Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit(petapixel.com)
petapixel.com
Facebook is an addiction treadmill most may never be able to quit
https://petapixel.com/2021/10/06/facebook-is-an-addiction-treadmill-most-may-never-be-able-to-quit/
273 comments
My girlfriend calls it "Slacker News" because I only come here when I'm slacking off.
Can you imagine if Facebook had like karma? Global GDP would almost immediately take a nosedive!
It basically does since it has likes/reactions for posts. Except it's worth because the only likes/reactions that matter are the ones people will see today which makes it seam like getting 500 or even 5000 likes per post is a totally normal 'goal'.
In comparison HN, the number of possible karma per post is pretty much an equal playing field (save for a few recognizable accounts).
In comparison HN, the number of possible karma per post is pretty much an equal playing field (save for a few recognizable accounts).
Isn't that what follower counts are, effectively? In some ways, follower count is even more powerful than karma because it affects how many people see your posts/comments.
You made me laugh, but also think what I might be addicted to.
I can't think of a single thing except porn. Highly functional addict buy still one nonetheless. I don't think I can quit.
It's odd though that it's the only thing. I've always thought that susceptibility to addiction is a personality trait that make you usually get addicted to more than one thing.
It's odd though that it's the only thing. I've always thought that susceptibility to addiction is a personality trait that make you usually get addicted to more than one thing.
Also mine. Have gone long stretches between relapses during which time I've felt noticeably better. What typically happens is I'll rationalize its use after a spell, but will find I'll want to watch the next day, and the next. Particularly if sleep suffers, just to get some deliverance.
From what I've learned, large sustained dopamine hits lead to deficits in baseline levels. I could intuit early on that some of my negative experience (including sleep) was linked to consumption, but managed to convince myself each time that I "just need to better manage it". Even if the truth stares you in the face it's hard. I like to think of it as a "mild" addiction owing to frequency (it wasn't always) but still an addiction, which is like playing with fire. It can always get worse.
I've been enjoying Huberman's videos on the topic of dopamine and other things - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU
From what I've learned, large sustained dopamine hits lead to deficits in baseline levels. I could intuit early on that some of my negative experience (including sleep) was linked to consumption, but managed to convince myself each time that I "just need to better manage it". Even if the truth stares you in the face it's hard. I like to think of it as a "mild" addiction owing to frequency (it wasn't always) but still an addiction, which is like playing with fire. It can always get worse.
I've been enjoying Huberman's videos on the topic of dopamine and other things - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU
You want this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-demetr...
It removes comment/upvote numbers from Hacker News and makes it far less able to exploit human psychological loopholes related to numbers.
It removes comment/upvote numbers from Hacker News and makes it far less able to exploit human psychological loopholes related to numbers.
I had a similar realization a few years back. All these petty average Joe scrolling selfies and trendy deals doing nothing.
I, on the other side, am scrolling hn, lambdartheultimate, Haskell subs and discords, hoarding caml research papers... doing nothing. I was mostly a snub variant of the above.
I, on the other side, am scrolling hn, lambdartheultimate, Haskell subs and discords, hoarding caml research papers... doing nothing. I was mostly a snub variant of the above.
I’m just waiting till I reach 1000.
I’m at 995... I get up to 999, and then I fuck up and make an anti-vaccine post and plummet back to the 980’s.
Once I hit 1000, I’m outa here. Promise.
Once I hit 1000, I’m outa here. Promise.
FWIW, I found your past comments articulate and well-supported. Please don't take the downvoting herds too much to heart – there was no "fuck up" on your part :-)
BTW I upvoted a bunch of your comments right now, but apparently with no effect to your karma. You (or I?) may have angered the HN algo gods.
BTW I upvoted a bunch of your comments right now, but apparently with no effect to your karma. You (or I?) may have angered the HN algo gods.
I’ve noticed this, too. I think HN karma is updated in some asynchronous fashion.
You mean 1024 right?
ouch... this struck home.
Except that on HN I have actually learned a things or two. I have been connected to useful articles on topics that have solved many of my tech problems in recent years. Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed.
The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. HN doesn't try to keep eyeballs on targets. (And HN is so tiny that it loads faster than anything on work connection out in the middle of nowhere.)
The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service. HN doesn't try to keep eyeballs on targets. (And HN is so tiny that it loads faster than anything on work connection out in the middle of nowhere.)
> Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed.
Millions of people disagree, and frankly it's not our place to judge what is useful for others. It's not all snark and misinformation.
> The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service.
But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated.
Millions of people disagree, and frankly it's not our place to judge what is useful for others. It's not all snark and misinformation.
> The core difference is that while Facebook seeks to keep our eyes on facebook, places like HN actively encourage people to post links to material outside the core service.
But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated.
> But that's just an opinion, that staying on-site on FB is somehow bad. They would argue that they're encouraging users to hold discussions with people they know, highly social and relatively unmoderated.
Maybe, depends on your social circle, but the main reason I left facebook more than a decade ago was because everyone I had on facebook _didn't_ hold any discussions or post anything original. It was all just sharing random crap they liked, or reposts from Instagram. I don't care about some random blogspam article my cousin liked. I joined to find out what was happening in people's lives and none of that was on facebook, it was all on instagram or whatsapp. (So I totally see why facebook bought out those two companies)
Maybe, depends on your social circle, but the main reason I left facebook more than a decade ago was because everyone I had on facebook _didn't_ hold any discussions or post anything original. It was all just sharing random crap they liked, or reposts from Instagram. I don't care about some random blogspam article my cousin liked. I joined to find out what was happening in people's lives and none of that was on facebook, it was all on instagram or whatsapp. (So I totally see why facebook bought out those two companies)
I liked your first post but this is like saying a person who tells you not to go out and see the world because you've got everything you need on the compound is better than someone who tells you to experience new places and people. The former clearly has some shades of exploitive manipulation trying to foster dependence / imprisonment
I think what I'm saying in the two comments is consistent, though.
The average HN reader passes judgement on Facebookers (myself included), meanwhile we waste time on sites we're convinced are "better"... but often it's just a tradeoff. HN: external links to thoughtful and informative articles, apolitical, but very impersonal and humorless. FB: insular, but (in theory) you know people, and maintain your relationships with people you don't see in person.
I don't mean to say "both are the same" -- that would be too facile. But, I don't think one or the other is clearly superior in any absolute sense.
The average HN reader passes judgement on Facebookers (myself included), meanwhile we waste time on sites we're convinced are "better"... but often it's just a tradeoff. HN: external links to thoughtful and informative articles, apolitical, but very impersonal and humorless. FB: insular, but (in theory) you know people, and maintain your relationships with people you don't see in person.
I don't mean to say "both are the same" -- that would be too facile. But, I don't think one or the other is clearly superior in any absolute sense.
> Nobody has ever gotten anything useful from a facebook news feed.
This might be far too broad. Facebook feeds have been really useful for me when I use it for obscure hobbies or to buy/sell used expensive things (think college furniture) based on region.
This might be far too broad. Facebook feeds have been really useful for me when I use it for obscure hobbies or to buy/sell used expensive things (think college furniture) based on region.
This is not specific to you, but in general people saying some social media site is "actually useful (TM)" is usually a cope to justify the staggering amount of life they've burned sucking dopamine from the website's teat. Can social media be useful? Yes. But there is a point where you get severely diminished returns, at which you would be better off doing something else, but we hide behind excuses to avoid feeling bad about ourselves.
I know a lot of immigrants/expats and Facebook is pretty much the one thing they have to keep in touch with family and friends back home.
Personally I loathe the company and would be happy if some fatal DNS or other issue took it down for good or if it were legislated out of existence by the EU/US. But we also need to be aware of the value it provides other than as a bullhorn for anti-vaxxers and other nutjobs and perhaps think of how to build a safer and more ethical alternative.
Personally I loathe the company and would be happy if some fatal DNS or other issue took it down for good or if it were legislated out of existence by the EU/US. But we also need to be aware of the value it provides other than as a bullhorn for anti-vaxxers and other nutjobs and perhaps think of how to build a safer and more ethical alternative.
