[HN Gopher] Social media is too much for most of us to handle
___________________________________________________________________
Social media is too much for most of us to handle
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-07-21 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| l3x4ur1n wrote:
| I used to use Facebook a lot. It knew me, always recommended
| stuff I'd be interested in and I sometimes spent hours on
| Facebook and not even realizing it, only after I finished and
| then I'd feel guilty about it. The same shit next day.
|
| I quit all social media 3 years ago. I don't visit them daily
| anymore. I visit Facebook only with a purpose to check something
| specific when I need it in one of the groups (in my country
| reddit or Twitter is not popular, we have Facebook groups for
| everything) and I almost never check the feed. When I do I
| realize I changed so much in those three years Facebook no longer
| knows me and the stuff it recommends is not interesting anymore.
|
| I don't miss any of it. Yeah, sometimes I don't get what
| colleagues are talking about, but it's not important. I have more
| time on my hands to do anything else.
| zingababba wrote:
| Haven't been on any social media platform since I deleted my
| Facebook account in 2004. My exposure consists entirely of
| following links to Tweets. Even during this small exposure I'm
| blown away by how much of a cesspool it is, it's like I can smell
| it through my screen.
| cajunboi34213 wrote:
| I believe the responsibility falls on you to moderate yourself
| (not some organization like govt to set rules for everyone). But
| I know it's hard. Time limits on iPhone were not enough for me.
| But https://one-sec.app/ really helped... Forcing me to pause for
| 10 seconds every time was pretty much all it took...
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| You're in a war with the entire adtech industry. Most people
| simply can't win this war. Only solution I know of is hard bans
| with screen time passwords you personally don't know.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| There are many problems that people like Adam Curtis try to
| document.
|
| What is interesting is that everyone agrees this is the norm, but
| not many believe there's a way to reform or change the status
| quo. The author doesn't even talk about the easiest solution of
| not participating. They simply move to a new platform and think
| their problems are gone.
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| To anyone who's quit social media: how? I find that whenever I
| try, I always end up re-downloading Instagram, going back to
| Reddit, or browsing HN...
| mistermann wrote:
| > It isn't clear to me how anyone can have that many voices in
| their head without challenging their mental health a bit - or
| more than a bit. Looking out onto a world filled with QAnoners
| and COVID-deniers and worse, it's becoming obvious that "social"
| media has driven a fair few people well beyond the bounds of
| reason.
|
| An unsurprising artifact of excessive propaganda consumption, and
| a plausible hint at why things never get better even when so many
| people _on both sides_ want just that.
| [deleted]
| nh23423fefe wrote:
| > In 2008, I formed a hypothesis that everyone has something to
| teach you, so the more connected you are, the more you should be
| able to learn.
|
| > By the middle of 2017, despite a string of successes in my
| life, I felt continually depressed.
|
| > I had learned what it meant to be hyperconnected: always
| knowing too much about the thoughts and feelings of too many
| people. It meant terrible mental health.
|
| > What happened to me has happened to hundreds of millions of
| others.
|
| Not persuasive. News junkie inhales beheading videos and feels
| sad. What humans did this person connect to and learn from? "I'm
| depressed. It's gotta be twitter's fault"
| arp242 wrote:
| > News junkie inhales beheading videos
|
| That's very specific, and I have no idea how you read that in
| the article.
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| I think that might be a vast oversimplification of what a lot
| of people experience...
| SN76477 wrote:
| Odd that these were my exact thoughts just a few weeks ago. Im
| glad to see the idea making the rounds.
| spread_love wrote:
| I went dark and lost touch with a lot of friends and family. I
| was just keeping up with their life by Liking posts instead of,
| you know, calling them.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| I have been very connected over the past 2 years, growing a
| coding focussed Instagram to 100K followers. The past 6 months I
| have radically stepped back and boy do I feel better.
|
| For me the issue was the drip, drip, drip of every social cause
| there is. I care and an empathetic about all of them but seeing a
| mention of x, y and z every few minutes gets wearing. You feel
| like you can't enjoy things.
|
| My over active brain churns on the topics constantly, looking at
| all sides and view points regardless of if I want to think about
| the topic.
|
| Far from being a highlights reel of other people's lives social
| media has become a reel of everyones opinions (positive and
| negative on every topic and social cause/injustice) and it's
| exhausting.
| bingemaker wrote:
| Hey, what is your IG handle?
