[HN Gopher] We aren't posting on social media as much
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We aren't posting on social media as much
Author : muser8
Score : 36 points
Date : 2023-12-24 19:14 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| muser8 wrote:
| I often remark to family and friends that the human race wasn't
| ready for the capacity for instant communication with 'everyone
| everywhere all at once' but perhaps that was overly pessimistic
| and we are developing that muscle. Or is the novelty just wearing
| off and there are movements to other platforms that aren't
| represented in the article?
| paulmd wrote:
| we still are exceptionally bad at managing large in-groups (or
| ostensible in-groups).
|
| discord is a perfect example, you can fairly easily maintain
| relationships with 10 groups of 50 people, but 500 people is a
| chore
| whstl wrote:
| Yep. This is why I think super large Reddit communities, and
| also the federation part of Mastodon, are all a mistake that
| failed IMO. Sure, those tools need those things to grow, but
| the end result is as bad as social networking.
|
| "Less is more" has never been apt. I don't want to be able to
| connect to a billion people :/
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=k1BneeJTDcU
| jug wrote:
| There is a Kurzgesagt that I can recommend about this! How our
| puny brains are ready for socializing and it's been very
| important for us, but more on an isolated "tribe" level or at
| the very least without social networks, arguing that returning
| to special interest bulletin boards online will probably have
| us feel better.
|
| https://youtu.be/fuFlMtZmvY0
| yetanotherloss wrote:
| Other than IG envy posts a lot of my younger friends seem to be
| switching to private or mostly private group chats. A lot of them
| use Discords even for non-gaming stuff probably due to the
| illusion of a smaller and more authentic community. Tiktok and YT
| may be replacing others but those seem much more heavily leaning
| to watching versus posting as the skill and production of what it
| takes to look good on it is more effort.
|
| If I had to guess they're getting annoyed at the rapid
| enshittification push at some of the big platforms. We may see
| federated mastodon model become more popular once a few
| celebrities figure it out.
| mackman wrote:
| A lot of the enshittification is a result of the drop in
| organic content from friends and needing to maintain engagement
| numbers. It's a vicious cycle, possibly a death spiral.
| jinushaun wrote:
| I don't think enshittification entirely explains it.
|
| At least for me, social is exhausting because rage bait
| drives engagement and I'm tired of being angry all the time.
| It's 1984 and the Two Minutes Hate. Instagram was a lot more
| fun when it was just food and travel. Even without
| algorithmic feeds, the introduction of revenue sharing and
| sponsorships means that creators would eventually make the
| same hateful content to increase clicks and revenue.
|
| Unless of course, you consider revenue sharing
| enshittification.
| ben_w wrote:
| For me IG is still dogs and landscapes, so I'm wondering if
| perhaps its recommendation algorithm has an inner death
| spiral where it randomly showed you something that made you
| angry, then interpreted your reaction as "jinushaun engages
| more with this than that" and stopped showing you good
| stuff forever after?
| tombert wrote:
| Even disregarding privacy concerns (which you shouldn't!), I
| stopped posting on social media largely because I'm too
| argumentative of a person for it.
|
| When arguing is limited to people I see in person, it's a
| somewhat time-boxed and constrained operation. I typically can
| only argue with one person for N minutes, and eventually both of
| us get tired of it and we move on with our lives, but there's
| _always_ someone wrong on the internet, and a lot of those wrong
| people love to be wrong publicly on social media. I would always
| end up arguing with a stupid post that a stupid person on
| Facebook had, and then someone would chime in in support of me or
| the person I 'd argue with. Before I knew it, a not-insignificant
| percentage of each day was being dedicated to responding to
| idiocy on social media.
|
| Eventually, it started getting annoying and I deleted my
| Facebook, and never really looked back. I run a Mastodon instance
| that I almost never use (but I had to justify the server I bought
| somehow), I briefly worked at Reddit, and obviously I post a bit
| on HN which is basically social-media adjacent, but despite all
| this I never really felt compelled to go back to constantly
| posting on social media.