Wouldn’t something else fill that vacuum if Facebook went away?
Sure, maybe, but building that "something else" isn't trivial, is prone to the same problems as Facebook, and even if it were not, would not appear overnight.
I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too).
It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any individuals, only sites I want to see updates on without having to poll them.
It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any individuals, only sites I want to see updates on without having to poll them.
Funny, but I do exactly the same. My source, however, is Telegram's channel @hacker_news_feed. As you said, the signal-to-noise ratio hits that sweet spot that keeps me out of HN's front page for a long time.
> but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage,
I really like the HN front-page, it gives me a sensation of comfort (so to speak), of how the Internet should have been but unfortunately it is not: very fast-loading page, all text, a basic color-scheme that hasn't changed in a while.
I really like the HN front-page, it gives me a sensation of comfort (so to speak), of how the Internet should have been but unfortunately it is not: very fast-loading page, all text, a basic color-scheme that hasn't changed in a while.
I hate April Fool's Day, but this made me think how hilarious it would be if HN front page had a banner ad. And not even an over-the-top one... just a simple banner ad, quietly ruining HN.
HN is what SlashDot was 15-20 years ago.
spot on
I still cannot really recapitulate what made me leave, but tech journalism in general became quite insufferable. It all read like scam and advertising at some point. It went from "stuff that matters" to something else.
True. But the comments and community is what i meant, too.
Yeah, that changed too. But I think the reason for that is that many left.
I came here through @Hn251 on Twitter
I am enjoying @newsyc150. It cuts through the cruft. Thanks for the recommendation.
I check HN once per day when I wake up and only rarely otherwise. I got the social media addiction out of my system years ago on a forum. It was horrible, I had to lock myself out using repeated sha1-hashing which required me to spend many hours of CPU time to get access back.
So glad to be done and over with that sort of addiction. Social media is as addictive as cigarettes or booze and we are way behind on treating it in the same ways.
So glad to be done and over with that sort of addiction. Social media is as addictive as cigarettes or booze and we are way behind on treating it in the same ways.
Are they taking about the same Facebook? I find it utterly boring and only use it for messenger anymore.
It used to be addictive, before social media, when it was a social network. You were interacting with real people, you could meet new people, "stalk" people you know IRL, share stuff about yourself or find out stuff about others. You would try to find your crush on FB and check see if you have common acquaintances. And you would obsessively watch who looks at your page and who likes your posts. The thing that made it addictive were the actual human interactions that people crave.
I wish someone would make a site like that again!
It used to be addictive, before social media, when it was a social network. You were interacting with real people, you could meet new people, "stalk" people you know IRL, share stuff about yourself or find out stuff about others. You would try to find your crush on FB and check see if you have common acquaintances. And you would obsessively watch who looks at your page and who likes your posts. The thing that made it addictive were the actual human interactions that people crave.
I wish someone would make a site like that again!
+1. My news feed is like 90% memes and ads. I have like 3 friends that actually make interesting text posts that foster discussions. Everything else is a waste cognitive energy.
I Facebook for support forums for autoimmune conditions.
It is drastically better then Reddit for finding answers or suggestions.
Every question gets dozens of answers many of which are very insightful and useful if repetitive.
The sort of stuff that doctors don’t like to explain like my bloodwork says this what does that mean and what should I do next. people will have excellent answers.
Every question gets dozens of answers many of which are very insightful and useful if repetitive.
The sort of stuff that doctors don’t like to explain like my bloodwork says this what does that mean and what should I do next. people will have excellent answers.
how can you be sure that they're good answers?
I'm not in any Facebook groups but as a general principle it's a lot easier to verify a true claim than it is to come up with a true claim from nothing.
Because I spent years researching my conditions. A lot of people on the forums have as well. Plus some treatments show up again and again as “this worked for me”
For example I was getting up 10x a night to pee for years. Kept seeing post to try aloe Vera freeze dried pills. $$$
Finally tried it. And I slept through the night now.
Understanding test is another one.
A crap ton of doctors will see a negative test and automatically declare you don’t have X condition even if you have every single symptom. Eventually you learned that a large percentage usually get negatives on that test. That there are alternate test that can be run. But most doctors aren’t even aware they exist.
Oh so a lot of the moral and legal support. Imagine having the flu for 30 years And trying to live a normal life. Everyone calling you lazy and a whiner and if you try and do something about it you get labeled as a hypochondriac and it all being dismissed as anxiety. Some diseases take on average seven years or more to get diagnosed because because of these problems; mine took 20 years.
For example I was getting up 10x a night to pee for years. Kept seeing post to try aloe Vera freeze dried pills. $$$
Finally tried it. And I slept through the night now.
Understanding test is another one.
A crap ton of doctors will see a negative test and automatically declare you don’t have X condition even if you have every single symptom. Eventually you learned that a large percentage usually get negatives on that test. That there are alternate test that can be run. But most doctors aren’t even aware they exist.
Oh so a lot of the moral and legal support. Imagine having the flu for 30 years And trying to live a normal life. Everyone calling you lazy and a whiner and if you try and do something about it you get labeled as a hypochondriac and it all being dismissed as anxiety. Some diseases take on average seven years or more to get diagnosed because because of these problems; mine took 20 years.
Reddit used to be really great for this type of community when subreddits could customize stuff and even have a dedicated Wiki. It's really gone the opposite direction in the last few years. They still can have these things but the tools are literally 10+ years behind.
maybe you need to curate your feed? mine is no memes and few ads which I ignore. it's all posts from family and friends . also stopped following friends who I aren't close and friends that post too much
I certainly could curate my following list more, but that takes too much time. Manually unfollowing ~1.1k is boring.
Also, I am in FB groups b/c at one point they were important to me (like looking for housing in SF). I don't exactly want to leave the group b/c I know I will need it later, nor do I want to deal with unfollowing all of the groups I don't are about.
Also, I am in FB groups b/c at one point they were important to me (like looking for housing in SF). I don't exactly want to leave the group b/c I know I will need it later, nor do I want to deal with unfollowing all of the groups I don't are about.
Sounds like being the FB equivalent of an IRL hoarder!
Why not drop out the groups and rejoin in the unlikely event you really do need them later? Most people I know get by very well with no FB groups at all.
Why not drop out the groups and rejoin in the unlikely event you really do need them later? Most people I know get by very well with no FB groups at all.
I've certainly done left and rejoined before. I worry that Group moderators might not allow me back in (either they stop accepting new members or get annoyed at someone for jumping in and out). Also, there is some friction with joining Groups. Group owners ask filter questions and delay admissions by days. You can "unfollow" groups, but that requires a few clicks.
FB groups are the best way for me to find roommate-style housing. "{city|country} expat" Groups help me plan my travels and answer questions. I don't know of other platforms that provide this service for me at low costs.
FB groups are the best way for me to find roommate-style housing. "{city|country} expat" Groups help me plan my travels and answer questions. I don't know of other platforms that provide this service for me at low costs.
Why would I spend a lot of effort on getting myself addicted?
If you unfollow people, Facebook will just fill the gap in your newsfeed with more stupid memes and ads.
Remember that time when they were constantly pushing us to watch terrible videos on their platform?
Maybe you can curate it if you really work at it, but... ugh
Maybe you can curate it if you really work at it, but... ugh
I follow a certain set of pages/groups for some hobbies and have muted almost everything else, including almost all people. You can pretty much make a custom feed that way, though the quality will depend on the quality of posts in those groups (which is on average very low).
Instagram still sort of works like an actual social network for me. I've found it's actually super important for dating (in my age group/scene/whathaveyou).
Instagram still sort of works like an actual social network for me. I've found it's actually super important for dating (in my age group/scene/whathaveyou).
You know what, you're right, I never noticed this change, probably because I quit FB years ago. It's just a content aggregator now, there's not much social about it aside from FOMO.