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okq0hj1IMlo
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Right but you are on the sell side and not on the buy side.
| Growing your 100K followers requires work and requires you to
| stay up to date and follow the market.
|
| But you are right, the buy side of it can be exhausting outside
| of your niche. Especially if it isn't giving you anything back.
| dustedcodes wrote:
| Social media is definitely very toxic. The best evidence is the
| rise in misogyny and homophobia in the last few years and how
| social media has made so many people doubt basic biology and
| science.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > the rise in misogyny and homophobia
|
| As someone who did battle online with 12-yo boys in the 90s,
| there's no "rise". Just kids and other immatures being trolls
| on purpose. Best not to let it bother you. It isn't real for
| the most part and most will outgrow it.
|
| Sounds like another good reason to keep minors offline until
| they mature a little.
| marcod wrote:
| There is a big difference if it's immature kids and a few
| trolls vs elected officials legitimizing this toxic shit.
| Another thing that contributes to the rise is traditional and
| social media, amplifying the controversies.
| i8comments wrote:
| It is popular and engaging for social media to paradoxically tell
| you to stop using social media. (How would I hear about it
| without social media?)
|
| Avoid emotional dumps, empathy traps, traumatizing stuff and info
| noise, and you'll be fine.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| > Avoid emotional dumps, empathy traps, traumatizing stuff and
| info noise, and you'll be fine.
|
| Indeed. Very easy thing to do, in fact everyone can do it!
| Don't let those luddites tell you majority of the population is
| regardless addicted. Just ignore all those shiny posts tailored
| exactly to your reward mechanisms by a trillion dollar sector.
| If I can avoid, so can you. Just Avoid It, bro! You must try
| it, so easy!
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| Wine is too much for us to handle. I know because I drank 5
| bottles last night and it was damaging to my health.
| seatac76 wrote:
| Reddit killing Apollo and Twitter requiring login basically ended
| my daily scrolling and I've been noticeably feeling better. I do
| agree that social media is probably a net negative.
|
| But to stay connected I've switched to reading long form essays
| and books. Also I've realized that reading a financial website is
| a happy medium, they tend to cover the most important news
| without too much sensationalism.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I have a friend who told me he's 6 months "media sober." No
| social media, streaming services, crossword puzzle apps, news,
| podcasts, porn, even no movie theatres. He says he feels less
| angry, still is told the more important things by friends, and
| has more energy to put into causes that matter to him.
|
| I think there's something to be said for a middle ground, but
| it's in no company's interest to provide it. They all want more
| engagement. Maybe we need some kind of non-profit media
| aggregator that gives you just the small drip you need and that's
| it.
| nomel wrote:
| In iOS you can set up screen time. I recently set it up for a
| limited amount of time every day, and had someone else set the
| passcode/recovery.
|
| Once I cut myself off, it's been really _sad_ how often I end
| up looking at a "time limit" message, without really
| consciously opening the app. Not having the availability is
| like freeing a constantly tense part of my mind.
| matisseverduyn wrote:
| > Maybe we need some kind of non-profit media aggregator that
| gives you just the small drip you need and that's it.
|
| I think you'd like news.ycombinator.com (also called Hacker
| News or HN). What's nice is that the news titles on the home
| page give you the exact slow drip you're looking for. If you
| want to participate in a discussion, then there's a comment
| section, but if you just want to read more, you can click
| directly through to the article without seeing any comments at
| all.
| azinman2 wrote:
| The sarcasm is against HN's guidelines. But I'll still reply:
|
| HN is niche in topic. It only provides a small slice of media
| that I could consume. Imagine something a little more akin to
| Twitter, but small and not endless. It can be interest
| focused, social from friends, links to long form content like
| movies/podcasts, etc.
|
| I think News Minimalist does a great job, and is in this
| spirit with really good summaries. I learned about it from
| HN. That and the economist daily headlines both give me
| paragraph sized insights into global news in a very helpful
| way.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| > He says he feels less angry, still is told the more important
| things by friends, and has more energy to put into causes that
| matter to him.
|
| One should definitely weigh the value of a particular news
| outlet or social media service toward one's daily life, because
| it's definitely true that much of what these outlets offer is
| not of great value to anyone, but I dislike this sequestering
| approach. It views the process of taking in news as a miserable
| experience, but then goes on to encourage us all to offload
| that misery to another person to act as a curator. What happens
| then seems to be a siloing of misery, dooming minority groups
| to being exploited without any way of getting that message out
| to a larger audience, because only those who are actually
| affected by that particular bit of news will hear of it after
| the multiple layers of curation filter it out from the general
| audience.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| This happens for people that through-hike the PCT for a 6-month
| stint. I envy.