|
| I suspect a lot of people have come to similar conclusions. I
| enjoy talking to my friends, and I do pretty liberally on Signal,
| but I feel that's sort of in a different category than "social
| media".
| whstl wrote:
| Funny. I was actually able to control myself in
| Facebook/Twitter (I had veeeery few discussions there, even
| peaceful ones were rare), but the problem was the increasing
| amount of arguing I was _seeing_ , especially thanks to the
| algorithmic timeline.
|
| It was making me feel like shit even when I wasn't
| participating. Even when I stopped liking stuff it was visible
| that it was fucking with my mental health. Walking away from
| reading two people arguing completely drains my energy.
|
| Reddit is not that different. I don't have an account and just
| go there to get updated on my favourite hobby, but even that
| will show me a lot of people arguing and things getting heated,
| and it makes me a bit anxious after reading.
|
| Mastodon is going in the same direction IMO. It is a bit of an
| echo chamber the people I follow (I don't mind this tbh), but
| 60% of the things that get going are fucking powderkegs where a
| single disagreement becomes too heated. I've seen people piling
| on others because of opinions I agree, and vicariously reading
| makes me feel like shit.
|
| I'm perfectly fine with conflict and with discussions, but it
| doesn't really work for me when lots of topics are treated as
| if it was as high-stakes as we do online.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> increasing amount of arguing I was _seeing* [on twitter]
|
| I recently created a new account, adding only programming and
| professional connections, and it's actually quite good! If
| you don't click on any of the "trending" stuff, it functions
| like a microblog should: it's a way for me to keep up with
| the projects and OSS personalities I want to, without the
| fuss.
|
| I did something similar with YouTube: I simply turned off
| "watch history". The youtube home page is literally empty,
| because without data the algorithm offers nothing. (In
| fairness, there's a big contingency message saying in bold
| letters "Turn watch history back on? Pretty please?") The
| only time I see content on youtube is because someone I
| subscribed to posted something. It's glorious. No more doom
| scrolling because the content is _finite_ once again. I find
| that the creators I like (and the comments) have enough
| references to other content that I don 't feel cut off. And
| there's always search. It's just that default empty screen
| that seems like the magic sauce.
|
| This is my "middle path", and it seems likely that if it
| catches on they'll do something to disrupt it. In which case
| I will truly leave. It would be such a waste though, and why
| we can't have nice things.
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| Thank you! I didn't know that feature of YouTube. I love
| YouTube and you made it a better place. Because now I block
| the front page but then I miss the posts of channels I
| subscribed.
| whstl wrote:
| That new feature of Youtube is indeed fantastic.
| tempodox wrote:
| There is great wisdom in Mark Twain's advice to never argue
| with an idiot.
| letuv wrote:
| It can help to practice compassion for strangers and
| equanimity.
|
| They might be wrong but they are just acting in the way they
| believe is best, and even if they have some impact it's
| ultimately just a tiny effect in a vast universe.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think I'm quite as argumentative as you've described
| yourself, but I've fallen into some of the same traps in the
| past.
|
| I stopped using Facebook 5 or so years ago, and almost
| instantly felt better day-to-day. I hadn't realized how upset
| Facebook was making me. Sometimes it would just make me sad (as
| in, "it's so disappointing that people believe garbage like
| XYZ") and other times actively angry. Sure, I did occasionally
| change people's minds by arguing with them in Facebook
| comments, but that was pretty rare; usually people would just
| dig in and everyone involved in the argument would end up angry
| and frustrated.
|
| And it wasn't just that: even when I felt no desire to wade
| into some sort of contentious conversation, just _seeing_ those
| sorts of arguments stressed me out and made me upset. Even as I
| started pulling away from participating in discussions and
| arguments on Facebook, I realized the root of the problem was
| still there: divisive crap promoted by algorithmic engagement
| metrics. Even dialing back my participation wasn 't really
| helping.
