application that will
| happily send me useless notifications, which includes basically
| all social media apps, which means I don't know when someone is
| genuinely trying to engage with me on social media unless I visit
| all the time. As a result, I basically don't use social media.
| It's unfortunate to miss things that people only plan via
| indirect communication because of that, but it is what it is. I
| definitely feel like the ubiquity of planning and communication
| via e.g. Facebook means that I miss out on a lot of social events
| and interaction, so I must ironically conclude that I am
| alienated from most of my peers as a result of social media.
| krisoft wrote:
| I totaly get what you say about notifications. I also get
| anoyed by beeping or buzzing which robs me of my focus.
|
| Here is how i handle it: I just set all my devices to be
| silent. I set things up such that I won't even see the
| notifications. Periodically as I finish something, or need to
| take a brake I emerge from concentration and do a scan of my
| queued up notifications. And just then I answer them.
|
| I'm not a first responder. If someone is going to literally die
| unless they hear from me immediately they better call the
| emergency numbers anyway.
|
| Friends, family, coworkers all know and respect that they will
| get an answer but perhaps not immediately. In return when I get
| around it I make sure to respond in a usefull and thoughtfull
| way to the best of my abilities. People seems to be fine with
| it, and it prevents me from drowning in a constant barrage of
| pings.
| walrus01 wrote:
| With android 8/9/10 it's totally possible to 100% disable all
| ability for a specific app to send any notifications at all.
| Not in the settings within the app, but at the operating system
| level. Not sure if same on iOS.
| neuronic wrote:
| Since iOS 15 it has been very easy to just configure a Focus
| mode. I put all (and I mean all) apps and contacts in a
| silent-list during whichever time I feel like being left
| alone.
|
| Can still define certain contacts to reach you in case of
| emergency and so on.
|
| Love it - silencing the phone is the best thing ever. Starve
| the attention economy of attention and let all the bad actors
| like Facebook/Meta slowly perish.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| > But now there is in-person socializing again
|
| I've been struggling with this. I either forgot where & how to
| socialize, or socializing is not actually back. Even though we're
| back to normal, I feel as disconnected as ever. What are remote
| workers doing to socialize without social media these days?
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Meet up groups, popping to the pub for lunch and meeting the
| locals, knocking on neighbour's doors to introduce yourself,
| asking an old friend if they want to come over and play some
| Goldeneye.
|
| You just have to actually do it.
|
| For disclosure though, I don't work remotely, the benefits
| (mainly skipping a bit of cycling each day) seem minor to me
| compared to the downsides. And I never stopped socializing to
| begin with since I think corona is overblown, so I'm
| maintaining and adding to social groups.
|
| I have lost a lot of friends too, of course.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I'm with you, I have no friends and I'm getting really
| depressed. Online games and friends aren't a replacement and I
| don't know where to go these days to meet people who have my
| interests. I don't even know how to talk to strangers anymore,
| and I wasn't very good at it before the past 2 years. I'm sick
| of spending all my time with my wife and kid, even though I
| love them. I can't go many places or interact with people who
| aren't very safe, because my wife has bad lungs and if she gets
| Covid there's a real chance she'll die, even vaccinated and
| boosted. What do people do about that? I'm getting to the point
| where I just work all the time to pass time and the rest I'm
| doing stuff for my family like chores and errands. I'm not
| doing great right now.
|
| Edit because who the f downvotes this? Fuck you ya dirty rat.
| labster wrote:
| Downvoted because parent reminds me of how isolated and
| meaningless my own life is. This is The Holidays, a time for
| palliative lies, not honest assessments of our cultural
| alienation.
|
| Though Dickens might disagree with me.
| walrus01 wrote:
| If you are not going to take the steps of ceasing to use some of
| these things...
|
| one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of mobile
| app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram apps.
|
| do not enable anything that brings itself to your attention and
| requires an action like swipe-down from android top menu, look at
| notification, possibly click on it.
|
| only view the content of whatever is in the app when you
| specifically choose to open it.
|
| I find these days that I get much more value out of a private
| signal chat group that has about 50 people in it, all of whom
| have notifications for the group turned off and leave
| messages/post things asynchronously (almost exactly as you might
| see people using IRC for in 1998), than the big company run
| social media. At any given time there might be 4-5 active people
| in it since everyone is busy with careers, real life, and are
| spread out across almost all of the world's timezones.