| abhayhegde wrote:
| I somehow wish there was a good-hearted effort from some
| government in establishing a low-key social media. But, again,
| a government could be biased but my point was that only such an
| organization could bear to go non-profit at such scales.
| azinman2 wrote:
| There's no trust in gov for most of the world, and it would
| likely be not so great. The right ppl aren't motivated to
| work for gov.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| There are some countries that have reasonably well
| functioning public broadcasting. A social media run
| according to that same model (publicly funded but editorial
| independence) could work.
| bamfly wrote:
| > news
|
| Following news, especially outside the very-local, has _very
| nearly_ zero value for most people. It 's a hobby with about
| the same value as watching a daily soap opera, that we fool
| ourselves into thinking is important.
|
| "But, informed voters!" the voter who spends a few minutes a
| day reading relevant _non-fiction books_ --history, poli-sci,
| statistics, marketing/PR, political philosophy, economics, and
| so on--rather than the news, and just pokes their head up to
| look at the news & candidates' messages for a few minutes right
| before each election, is going to be a _way_ better voter than
| one who puts the same amount of time into mass news media, and
| skips the books. Wildly better. Incomparably better. Hell,
| someone who does _neither_ might well be better than the one
| immersed in mass news media daily or weekly. It. Is. Not.
| Important. Or. Valuable.
|
| (separately, _having_ a strong news media is important... so,
| IDK, pay for a paper that does good investigative journalism,
| but rarely read it? This part 's tricky, and arguably one of
| the great problems of democracy)
|
| FYI everyone also votes backwards from how they should. If
| you're going to ignore elections, ignore the big ones, and
| attend the ones for local candidates and issues and school
| boards and such--the more local, the more your vote matters,
| and the effect is _large_. If you want to make a difference in
| a Presidential election, it 's far more effective to
| participate in the primary or caucus and stay home on election
| day, than to do the opposite. Yet voter behavior is reversed on
| all this.
| Thoeu388 wrote:
| Maybe you are just reading garbage sources. News I read, are
| somehow magically able to predict future 4 years ahead.
| Predicting future has a huge value.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| Can you recommend some sources?
| classified wrote:
| A crystal ball?
| bamfly wrote:
| > > for most people
|
| If you're able to e.g. turn the news into money or other
| real advantages, or desirable (to you, at least) outcomes
| that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, you're one of
| ones who aren't covered by "most".
| 65 wrote:
| I wonder... would it matter if I didn't know who the
| president of the United States was? Would that affect my life
| in any way?
| temphnacct wrote:
| I watched a YT video [0] where a man gets to record his
| time in a Swartzentruber Amish home and they didn't know
| who the president was. It didn't seem to impact their lives
| at all.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JJKKkETuI4
| pharrington wrote:
| I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that you're not a
| woman.
| bamfly wrote:
| It's not about the scope of the power of the elected
| official, it's that the effect of a presidential vote may
| as well be zero--it's about the power of the vote. A vote
| for, say, school board may _also_ have near-zero power, but
| is nonetheless thousands of times greater. A vote in a
| presidential primary is also far more likely to have any
| effect whatsoever, than a vote in the general, both because
| it 's smaller and because decisions there determine the
| entire course of the rest of the campaign, and of the
| general election.
|
| I care plenty about reproductive rights, FWIW, if that's
| what you're getting at. It's nonetheless the case that a
| person who votes (only) in one local or state election
| every four years is doing their civic duty better than
| someone who votes (only) in every presidential election--
| but voter participation patterns treat the presidential
| vote like it's the very most important one to get to. Most
| people stay home for some elections, and from a how-best-
| to-spend-my-limited-time-and-effort perspective, most of
| them are getting it wrong ( _unless_ you factor in other
| things, like how much social pressure there is to go to
| vote for president vs. how much there is to get to the
| polls for other elections).
| voltaireodactyl wrote:
| You present voting in federal/local elections as one or
| the other -- why not seek to participate in both as an
| informed citizen? I'm confused why one seems to preclude
| the other in your statement.
| bamfly wrote:
| A whole lot of people in-fact only turn out for the "big"
| votes, is the problem.