|
| So I just stopped, and I feel so much better for it. On
| occasion (maybe once every 4-6 months) I'll sign into my
| Facebook account for some specific purpose (to find someone's
| birthday or email address or something like that), and I'll (as
| detached as possible) scroll down the news feed a bit for a
| minute or two. It's so liberating: I realize that I actually
| don't care about 95% of what my friends and acquaintances are
| posting. For the most part, I learn about my friends' lives by
| actually interacting with them (either in real life, or 1-on-1
| or small-group chats). There are some friends who I have lost
| touch with, and that does make me a little sad, but the
| negatives of using Facebook again just aren't worth it for me.
|
| I pretty much limit my arguing with people on the internet to
| HN, and while I probably do spend more time doing that than is
| healthy, I think I'm doing a lot better than when I was
| actively on Facebook.
| tombert wrote:
| I agree with pretty much everything you said; I don't argue
| too much on HN but I do occasionally.
|
| My life improved substantially after I dropped Facebook, but
| the frustrating part now is that LinkedIn (more or less a
| necessity to find a job in 2023) has started to attract the
| same morons posting their conspiracy theories, and now I feel
| like somewhat of a hostage audience. At that point I'm in
| this kind of uncomfortable position of "do I let these
| potentially harmful posts go completely unchecked, or do I
| risk future employers knowing my political beliefs?"
|
| Mostly I've opted for the former, but as you said, the issue
| is that I am still _exposed_ to these arguments. The second
| that I find a job that I am confident I won 't be laid off
| from, I'm never logging into LinkedIn again.
| nektro wrote:
| good, hopefully they'll shut down and we'll get back to having
| communities
| chris-orgmenta wrote:
| Hmm, sounds like you want to destroy my nice-happy-niche social
| media communities there - Please don't throw my baby out with
| the bathwater when you do :)
|
| (This was intentionally flippant , to point out the lack of
| nuance in parent)
| seydor wrote:
| People are realizing (again) that their opinions are like some
| ... body parts
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| The point being, everyone has one.
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| It's so smart to not have an opinion.
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| I agree largely with all of the posts here, but the nagging
| concern in the back of my mind is always: isn't social media
| still valuable for businesses? Or rather, are you leaving
| customers "on the table" by ignoring it?
|
| Maybe less so for B2B or "serious" things like WSJ, but for B2C
| it still sounds like a serious contender. For your dropshipping
| doohickies or crafted niche fandom doodads, where else do you go?
| Etsy and Pinterest aren't the norm everywhere. Then there's
| always the hope of "building a following" around either yourself
| or your product, or perhaps hitting a viral moment ("use this app
| to help you ABC 2x faster" by some influencer). Does one just SEO
| their way around and hope someone with a following gives you a
| boost or asks for an affiliate program?
| riffraff wrote:
| I have not read the article but it is my understanding that
| reach in classic social medias s (Fb, Instagram, Twitter) has
| become incredibly bad.
|
| E.g. a post on Instagram would previously reach 40% of your
| followers and is now closer to 5%. So the value for a business
| also went down dramatically.
|
| You might as well just invest in advertisement rather than a
| social presence beyond the minimum.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| A big problem is that the social media platforms are
| incentivized to try and keep people on the platform, aka away
| from external sites where you can sell your services. So your
| links to where to sell your stuff or whatever is not promoted
| infecto wrote:
| Is a possible other problem that everyone created social
| media with incredibly diluted messaging. Every brand had to
| post multiple times a day for things that seemed pretty
| worthless.
| pokoblond wrote:
| The great logging off and the cozy web.
| blinding-streak wrote:
| https://archive.ph/6l9Ei
| bufio wrote:
| Doing away with chronological, non-curated feeds (by default) has
| disincentivised posting. Social interaction is no longer a
| concern for the few big social media companies. To a large
| extent, it has been optimised out.
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