I deleted my account several years ago and tried to get my girlfriend at the time to do the same thing. She was in favor of the idea, but facebook would show her a bunch of people with a message like "but what about all these people, won't you miss them?" and it did a great job of picking people who she most likely would not have kept in contact with if not for facebook, so she never deleted it.
I think FOMO is the main reason most people are still on there, not so much "addiction".
I think FOMO is the main reason most people are still on there, not so much "addiction".
> I wish someone would make a site like that again!
On a technical level, it's not hard. On business level, it's doubtful if there's a compelling enough business model to prevent it from becoming another surveillance capitalism platform. And on a societal level, it seems impossible that living generations will ever trust a platform en masse again enough to achieve such ubiquity.
On a technical level, it's not hard. On business level, it's doubtful if there's a compelling enough business model to prevent it from becoming another surveillance capitalism platform. And on a societal level, it seems impossible that living generations will ever trust a platform en masse again enough to achieve such ubiquity.
Non-profit would be a perfect business model. It isn't like that level of functionality requires a multi $B company to run it.
"Non-profit" is a type of business, but not a business model.
You are technically correct, but "non-profit" designation opens up the potential for a healthy and positive business model that doesn't rely on the theft of user data.
I'm convinced that there is a service people will pay for. My idea is that _somebody_ in a social group will want it to happen, and that they can pay for the whole group.
I paid to boost a Discord server for my whole friend group, and they still insist on sticking to the WhatsApp group chat because "we don't want to download another app, everybody already uses WhatsApp".
What hooks people like us (whatever that means) isn’t necessarily what hooks normal people (ditto).
Facebook has a massive training set at its disposal, claiming more monthly active users than humans have lifetime heartbeats. If FB isn’t chronically addictive for normal people with that sample size, then either (0) A/B testing isn’t as capable as we like to think it is, or (1) FB isn’t even trying anymore.
Facebook has a massive training set at its disposal, claiming more monthly active users than humans have lifetime heartbeats. If FB isn’t chronically addictive for normal people with that sample size, then either (0) A/B testing isn’t as capable as we like to think it is, or (1) FB isn’t even trying anymore.
They don't necessarily need to target normal people, it's possible that over time they have optimized their site to attract those with certain traits that are most profitable.
This is sadly true. Genuine social interaction is rewarding but not addictive, as evidenced by thousands of years of history. And there's not a lot of ways to profit from it. On the other hand, getting people to come back every day or every hour for messages that compel them to buy things or vote a certain way is priceless to the right bidders.
Hm, could be, if the whales collectively outspend the rest of us collectively.
I’m in the same boat.
I still use it for messenger, but most days I don’t even look at Facebook.
You can still meet people in real life, just the other day I asked out a girl at a concert and we got drinks afterwards. That’s much more straightforward than installing 30 apps and chatting with bots.
In fact I had a girl offer to add me on Instagram and I just said no. It’s not that serious ( plus typically if she won’t give you her number she doesn’t actually want to date you.)
I’ll agree Facebook used to be much better. For example I was( like 10 years ago) in a college group and I actually went out with a girl from that. I think if your in a closed community it can still be fun.
I still use it for messenger, but most days I don’t even look at Facebook.
You can still meet people in real life, just the other day I asked out a girl at a concert and we got drinks afterwards. That’s much more straightforward than installing 30 apps and chatting with bots.
In fact I had a girl offer to add me on Instagram and I just said no. It’s not that serious ( plus typically if she won’t give you her number she doesn’t actually want to date you.)
I’ll agree Facebook used to be much better. For example I was( like 10 years ago) in a college group and I actually went out with a girl from that. I think if your in a closed community it can still be fun.
Herein lies the banality: facebook is boring, but if you're bored, it's better than nothing. I don't begrudge folks using it to pass the time on transit to avoid interacting with the public... but I've witnessed quite a few people scrolling endlessly while half-watching tv, half-participating in face to face interactions, etc. I've fallen into that trap myself, during a period of intense burnout -- my ability to focus or produce dropped to zero, and... gotta get that dopamine.
I'll assert that it's much worse than nothing.
"Nothing" isn't bad. Meditate. Let your imagination run wild. Relax. You can't do those things on facebook dot com.
"Nothing" isn't bad. Meditate. Let your imagination run wild. Relax. You can't do those things on facebook dot com.
For people with severe anxiety or depression, meditation can actually aggravate the situation and do significant harm. Letting one's mind run wild in that situation leads to more anxiety, suicide planning, etc.
But, I'll amend my statement: facebook is less boring than a blank screen.
But, I'll amend my statement: facebook is less boring than a blank screen.
That's absurd. There is no scientific basis that would support your assertion. In fact, increased social media activity leads to a higher chance of suffering from depressive episodes. Meditation has been shown to to actually combat symptoms of depression.
If you can't sit still with your own thoughts for 60 seconds without spiraling, then you shouldn't even be remotely near social media.
If you can't sit still with your own thoughts for 60 seconds without spiraling, then you shouldn't even be remotely near social media.
> That's absurd. There is no scientific basis that would support your assertion.
Why are you so confident in that? Have you done your research? I learned that from a licensed psychologist, and know several people who have had severely negative reactions to "mindfulness" training, but it only took 30 seconds to find these two links:
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210202-how-mindfulnes...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251840-mindfulness-and...
> If you can't sit still with your own thoughts for 60 seconds without spiraling, then you shouldn't even be remotely near social media.
Not exactly disagreeing with you here, but neither is meditation necessarily better. Therapy is probably the best thing, but social media is "free." And, note that I'm not in favor of social media, merely explaining the cost-benefit analysis that people in this hole use. Reasoning from your high horse will result in different cost-benefit analysis, which won't make any sense to the people whose lives you might like to improve.
Why are you so confident in that? Have you done your research? I learned that from a licensed psychologist, and know several people who have had severely negative reactions to "mindfulness" training, but it only took 30 seconds to find these two links:
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210202-how-mindfulnes...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251840-mindfulness-and...
> If you can't sit still with your own thoughts for 60 seconds without spiraling, then you shouldn't even be remotely near social media.
Not exactly disagreeing with you here, but neither is meditation necessarily better. Therapy is probably the best thing, but social media is "free." And, note that I'm not in favor of social media, merely explaining the cost-benefit analysis that people in this hole use. Reasoning from your high horse will result in different cost-benefit analysis, which won't make any sense to the people whose lives you might like to improve.
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Is there any evidence that therapy is helpful? Haven't seen any evidence supporting it but I might not be searching correctly.
Have you looked at Google scholar? Less than 5 minutes of “effectiveness therapy anxiety” gave me multiple pages of results going back decades.
I would be wary with different meditation practices. I don't think it's a one-size-fits all.
Zen Buddhism and other traditions have very long history and experience with meditation. Now the West unfortunately sometimes imports ideas superficially, and meditation might be one of them. 'Mindfulness meditation' seems to have specific suggestions that probably haven't stood the test of time (or scientific evidence as mentioned).
However, sitting a few minutes quietly (without worrying about specific technique) shouldn't do any harm, is probably good for you.
Also very emphasized in those traditions is controlled breathing. It can be very helpful when stressed as well.
If it makes you feel unwell, stop doing it! Also maybe consult with someone with experience.
Zen Buddhism and other traditions have very long history and experience with meditation. Now the West unfortunately sometimes imports ideas superficially, and meditation might be one of them. 'Mindfulness meditation' seems to have specific suggestions that probably haven't stood the test of time (or scientific evidence as mentioned).
However, sitting a few minutes quietly (without worrying about specific technique) shouldn't do any harm, is probably good for you.
Also very emphasized in those traditions is controlled breathing. It can be very helpful when stressed as well.
If it makes you feel unwell, stop doing it! Also maybe consult with someone with experience.
Well, if you do "meditation" (or "do nothing") in a way that results in shutting down all thoughts except the depressive ones, then it's going to make things worse.
In that case, you might be (temporarily) better off adding some very powerful and addictive thoughts or feelings to cover up the depressive ones; I think this might be in fact one of the main uses of social media and videogames.