| voltaireodactyl wrote:
| I get that, but a solution to that problem -- on my mind
| -- doesn't involve people voting less regularly in
| Federal elections, but rather getting folks to vote more
| regularly in local elections. Separating the two seems
| arbitrary -- federal elections have more money behind
| them than local, so awareness is greater. That's a
| solvable problem, and one we've seen tremendous gains on
| in the last 15 years.
|
| Which is to say, I think the "pay less attention" advice,
| while popular and relaxing a decade ago for certain
| demographics, inexorably led us to a place where vast
| segments of the populace haven't been paying attention,
| and assumed "both sides are the same", and now we're in a
| real pickle, Federal policy-wise.
| bamfly wrote:
| > I get that, but a solution to that problem -- on my
| mind -- doesn't involve people voting less regularly in
| Federal elections, but rather getting folks to vote more
| regularly in local elections. Separating the two seems
| arbitrary -- federal elections have more money behind
| them than local, so awareness is greater. That's a
| solvable problem, and one we've seen tremendous gains on
| in the last 15 years.
|
| I'm not saying "avoid voting in some elections", I'm
| saying the voters who only turn out for the big ones
| probably have some wrong ideas about where their time and
| attention is most-effectively spent, and which bubbles
| they fill out on the ballot or taps they make on the
| screen are most important. How many can tell you one
| thing about any state judge, say, (for states that elect
| judges) on that presidential ballot, but can rattle off
| all kinds of crap about both major presidential
| candidates? Priorities are skewed the wrong way. It's
| just an observation about how voter attention tends to be
| focused on the wrong things. That top-line vote every
| four years matters more for getting people out for the
| down-ballot, than it does _per se_.
|
| > inexorably led us to a place where vast segments of the
| populace haven't been paying attention, and assumed "both
| sides are the same", and now we're in a real pickle,
| Federal policy-wise.
|
| I don't think paying less attention _to the news_ gets us
| there. Plenty of folks I know who hold that ( _deeply_
| silly) "both sides" opinion pay a lot more attention to
| the news than I ever have, certainly.
|
| Again, I think we'd be better-served, and have a better
| electorate, if those folks mostly stopped watching the
| news and started reading more books. However, I admit
| that this is impractical to apply broadly, as a huge
| proportion of US adults can't profitably read even
| slightly-complex non-fiction texts and get much out of
| them--but for an individual not in that cohort of barely-
| readers, it might be a good change to make, if one of
| their reasons for following the news so much is to "be a
| better voter & citizen". More books, less news (very
| little, infrequently, possibly except local news).
| pharrington wrote:
| If I'm understanding you, you are saying that who becomes
| the president does actually matter alot.
|
| Every four years, the presidential election is on the
| same ballot as all the other local elections. You are
| advocating for voting, and you're not advocating for
| leaving the presidential vote blank on the ballot. If
| you're frustrated with having little power to make very
| important decisions, that is more than understandable.
|
| However, you can only consider the effect of a
| presidential vote to be zero if you also consider the
| derivative in calculus to be zero. In terms of the
| presidential eletion, we aren't voting as individuals,
| we're voting _as a state_. Your vote matters.
| bamfly wrote:
| > Every four years, the presidential election is on the
| same ballot as all the other local elections.
|
| Yes--but a lot of people skip most or all other votes,
| including some more-local ones that usually _aren 't_
| part of that vote. I'm saying placing so much importance
| on voting for president is misguided.
|
| > However, you can only consider the effect of a
| presidential vote to be zero if you also consider the
| derivative in calculus to be zero. In terms of the
| presidential eletion, we aren't voting as individuals,
| we're voting as a state. Your vote matters.
|
| I'm... gonna stop addressing this point in public here,
| for reasons unrelated to what's correct. It's one of
| those topics probably better avoided outside small
| circles due to what amount to, I suppose, marketing
| reasons, if you will. Probably shouldn't have brought it
| up.
|
| Let it be known that I never claimed it's _bad_ to vote
| in a presidential election. Everyone should definitely go
| vote any time they can, especially those in a forum where
| they 're statistically more likely than average to vote
| the way I would. Every vote is extremely important.
| civilitty wrote:
| Anyone who really wants to stay informed need only to glance
| at the Wikipedia current events portal [1] once a week. Any
| global event of any note will show up there with very little
| sensationalism.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
| jebarker wrote:
| Thanks - this is a great suggestion
| dv35z wrote:
| Great suggestion. I use this as my default news page.