| indymike wrote:
| > one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of
| mobile app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram apps.
|
| This is the trick. When you engage communication on your own
| terms, the outcomes are better - for you, and often for the
| rest of the world. Facebook looks totally different when you
| aren't just reacting. Much easier to focus on the things you
| really are interested in instead of what the algorithm wants
| you to pay attention to.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of
| mobile app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram
| apps.
|
| Came to say the same thing. The only notification I have on
| my phone is SMS, and thankfully very few people send me SMS
| these days.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| I'd even add email for that matter. It's not the same as
| social media addiction but it plays on the same impulses.
| Turning off email notifications greatly improved my ability
| to compartmentalize work and personal time.
| browningstreet wrote:
| And the badge, turn off the badge count as well.
| yob28 wrote:
| Lol just delete all your social media already. Stop being an
| idiot
| C19is20 wrote:
| 200% agree, and have done. Er....but, (posting on) hn!....oh,
| the irony.
| alexjplant wrote:
| A news aggregator with a heavily-modded comments section
| frequented by interesting, educated people is hardly the same
| as a platform that drives engagement to attract advertisers
| by crassly exploiting our basest human desires. Social media
| platforms are basically systems that front conversion funnels
| with image macros and pictures of butts. Hacker News' goal is
| to inspire thoughtful discourse.
| Syonyk wrote:
| I don't consider HN to be in the same category of most social
| media apps, though it has some of the danger zones. There's a
| Hacker News Demetricifier extension that helps a lot with
| "oooh, let's see how many upvoties my wise, intelligent
| comment got this time!" checking.
|
| I draw the line at "algorithmic, individualized feeds." To
| the best of my knowledge, HN state is global (to within
| whatever level of distributed consensus is required for the
| server infrastructure). If I look at HN, what I see in terms
| of front page state and comment order is what other people
| see, and what non-logged-in users see. It's not optimized for
| what the algorithm things _I_ want to see - and that 's the
| difference.
|
| There are still plenty of dark patterns one can integrate
| within this space, and I think Reddit is in a very grey zone
| (I no longer use it because I don't like what the new
| interface has done to technical text content and their
| pending IPO or whatever is certain to ruin what's left). The
| only real improvement I'd offer to HN is the ability to hide
| your own comment upvote/downvote comments as a check toggle
| somewhere, to demetricify it even more, while still
| maintaining the ability to moderate content. That comment
| scores other than your own is hidden is a great improvement.
|
| If there's a better line, I'd be interested in hearing it,
| but my personal point is "individualized, algorithmic feeds
| are evil."
| thewarrior wrote:
| A post about the pitfalls of social media is a cliche at this
| point. None of these posts with very moralistic tones acknowledge
| that the ability to participate in a real time text and image
| adventure with millions of others is something that brings great
| power.
|
| Reading Hacker News has changed my life.I don't always agree with
| Paul Graham but in my opinion Hacker News is his greatest
| creation. It changed my outlook as an engineer and I went from
| being a no name engineer at an ordinary company to a senior
| engineer at a FANG. Someone I met on Facebook helped me on my
| journey. I found room mates on Facebook and they're now my
| friends. Certain obscure subreddits have given me fresh new
| perspectives and changed how I look at the world. I've been in
| Twitter DMs with really interesting people. Instagram is a way
| for a lot of creatives to find an audience whether its
| photography or art. The feedback mechanisms and publicity have
| led to some people getting insanely good. I'm still trying to
| understand TikTok but perhaps I'm getting too old to rewire my
| brain for it.
|
| I do realize how this is all a little too much for my brain that
| evolved forage nuts and roam around forests. Our brains simply
| were not designed to handle this volume and speed of information.
| A lot of it is undoubtedly useful but social interactions often
| have an adversarial element to them. However when it is in real
| life the slower speed and repeated interactions allows us to stay
| on top of it. Keeping up with all of this imposes a cognitive
| load. I have started meditating and trying not to respond in
| anger or indignation to everything I see online. I use it knowing
| my limitations as a tiny brain trying to stay afloat in a sea of
| information and cyber predators. I will never be able to
| comprehend more than a fraction of my filter bubble or keep up
| with the discourse as it ricochets around the world 10 times
| before I even see it.
|
| But I am not going to stop using social media. My life would be
| poorer for it.
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(page generated 2021-12-24 23:00 UTC)