In that case, you might be (temporarily) better off adding some very powerful and addictive thoughts or feelings to cover up the depressive ones; I think this might be in fact one of the main uses of social media and videogames.
Yep, even something mindless like candy crush is probably better than social media. But... what's actually missing for a lot of people is actual community. So many of us live in tiny bubbles in big cities, we crave human interaction... so the lure of social media is powerful. It's actually a miasma of drama (if my family is indication) that appears to shatter actual community, both on and offline, sending people further into their increasingly socially inept bubbles. I wish I had solutions to offer. It's a goddamn mess.
“If you’re bored, you’re not paying attention.” - Sam Harris
Yeah, feed the enragement beast.
What do you mean? I don’t understand (honest question).
Well, the Harris quote implies that the opposite of boredom is "paying attention." I'm drawing a connection between that and what facebook likes to talk about: "engagement." But what really drives that, is when folks get enraged. I use the term "enragement."
This can be true of many apps and the internet, despite the endless content it has. I don't use Facebook, but I check Instagram or Twitter too often. I do the rounds of the handful of news sites I check, and then check again before there's anything new.
I try to make sure my Books app is front and centre, and I always have something on the go. Doesn't always work though.
I try to make sure my Books app is front and centre, and I always have something on the go. Doesn't always work though.
I feel as though it's impossible for anyone to write a thread on HN about Facebook without someone immediately coming in and saying that Facebook is stupid and they deleted their account years ago.
Yeah, me too. But you usually don't have to look beyond your immediate family to find someone that uses Facebook (or at the very least an FB-owned property) a ton. We aren't typical!
Yeah, me too. But you usually don't have to look beyond your immediate family to find someone that uses Facebook (or at the very least an FB-owned property) a ton. We aren't typical!
Fully agree, HN is absolutely not the place to get insight on population-level experiences with tech (or most anything else population-level; my pet peeve is people generalizing their education experiences). These population-level problems are far better understood by a process of deduction and looking at what the data says.
I always read these types of comments remembering the response to Dropbox [1] or Slashdot's response to the iPod ("No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.").
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
I always read these types of comments remembering the response to Dropbox [1] or Slashdot's response to the iPod ("No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.").
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
So what? Facebook has a lot of users, that doesn't negate the point that quitting is not hard, people just like Facebook, they don't want to quit.
> What you’re doing right now is the most important thing you could be doing, according to you.
A very powerful quote on preference falsification but I can’t for the life of me remember where it came from.
A very powerful quote on preference falsification but I can’t for the life of me remember where it came from.
If quitting facebook is framed as impossible, then those who want to quit will feel helpless. Posts like the one above are helpful because they tell people that there is hope. You can quit facebook.
Should we tell alcoholics that they'll never quit and their plight is hopeless? Or do we amplify the voices of those who succeeded in quitting, in the hopes that others may find inspiration to do the same? I'll do the latter.
Should we tell alcoholics that they'll never quit and their plight is hopeless? Or do we amplify the voices of those who succeeded in quitting, in the hopes that others may find inspiration to do the same? I'll do the latter.
What we shouldn't do is amplify the voices of people who were never addicted in the first place. That doesn't provide hope, if anything it works to de-legitimize how challenging quitting can be
My read of captainmuon's comment is that captainmuon once considered themself addicted to facebook.
I grew up in "Small Town America" in a large family and was really one of the "few" to ever move away (if any). The "problem" for me is that there really isn't an alternative to Facebook for sharing pictures and videos of my son and family for my close family to be a part of. I could have a personal blog, gallery, etc, but my grandparents that are on facebook (my son's great grandparents) don't get to see how much all of their friends enjoy them as well, etc.
In that sense, it's really not so much a problem. It's been an amazing crutch to a sort of depression caused by thoughts such as "my son is lucky enough to have his great grandparents and I'm across the Nation chasing money," etc.
I guess I'm one of the ones really stuck in the rut.
In that sense, it's really not so much a problem. It's been an amazing crutch to a sort of depression caused by thoughts such as "my son is lucky enough to have his great grandparents and I'm across the Nation chasing money," etc.
I guess I'm one of the ones really stuck in the rut.
I don't think that kind of usage is a problem. If you are actually using it to share stuff occasionally then it's just a more accessible blog (well besides the privacy issues).
If you are spending hours a day trying to attract attention then that's an issue. If you spend hours a day posting every detail about your life then it might be an issue it might not - it's just a matter of deciding how you want to spend your time.
If you are spending hours a day trying to attract attention then that's an issue. If you spend hours a day posting every detail about your life then it might be an issue it might not - it's just a matter of deciding how you want to spend your time.
> there really isn't an alternative to Facebook for sharing pictures and videos
I seem to manage; I use email and a website. These technologies have been working fine since around 1996.
The only "social media" account I've ever had is this one; and I'm pretty new here.
Consider teaching your rels to use straightforward technology that's been around for forty years (maybe since before they were born).
There's nothing special about Faceache; it's just a website with a messaging service (and an "app"). The only thing going for it is people who continue to use it, because they have "friends" who want to live in a Faceache bubble.
Look, that's cool; if you and your friends and rels think it's a good service, then you don't need any "alternative". I'm not going to beat you up for relying on Faceache.
But your ongoing use of Faceache, which you explain in terms of network effects ("but my grandparents that are on facebook") makes you part of the problem you yourself are complaining about.
I seem to manage; I use email and a website. These technologies have been working fine since around 1996.
The only "social media" account I've ever had is this one; and I'm pretty new here.
Consider teaching your rels to use straightforward technology that's been around for forty years (maybe since before they were born).
There's nothing special about Faceache; it's just a website with a messaging service (and an "app"). The only thing going for it is people who continue to use it, because they have "friends" who want to live in a Faceache bubble.
Look, that's cool; if you and your friends and rels think it's a good service, then you don't need any "alternative". I'm not going to beat you up for relying on Faceache.
But your ongoing use of Faceache, which you explain in terms of network effects ("but my grandparents that are on facebook") makes you part of the problem you yourself are complaining about.
But then I'm getting my novelty sugar hit by hitting HN forty times a day.
>I wish someone would make a site like that again!
I will make a site similar to that. I really want to. I have plan all drawn up for how it will work.
Its ad free, but with premium services for those willing to pay. One member of a family or group can pay for everybody.
The site is ephemeral, all posts are removed after three months. Its not a place where you store all your photos.
Its a site where friends and families share their holidays, their baby photos and birthday invitations. There won't be sharing news.
I'm not scared to take on the behemoth, I'm one guy in a home office. I only need a few thousand subscribers to make it worth my while.
I've got about 2 years left on my current project, then I'm going to start.
I will make a site similar to that. I really want to. I have plan all drawn up for how it will work.
Its ad free, but with premium services for those willing to pay. One member of a family or group can pay for everybody.
The site is ephemeral, all posts are removed after three months. Its not a place where you store all your photos.
Its a site where friends and families share their holidays, their baby photos and birthday invitations. There won't be sharing news.
I'm not scared to take on the behemoth, I'm one guy in a home office. I only need a few thousand subscribers to make it worth my while.
I've got about 2 years left on my current project, then I'm going to start.
This actually sounds super cool and I think would fill a void a lot of families/groups are using right now with group texting.
Godspeed!
Godspeed!
Maaaan I wish I could get in on something like this. I’m a noob web dev and I’d love to work on a substantial project with a skilled dev. This sounds like a really cool idea.
I think my wife is addicted, she will pick up her phone to do one thing but first goes to Facebook and scrolls, then she forgets what she was using her phone for.
Maybe not addicted but she has a habit of going to Facebook every time she uses her phone.
Maybe not addicted but she has a habit of going to Facebook every time she uses her phone.
That doesn't seem at all like addiction to me, that's just a mundane routine. If she had a panic attack when FB went down this week then I think we could say it's an addiction.