| jen729w wrote:
| After doom-scrolling Covid through all of 2020, I decided to
| quit the news.
|
| As of 1 Jan 2021 I haven't visited a news website. I never
| watched TV news anyway (I don't have broadcast/cable).
| Sometimes the news drifts through from the radio, and if
| someone sends me a thing I'm not religious about not opening
| it. But, basically, no news.
|
| I haven't missed it at all, and I do feel better. I have
| little clue what's going on in the world and I don't really
| care. What was I going to do about it anyway?
|
| I still browse social media. I've 90% switched to Mastodon
| from Twitter, which is just nicer. Simpler. More personal. HN
| is my main 'browsing to kill time' site, and I'm looking
| forward to an upcoming holiday so I can break this habit a
| little.
|
| Though I do now realise it's all or nothing. You're either
| in, in which case you are _in_ , or you're out. That's why
| making it a resolution-style quitting -- I remember the date
| -- really helps. I'm on a run now, and I'd ruin that by
| visiting one news site even once. All temptation has now
| gone, thanks to time.
|
| The news cycle is relentless and mostly pointless. Ditching
| it has absolutely been a benefit to my mental state.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| Any authoritarian regime would love a populace with such
| self-absorbed opinions devoid of any regard for
| consequences in the long run.
|
| Awareness of events with geopolitical consequences might
| not immediately affect your diet or whatever you "truly"
| care about. It sure as hell is a world of difference when
| it comes to making judgements that span more than a couple
| weeks.
|
| Living in a state of relative decadence, when circumstances
| allow for life to become seemingy routine and change a
| scarcity precipitates times when that is very different.
| jen729w wrote:
| If the news presented me the "events with geopolitical
| consequences" it might be a different story.
|
| Let's visit my reputable local paper's home page. I live
| in the capital of Australia so this should be fairly
| geopolitical.
|
| - New economic partnership between my country and my
| territory. Fine.
|
| - 'Party bonfire explosion lucky not to kill someone.'
|
| - 200 new homes planned for a suburb up the road.
|
| - Gossip on some agency moving to some other place.
|
| - Commentary on an upcoming vote. I know how I'll vote,
| I'll vote 'yes' because I'm not a racist. I don't need
| the news for that.
|
| - A pub changes ownership after 38 years. I'll remind you
| that I'm on the front page of the Canberra Times.
|
| - Rugby news.
|
| I feel geopolitically informed and much calmer. Thank
| you.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| You're presently on a run and pinged HN? No judgment, but
| that strikes me as notable.
| jen729w wrote:
| On a run as in an unbroken streak. Of not visiting news
| sites.
|
| I am not jogging, no. That _would_ be weird.
| azinman2 wrote:
| My friend was mentioning exactly this. Does a child murder
| somewhere in the country affect his life? No. Keeping it all
| in and being angry all the time with no recourse was
| affecting him.
|
| I think it's still important to be informed, so there's a
| middle ground.
|
| It seems to me who is president does affect a lot of my life,
| from abortion, to Supreme Court rules that have majorly
| affected my life, to war, trade and the economy.
| bamfly wrote:
| > It seems to me who is president does affect a lot of my
| life, from abortion, to Supreme Court rules that have
| majorly affected my life, to war, trade and the economy.
|
| It does--the problem is the value of a single vote.
|
| Odds are very poor--like, single-powerball-ticket-poor--
| that if you cast a vote for every single presidential
| election you can in your lifetime, _anything_ about your
| life or anyone else 's will be even slightly different.
| It's the _least_ effective vote you can cast--yet seems
| like the only one people go out of their way to shame
| people over, if they don 't vote.
|
| The smaller the vote (and, in the special case of
| presidential elections in the US, the less _stupid_ and
| _disenfranchising_ the rules) the greater the effect. Even
| narrowing a close vote by one, if you don 't quite put it
| over the top, can make a difference at the very-local
| level.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| If you don't vote for yourself, somebody else will.
|
| Your idea of "value of a single vote" is grotesquely
| misinformed. You do not vote to "sway the election" with
| your grandiose opinion. _You do so in order to inform
| society of your position._
|
| It's not about "winning over the other side". That's
| already a ridiculous misrepresentation of society. There
| is no "other side" to begin with.
|
| Yes, the current incarnation of "democracy" is wildly
| lacking. But the point is to _improve on it_ , not to
| throw away what countless generations strived to achieve
| just because it's not perfect yet.