I think you are right, I was interested what would happen while it was down and she was fine once she knew it was down, until then she kept saying her internet wasn’t working.
Sounds like that Afroman song, to me. "I was gonna clean my room, but then I got high..."
If a habitual behavior is bad enough to interrupt somebody's ability to accomplish routine tasks, then it's pretty conclusively an addiction.
If a habitual behavior is bad enough to interrupt somebody's ability to accomplish routine tasks, then it's pretty conclusively an addiction.
but it's not. the vast vast majority of people spend a few minutes scrolling through fb, the same way people here scroll through HN, it's a totally meaningless time waster.
When you open your phone to do something other than look at HN, get distracted by HN, and forget why you opened your phone, that's a problem. Scrolling a few minutes here and there isn't the problem.
It's really not, that's just human nature, this happens to people all the time for all sorts of distractions on their phone.
"wellness" settings can limit the amount of time per day she spends doing it if she wants to alter her behavior.
I’m not sure she wants to stop tbh
To my partner the internet was down, not Facebook and Instagram. I tried to explain the difference but to no avail.
"Addiction is a biopsychosocial disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences."
"Despite adverse consequences" is a key component of addiction. For instance, many people can consume alcohol fairly regularly without the alcohol causing trouble for them. But if the alcohol starts to get in the way of work or disrupt your family life, that is a textbook warning sign of alcoholism.
If her compulsive use of facebook is getting in the way of things she wanted to do instead, that sounds an awful lot like addiction.
"Despite adverse consequences" is a key component of addiction. For instance, many people can consume alcohol fairly regularly without the alcohol causing trouble for them. But if the alcohol starts to get in the way of work or disrupt your family life, that is a textbook warning sign of alcoholism.
If her compulsive use of facebook is getting in the way of things she wanted to do instead, that sounds an awful lot like addiction.
Thank you for this definition
That was me for years.
The way I quit was to log out. I compulsively kept opening a new tab but having to log in was enough to make me close the tab. The compulsion vanished much quicker than I thought. In a week or so Facebook was out of my life.
The way I quit was to log out. I compulsively kept opening a new tab but having to log in was enough to make me close the tab. The compulsion vanished much quicker than I thought. In a week or so Facebook was out of my life.
Is that worse than spending time on Reddit, HN, Youtube, etc.? What about watching TV or movies?
You could make the argument that the content is worse in some way but even that is debatable since depending on who you follow on FB (groups, etc.) really changes what the content is.
You could make the argument that the content is worse in some way but even that is debatable since depending on who you follow on FB (groups, etc.) really changes what the content is.
> Are they taking about the same Facebook? I find it utterly boring and only use it for messenger anymore
You are not 'most people' then
You are not 'most people' then
he wrote a substantive post, the main thrust of which you're not responding to.
what he said is how captivating he found facebook before they made a number of changes to it. So he is actually saying he is a part of most people, give what he says some creedence.
what he said is how captivating he found facebook before they made a number of changes to it. So he is actually saying he is a part of most people, give what he says some creedence.
Wait... you could see who looks at your page?
I think the addicted people still use it like you are describing (as well as looking at the feed).
"And you would obsessively watch who looks at your page ..."
I used a relatively small-scale website with all this functionality before Facebook or the term "social network" existed. However regarding seeing who visits a profile, I do not remember Facebook ever allowed the user to see who was viewing their profile. Today, one can create a "page" (cf. profile) and Facebook lets one pay to promote a page. Facebook gives some very basic metrics on whether the page is getting visits, with less detail than a basic web server log. It might be interesting if Facebook allowed users to see who was accessing their profile because from what I have profiles are routinely being accessed by accounts that the user is not aware of. Facebook might seem "dead" to some folks as they do not see much activity, however there may be regular activity that they cannot see. Their data is being used by Facebook and their profile data is being accessed. Connections are being made. (As in connecting the user to other people, locations, institutions, etc.)
I used a relatively small-scale website with all this functionality before Facebook or the term "social network" existed. However regarding seeing who visits a profile, I do not remember Facebook ever allowed the user to see who was viewing their profile. Today, one can create a "page" (cf. profile) and Facebook lets one pay to promote a page. Facebook gives some very basic metrics on whether the page is getting visits, with less detail than a basic web server log. It might be interesting if Facebook allowed users to see who was accessing their profile because from what I have profiles are routinely being accessed by accounts that the user is not aware of. Facebook might seem "dead" to some folks as they do not see much activity, however there may be regular activity that they cannot see. Their data is being used by Facebook and their profile data is being accessed. Connections are being made. (As in connecting the user to other people, locations, institutions, etc.)
People talk about how boring Facebook is, but two days ago, when it went down for a few hours, it was all anybody talked about. There were multiple "Facebook is down!" threads here on HN, including a 1200+ comment thread about it. You can say "well, that was just morbid curiosity..." but then I'd ask for a pointer to another equally urgent response to an event. Any event. If all the smart kids find Facebook boring and not-at-all addictive then why did it suck up all the oxygen on the internet when it disappeared for a couple hours?
A FAANG going down for hours is interesting even to people who don't associate with that company. You're trying to frame this as a contradiction, but it isn't.
There's a difference between Facebook, Inc (the company whose services were down) and facebook.com (the website that this article is about, which people are saying is "over").
It wasn't just Facebook (the social media website) that was down, though; it was Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp down (if you're keeping score, that's 3-4 of the top 10 apps for both iOS and Android, depending on how you count Messenger), a large number of services that (surprisingly to many people) turned out to depend on Facebook's services, and a general firestorm of DNS DDOS's from services trying to access Facebook.com. That turns into a large portion of the internet behaving badly, not even counting that Whatsapp is the commons on which much of the non-US world's communications are built.
Besides all that, it's unusual for such a globally major website to be down at all, much less for hours. From a reliability perspective, that ~6 hours that Facebook's systems were down sets them an upper limit of 99.93% availability for the year.
It wasn't just Facebook (the social media website) that was down, though; it was Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp down (if you're keeping score, that's 3-4 of the top 10 apps for both iOS and Android, depending on how you count Messenger), a large number of services that (surprisingly to many people) turned out to depend on Facebook's services, and a general firestorm of DNS DDOS's from services trying to access Facebook.com. That turns into a large portion of the internet behaving badly, not even counting that Whatsapp is the commons on which much of the non-US world's communications are built.
Besides all that, it's unusual for such a globally major website to be down at all, much less for hours. From a reliability perspective, that ~6 hours that Facebook's systems were down sets them an upper limit of 99.93% availability for the year.
> Are they taking about the same Facebook? I find it utterly boring and only use it for messenger anymore.
Same. But I've also stopped using Messenger lately, mostly because I haven't had much of a social life due to Covid. Messenger is super convenient though to get in touch with people, as you don't have to exchange phone numbers to be able to message someone you recently met. But at the same time I'm worried that years worth of my private communication are being stored unencrypted and eventually leaked, so I've been nudging friends I communicate with frequently off FB, successfully (Signal or Whatsapp).
All that said I do miss FB a bit, since a lot of actual friend updates happen there. I don't really understand people who complain about political bullshit. I suppose a) you don't have proper adblockers (if political ads are a thing in your area) and/or b) you are friends with the wrong people.
But also, as you say, people are too afraid to share the more intimate stuff that made it interesting and social in the first place. So it's kind of a dead end.
Same. But I've also stopped using Messenger lately, mostly because I haven't had much of a social life due to Covid. Messenger is super convenient though to get in touch with people, as you don't have to exchange phone numbers to be able to message someone you recently met. But at the same time I'm worried that years worth of my private communication are being stored unencrypted and eventually leaked, so I've been nudging friends I communicate with frequently off FB, successfully (Signal or Whatsapp).
All that said I do miss FB a bit, since a lot of actual friend updates happen there. I don't really understand people who complain about political bullshit. I suppose a) you don't have proper adblockers (if political ads are a thing in your area) and/or b) you are friends with the wrong people.
But also, as you say, people are too afraid to share the more intimate stuff that made it interesting and social in the first place. So it's kind of a dead end.
Your post sounds an a lot like an addict “chasing the dragon”. Complete with how great it was in the beginning, how it’s no longer as good as it was you first started, how you are no longer satisfied and hoping for something new to come around that would be as good as when you first started using.
I use messenger only on desktop but it is painfully slow.. Even message notifications load after many seconds
it's not that Facebook is boring or interesting, it's that we're hostages [1].
If I would delete my Facebook, I would lose contact to a whole slew of people I've encountered over the years, who I chat to once in a while over messenger, or I see that they've done something. It's bitter to cut these people out of my life.
(here the 'addict' image works again; former addicts often need to cut their drinking/drug buddies out of their life to stay clean, even though they may be real friends)
Stopping myspace, on the other hand, felt a bit less bitter, perhaps because that was more like an adolescent phase everyone grew out of.
[1] hostage term from @doctorow https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1441107515865849866
If I would delete my Facebook, I would lose contact to a whole slew of people I've encountered over the years, who I chat to once in a while over messenger, or I see that they've done something. It's bitter to cut these people out of my life.
(here the 'addict' image works again; former addicts often need to cut their drinking/drug buddies out of their life to stay clean, even though they may be real friends)
Stopping myspace, on the other hand, felt a bit less bitter, perhaps because that was more like an adolescent phase everyone grew out of.
[1] hostage term from @doctorow https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1441107515865849866
I don’t think there really is a need to get rid of Facebook completely if you use it for useful things. If you don’t do much there you don’t feed them any information and or contribute to toxic discussions.
In the early days of Facebook, I really liked it. Like you said it was nice to see what everyone was up to. Then it changed, and the signal to noise ratio went to about 0. I had to unfollow so many people because I got tried of all the political stuff (from both sides). Anymore my feed is just ads.
I don't see how people enjoy it anymore. Guess they like all the doom scrolling.
I don't see how people enjoy it anymore. Guess they like all the doom scrolling.
The author who wrote this has tweeted, on average, 1-2x a day for 10 years. https://twitter.com/jaronschneider
Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society (an information/propagation architecture that exploits how people process information, imo).
For me, Facebook is nothing more than a hometown forum. I havent logged on in months.
Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society (an information/propagation architecture that exploits how people process information, imo).
For me, Facebook is nothing more than a hometown forum. I havent logged on in months.
>"Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society"
Absolutely. Not only are the people on Twitter much more toxic, the trending feed is way more prone to manipulation and influence campaigns. If I don't know someone directly on Facebook, I'm probably never going to see their stupid hot-takes. No such separation on Twitter. Also, whenever I scroll through Facebook, more than half the posts are advertisements anyways. It rarely shows me anything of value from my friends and somehow fixates on the same dozen people. Oddly, I was never even very friendly with those dozen in real life.
People say Facebook is dangerous because people fall into a loop of following content they already like and falling into grouptthink. Firstly, how in the world does not apply more strongly with Twitter? Second, on Twitter it is possible to bombard non-followers with repeated, biased, and motivated messaging. I think this is far more insidious because it creates a false sense of consensus and you can condition people to react a certain way with repeated messaging. And, these users don't even need to actively follow the influencers' accounts.
Edit: I don't even follow people like "Brooklyn Dad, Defiant!", "Duty to Warn", or "Palmer Report", yet I am always seeing content from these paid influencers whenever I click on a trending topic. So imagine if you're not a partisan person and you consistently keep seeing messages from these kinds of accounts. Chances are, eventually, some of their tweets are going to influence how you think and give you a biased view of things.
Absolutely. Not only are the people on Twitter much more toxic, the trending feed is way more prone to manipulation and influence campaigns. If I don't know someone directly on Facebook, I'm probably never going to see their stupid hot-takes. No such separation on Twitter. Also, whenever I scroll through Facebook, more than half the posts are advertisements anyways. It rarely shows me anything of value from my friends and somehow fixates on the same dozen people. Oddly, I was never even very friendly with those dozen in real life.
People say Facebook is dangerous because people fall into a loop of following content they already like and falling into grouptthink. Firstly, how in the world does not apply more strongly with Twitter? Second, on Twitter it is possible to bombard non-followers with repeated, biased, and motivated messaging. I think this is far more insidious because it creates a false sense of consensus and you can condition people to react a certain way with repeated messaging. And, these users don't even need to actively follow the influencers' accounts.
Edit: I don't even follow people like "Brooklyn Dad, Defiant!", "Duty to Warn", or "Palmer Report", yet I am always seeing content from these paid influencers whenever I click on a trending topic. So imagine if you're not a partisan person and you consistently keep seeing messages from these kinds of accounts. Chances are, eventually, some of their tweets are going to influence how you think and give you a biased view of things.
I wouldn't take your personal experience on Facebook to be universal.
Being a public social network, Twitter's toxicity and distortions are much more visible than Facebook's, and the user experience is far less varied because of common touchpoints like Trending Topics and celebrity posters.
Facebook is a far more unique experience per user, so personal experience isn't a great way to understand others experience. A lot of Facebook's problems are related to the network you've formed, on Pages you have to follow, or in private Groups. Facebook also serves far more people and is ubiquitous and worldwide in a way that Twitter just is not. That's why you can't really rely on your own judgment of the product and sort of have to fly on instruments (population level data) to understand it. This is also why it's critical to have researchers have access to that data to understand what is going on.
Being a public social network, Twitter's toxicity and distortions are much more visible than Facebook's, and the user experience is far less varied because of common touchpoints like Trending Topics and celebrity posters.
Facebook is a far more unique experience per user, so personal experience isn't a great way to understand others experience. A lot of Facebook's problems are related to the network you've formed, on Pages you have to follow, or in private Groups. Facebook also serves far more people and is ubiquitous and worldwide in a way that Twitter just is not. That's why you can't really rely on your own judgment of the product and sort of have to fly on instruments (population level data) to understand it. This is also why it's critical to have researchers have access to that data to understand what is going on.
I'm never logged in as a user and I don't have an account. So I imagine what I see is likely what other people tend to see if not logged in.
> Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society
I'm always surprised that Reddit gets a free pass in these discussions. Reddit has been home to some of the most egregious bad communities and misinformation hives.
Their invisible-hand moderation system allows a small number of moderators to completely control the conversation in a subreddit. Banning dissenters and removing comments that don't agree with what the moderators want people to see is an easy way to make it look like everyone is in natural agreement on a topic.
The weirdest part is that most tech people readily admit that Reddit is full of terrible content, even on the front page. The common retort is that it's not so bad if you create an account and manually remove all of those bad subreddits from your list, but by the same argument Facebook isn't a problem because you can simply not subscribe to the bad content.
I'm always surprised that Reddit gets a free pass in these discussions. Reddit has been home to some of the most egregious bad communities and misinformation hives.
Their invisible-hand moderation system allows a small number of moderators to completely control the conversation in a subreddit. Banning dissenters and removing comments that don't agree with what the moderators want people to see is an easy way to make it look like everyone is in natural agreement on a topic.
The weirdest part is that most tech people readily admit that Reddit is full of terrible content, even on the front page. The common retort is that it's not so bad if you create an account and manually remove all of those bad subreddits from your list, but by the same argument Facebook isn't a problem because you can simply not subscribe to the bad content.
> Banning dissenters and removing comments that don't agree with what the moderators want people to see is an easy way to make it look like everyone is in natural agreement on a topic.
This happens way more than people know, by the way. Some of the moderators on large subreddits are complete dicks to people who go against the grain. Good luck appealing. All you can do is create another account for that subreddit or just never visit it again.
This happens way more than people know, by the way. Some of the moderators on large subreddits are complete dicks to people who go against the grain. Good luck appealing. All you can do is create another account for that subreddit or just never visit it again.
I hate Reddit mostly for its hive mind.
For example: There is a video of someone blasting music and neighbor clearly being upset. The offender calls the lady Karen. Then, all the comments are bashing so called "Karen". Even though many places in the US have laws in place to prevent people from blasting music all day. Stating this brings many down votes.