| humanrebar wrote:
| > You [vote] in order to inform society of your position.
|
| Except my position isn't well captured by the available
| candidates most of the time. Sure, I can write in a
| candidate, but how do I signal why that candidate is
| acceptable when the other options aren't?
| bamfly wrote:
| > Your idea of "value of a single vote" is grotesquely
| misinformed.
|
| Most of my positions on the relative efficacy of various
| voter behaviors in the US system of government are
| heavily informed by my having been a poli-sci major in
| the US, and spending a fair amount of time studying those
| directly and absorbing expert analyses of them.
|
| Admittedly, some of those are unpopular--people _love_
| voting for the President (and then ignoring school board,
| city, and county elections, and not participating in any
| political parties).
|
| _shrug_
| Loquebantur wrote:
| Your idea of being an expert because you majored in a
| related topic is amusingly misinformed as well. You are
| kidding yourself.
|
| You need to critically look at how politics in real life
| works. On the level of presidential elections, the US is
| no "democracy" in any sensible meaning of the word to
| begin with. But that doesn't mean, votes there would be
| unimportant. The last few elections should make that
| exceedingly obvious.
|
| In small, local elections, your vote has a more
| transparent relationship to outcomes. _But those outcomes
| tend to be inconsequential._ Presidential elections are
| quite the opposite really.
| bamfly wrote:
| > Your idea of being an expert because you majored in a
| related topic is amusingly misinformed as well. You are
| kidding yourself.
|
| Never claimed to be an expert. I'm also not "grotesquely
| misinformed", unless the bar for "merely misinformed, but
| not grotesquely" is so high that at least 99% of people
| are "grotesquely misinformed" (which... IDK, maybe, in
| that case, I guess?). Not an expert, though, and, didn't
| claim to be.
|
| I have no idea why people are taking any of what I've
| written as "voting for President is bad and you shouldn't
| do it". I must not have written clearly, yet cannot find
| what's drawing that reaction anywhere in my posts (but
| maybe it's there and I'm just not seeing it!). I think
| I've just written about the best use of limited time &
| attention: smaller, and earlier in the process, is most
| effective; and how voter behavior instead reflects polar
| opposite priorities. Everyone voting in every election
| would, of course, be ideal (I mean, for me, just
| _certain_ folks voting in every election would be ideal,
| but you get what I mean).
|
| > In small, local elections, your vote has a more
| transparent relationship to outcomes. But those outcomes
| tend to be inconsequential.
|
| I'm going to be blunter than I usually am on HN, because
| you're in dangerously-wrong territory and I'd hate for
| anyone to run with this outside of HN, for making
| decisions about voting or political participation: this
| is _super fucking wrong_. Local election & initiative
| outcomes matter a ton.
|
| I would encourage anyone who doesn't find themselves
| seeing, very clearly, why, after a few moments' though,
| to spend some time over a few days looking at _national_
| headlines--not just the one or two top ones, but a bunch
| each day--and marking down which levels of government are
| active in or generating each story (yeah, I know, I
| advised mostly avoiding the news in favor of books, but
| this is a decent way to do some informal statistical
| analysis). And that 's just what makes national news!
| Consider which levels of government you interact with
| most. Which police patrol cruisers do you see most--the
| FBI? State bureau? Highway patrol? Probably not any of
| those, and I bet that was an ascending list least- to
| most-seen (while omitting the ones probably see more than
| any of those, by a large margin--city & sheriff, say?).
| School budgets and hiring administrators. Which levels of
| government are banning books? Very-local, or sometimes
| state. Who's setting library funding, running the closest
| 20 parks to where you live, hiring the government
| officials and setting their policies? Zoning rules? Who's
| running your utilities, or responsible for collecting
| your trash? There's _so much_ and it _very much_ matters.
| Andrex wrote:
| It's about focus and knowing your limits, which is always going
| to be difficult to self-determine. I thought getting rid of
| streaming services would make me want to read more, but I found
| other ways to be distracted.
|
| Definitely, humans are not equipped for everything technology
| is throwing at us. We're pushing up against the limits of our
| simian biology. Dunbar's number is real.
|
| It's up to each of us to be responsible in choosing how much we
| expose ourselves to, because the tech companies aren't going to
| do it for us. Big Tech is the Big Tobacco of the 21st century
| and they know it.
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