I had an awful neighbor in an area where houses are close apart. He would get wasted, cut grass with a lawnmower and blast music out of his car, which he could not hear because of lawn mower. My windows would shake when I was trying to study.
For example: There is a video of someone blasting music and neighbor clearly being upset. The offender calls the lady Karen. Then, all the comments are bashing so called "Karen". Even though many places in the US have laws in place to prevent people from blasting music all day. Stating this brings many down votes.
I had an awful neighbor in an area where houses are close apart. He would get wasted, cut grass with a lawnmower and blast music out of his car, which he could not hear because of lawn mower. My windows would shake when I was trying to study.
Reddit is an amazing platform for niche hobbies and tech forums.
It is fucking terrible for its political news. It's so clearly biased AND it leaks into every default subreddit.
It is fucking terrible for its political news. It's so clearly biased AND it leaks into every default subreddit.
> Reddit is an amazing platform for niche hobbies and tech forums.
I tried this for a while but the flagrant low-effort karma farming even on those subreddits drove me away. The last subreddit I still read towards the end was r/skookum. It was in interesting community for a while; a lot of neat heavy industry stuff. But I had to quit after seeing about ten thousand "look I found a wrench that says skookum on it, give me uptoots xD" posts.
I tried this for a while but the flagrant low-effort karma farming even on those subreddits drove me away. The last subreddit I still read towards the end was r/skookum. It was in interesting community for a while; a lot of neat heavy industry stuff. But I had to quit after seeing about ten thousand "look I found a wrench that says skookum on it, give me uptoots xD" posts.
You're on the wrong website if you're trying to avoid karma farming.
And at such polarized extremes. I see unironic communists post in worldnews about as often as any kind of conservative.
reddit is better if you unsub from all and just add back the things you are interested in
I sometimes feel alone when I go to Reddit and have the same disgusted feeling you do-- and it's because all the dissenting opinions are downvoted and deleted.
With that kind of moderation, how is there any other outcome other than a loud, obnoxious hive-mind?
It bothers me because perhaps the younger generation will grow up in Reddit thinking that this hive-mind is normal and healthy.
With that kind of moderation, how is there any other outcome other than a loud, obnoxious hive-mind?
It bothers me because perhaps the younger generation will grow up in Reddit thinking that this hive-mind is normal and healthy.
I think many will, but many others won't.
There are a lot of spaces online, especially on Discord and at one point in Facebook groups where Reddit is regarded as if it were a digital North Korea.
There are a lot of spaces online, especially on Discord and at one point in Facebook groups where Reddit is regarded as if it were a digital North Korea.
I think the hypocrisy isn't as much as you might think. Think of it like this: Facebook is like Walmart, Reddit is like a shopping mall. Malls and Walmarts have plenty of garbage products alike, but at Walmart you HAVE to walk past garbage to get to the thing you want, whereas at a mall you can just beeline straight to the one store you want to go to.
I can't avoid things I don't want to see in facebook unless I have zero friends and only subscribe to community topics (eventually a friend will post a link or opinion on a topic I don't want to see in social media), but if I literally only care about pictures of bees, I can just exclusively follow the pictures of bees subreddit.
I can't avoid things I don't want to see in facebook unless I have zero friends and only subscribe to community topics (eventually a friend will post a link or opinion on a topic I don't want to see in social media), but if I literally only care about pictures of bees, I can just exclusively follow the pictures of bees subreddit.
I have a carefully curated list of subs on Reddit that are well moderated and informative. There just isn't an easy way to do that with Facebook or Twitter. Both of those platforms will show me "related" content I don't want to see.
Reddit might do that with their app (I don't use it so I don't know) but with a third party client or the old website I can pretty effectively avoid trolls and nonsense.
It's a controversial topic but I personally think the downvote makes a huge difference in my experience on social media. You see it here on HN as well.
Reddit might do that with their app (I don't use it so I don't know) but with a third party client or the old website I can pretty effectively avoid trolls and nonsense.
It's a controversial topic but I personally think the downvote makes a huge difference in my experience on social media. You see it here on HN as well.
Because there is no such thing as Reddit. Every sub is different. SilphRoad and the fandom subs for Dark and Twin Peaks were terrific communities when I participated there. Hobbyist subs for modding PC cases and programming languages have consistently great communities. Front-page Reddit is a totally different animal, but assuming you can remember words or deal with six bookmarks instead of one, you can go to the specific subs you want without ever having to see the front page at all.
I have a browser extension ('leechblock') to stop me from viewing r/all and r/popular, and it really is night and day. If I happen to somehow end up on those pages on another device, it's jarring. I don't recognize the site as what it was when I first started using it.
There are intelligent, well educated people that I personally hold in high esteem that take Twitter seriously and it weirds me out because they ostensibly to know better. I do not know anyone that takes Reddit seriously. I’m guessing that I’m not the only one here who feels that way.
The hate train in the press is for Twitter because that's the cesspool where all the journalists spend their days. They neglect to mention the foul stench of Reddit because they don't generally go there unless it's to do a quick hit piece after a disgruntled powermod gives them a lead to force the admin team to take their own ToS seriously.
> Twitter has by far become a more egregious platform for society
I don't really see how that can be true when only 20% of so of the population actually use Twitter. It's very small beans compared to Facebook, or YouTube for that matter.
I don't really see how that can be true when only 20% of so of the population actually use Twitter. It's very small beans compared to Facebook, or YouTube for that matter.
Policy makers, journalists, and educators tend to use twitter pretty extensively. What happens on twitter affects the worldview of just about every journalist out there. Don't like the current ideological capture of journalism on both sides of the US political spectrum? Blame twitter for a significant portion of that.
For me Twitter is a bit more than an RSS feed, I block everybody who ends up in my timeline for no good reason. A while ago I told Twitter I live in Germany, because I was told they have to censor nazis down there.
It's way healthier than Facebook, where blocking the crazy friend of your aunt may cause endless real life discussions.
It's way healthier than Facebook, where blocking the crazy friend of your aunt may cause endless real life discussions.
I feel like everyone ignores scale here. Facebook is an of magnitude larger even before considering Instagram and WhatsApp. They have nearly 3 billion active users.
Twitter is a fraction of the scale/influence, especially outside of english speaking countries.
WhatsApp is the de facto communication platform in some countries. Facebook is the internet in some parts of Africa. India has nearly as many Facebook users as the US has adults in total.
Even if you don't use Facebook yourself, society around you uses it... a lot... and that impacts you.
Twitter is a fraction of the scale/influence, especially outside of english speaking countries.
WhatsApp is the de facto communication platform in some countries. Facebook is the internet in some parts of Africa. India has nearly as many Facebook users as the US has adults in total.
Even if you don't use Facebook yourself, society around you uses it... a lot... and that impacts you.
Twitter is certainly more toxic than Facebook!
I personally found Facebook hard to quit, but not entirely impossible. I would compare it to giving up cigarettes: not easy, but I got through it. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have have a very serious and damaging internet addiction, however. Like many serious addictions, there's a lot of shame attached to my real addiction, which is 4chan. 4chan is like being addicted to heroin. Every day is a battle to look away from the train wreck, and so far I haven't been able to overcome this addiction in any meaningful way. What's interesting is that the site doesn't use any of the scandalous techniques that facebook is currently getting heat for, yet it has a grip on me that's basically ruined my life as much as a crack addiction could ruin a person's life. It's so bad that I've spent many years of my life living in very close proximity to hard drug users, because of the poverty my addiction has caused me. So, I guess what I'm getting at is we might have a bigger problem than just facebook, or at least I do.
This got dark fast. Any behavior that is getting in the way of daily life is an addiction. Doesn't have to be drugs or gambling. Therapists have extensive training in coaching patients out of these behaviors or at least better understanding them. I hope you can find the help you need.
Would you mind unpacking what you see as your addiction to 4chan? Are there specific boards you frequent? As an infrequent reader of /fit/ and /biz/, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around your experience.
Nobody quits that website. I've tried a few times. Meanwhile I was able to quit FB in one evening and haven't been back.
I quit the website some years ago, though I never posted or commented very often to begin with. Once I managed to get off it for long enough, going back became shocking. Seeing /b/ with fresh eyes made me never want to go back, and I haven't. There are better places.
I have a similar story with Reddit, though that addiction was more recent and harder to break.
Facebook was easy. I refuse to use Twitter or Tiktok because I know what will happen.
I don't think my HN problem is quite bad enough to want to quit entirely, but I do want to read it less. The same goes for Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. Moderation is proving to be much harder than quitting entirely.
I think I'm very lucky because my interactions with social media tend to be very reserved. I almost never post anything anywhere, I just passively consume.
I have a similar story with Reddit, though that addiction was more recent and harder to break.
Facebook was easy. I refuse to use Twitter or Tiktok because I know what will happen.
I don't think my HN problem is quite bad enough to want to quit entirely, but I do want to read it less. The same goes for Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. Moderation is proving to be much harder than quitting entirely.
I think I'm very lucky because my interactions with social media tend to be very reserved. I almost never post anything anywhere, I just passively consume.
> I don't think my HN problem is quite bad enough to want to quit entirely, but I do want to read it less
For me, social media is a problem when I'm pulling out my phone to use it when I'm on vacation or in the presence of other people.
I have no problem going weeks without checking HN if I'm on vacation, and I don't think I've ever checked HN while at lunch with friends.
By contrast, I check FB more when I'm around other people — it's as if there's a social element to it, and some popularity signaling. If everyone else around the table is checking their notifications, then it makes me look like I've got nothing going on if I'm not checking my notifications also.
For me, social media is a problem when I'm pulling out my phone to use it when I'm on vacation or in the presence of other people.
I have no problem going weeks without checking HN if I'm on vacation, and I don't think I've ever checked HN while at lunch with friends.
By contrast, I check FB more when I'm around other people — it's as if there's a social element to it, and some popularity signaling. If everyone else around the table is checking their notifications, then it makes me look like I've got nothing going on if I'm not checking my notifications also.
I find the premise ridiculous. I mean yes, there are people who are addicted to it. There are people who are addicted to lots of things, from playing video games to climbing ice-covered mountains. But the idea that it's harder to quit facebook than to get rid of, say, opioid dependency - which literally rewires your body's biochemistry - sounds like complete BS. Of course, if your life is so empty you have nothing to do but browse facebook, sure it's hard to quit, but it's not because of the strength of the addiction, it's because of the weakness of the alternative. I'm sure if you cut off that person's internet access and threw their phone into a lake, they'd be cured pretty soon.
I don't disagree with you, but I felt the need to point out the positive feedback loop in the scenario you laid out, that is, the more time you use Facebook the less you spend in your real life and so the alternative becomes weaker even if it was strong when you started. People who use Facebook compulsively didn't start out with no friends and family, if they had they'd have had no reason to create an account on the first place.
Well, yes, but that's true with pretty much everything. If you're addicted to reading Clancy novels, you spend more time reading Clancy novels and less time talking to friends, therefore Clancy novels are more addictive than heroin. Sounds ridiculous, right? Yes, there's a positive feedback dynamic in any addiction, every basic text on it mentions it. But that's no reason to jump to "most people never would be able to get rid of the habit". This dynamic can be overturned, and there are many tools to do it, and in this particular case it's easy - you body won't disintegrate and you would not feel like armies of Hell descended on you to torture you if you don't use facebook for a week.
This has the same energy as the cigarette lobbyist in congress who talked about how smoking lettuce has the same health effects as smoking tobacco
This comment makes absolutely no sense. It looks like you are just seeking to associate me with something you consider bad (e.g. tobacco lobbyists) by something like "tobacco lobbyists are arguing they are right, this guy argues he's right, therefore clearly they are the same". Could you address the content of my argument instead?
The cigarette lobbyist is making a specious argument comparing cigarettes to lettuce in order to exonerate cigarettes, despite that noone smokes lettuce, lettuce is not addictive, and it's just totally different altogether.
Similarly, your comment is trying to exonerate Facebook by comparing addictive Facebook use to... regular, "addictive" participation in healthy, fun physical activities? Despite the fact that it is a completely different situation: Facebook deliberately tries to be addictive, there are numerous studies about the negative effects of excess Facebook use, there are no physical health benefits, etc.
So I was just saying that your argument is as specious and nonsequitur as the tobacco lobbyist.
Similarly, your comment is trying to exonerate Facebook by comparing addictive Facebook use to... regular, "addictive" participation in healthy, fun physical activities? Despite the fact that it is a completely different situation: Facebook deliberately tries to be addictive, there are numerous studies about the negative effects of excess Facebook use, there are no physical health benefits, etc.
So I was just saying that your argument is as specious and nonsequitur as the tobacco lobbyist.
> if your life is so empty you have nothing to do but browse facebook, sure it's hard to quit, but it's not because of the strength of the addiction, it's because of the weakness of the alternative.
"Weakness of the alternative" is a large reason people get addicted to things in the first place. It goes hand in hand.
"Weakness of the alternative" is a large reason people get addicted to things in the first place. It goes hand in hand.
Of course. But the addiction supported by physiological mechanisms (like opiates, alcohol, nicotine, barbiturates, etc.) or powerful psychological one (gambling, risk) is much stronger than just "I am bored, why don't I browse Facebook".
Imagine if nicotine had network effects (edit: I mean as strong network effects as fb). You can't quit unless all your friends do too. I hear some alcoholics have a similar challenge when their social life revolves around drinking with peer pressure not to abstain.
While it was fortunately never a problem for me (I've never really drank a lot), when I did business travel for a living, it was pretty common to go to bars after work and expense some drinks to the company (the CEO knew about this, we weren't breaking rules).
I remember thinking that if I were an alcoholic, this would either be the best job in the world or the worst job in the world, depending on your perspective. I can't imagine how much harder it would be to actually quick full-blown alcoholism if all the booze is free. Obviously you were allowed to just buy a soda or seltzer or something, and that's usually what I did, but I could totally see it being ten times harder to quit when all your drinks are comped and all your peers are drinking around you.
I remember thinking that if I were an alcoholic, this would either be the best job in the world or the worst job in the world, depending on your perspective. I can't imagine how much harder it would be to actually quick full-blown alcoholism if all the booze is free. Obviously you were allowed to just buy a soda or seltzer or something, and that's usually what I did, but I could totally see it being ten times harder to quit when all your drinks are comped and all your peers are drinking around you.
Me stopping drinking ruined my career.
I was unable to compete in the deep dark of late night initiation/boozing ceremonies that still drive most major business deals in certain verticals.
When you’ve puked next to a ceo, they take your calls.
I was unable to compete in the deep dark of late night initiation/boozing ceremonies that still drive most major business deals in certain verticals.
When you’ve puked next to a ceo, they take your calls.
It does. It's pretty common for friends groups to grow around everyone at a school, a dorm, an office, that take smoke breaks together.
True story: I once got a major promotion because the boss was a smoker and he overheard me talking about coding - "oh, you can code?"
>Imagine if nicotine had network effects. You can't quit unless all your friends do too.
As a former smoker, it took me moving from an office full of smokers to an office where I was the only smoker to finally motivate me to quit for good. I tapered down over about a year with a vape though, and I think that almost has an anti-network effect in that you kind of look like a bellend!
As a former smoker, it took me moving from an office full of smokers to an office where I was the only smoker to finally motivate me to quit for good. I tapered down over about a year with a vape though, and I think that almost has an anti-network effect in that you kind of look like a bellend!
Nicotine patches and Wellbutrin; I can be around 100 smokers and not give a shit
My father picked up smoking when he joined the Navy so that he could participate in the smoke breaks. Fortunately he managed to quit when he got out. I wager many started smoking for the same reason, and never quit.
Facebook is like vendor lock in for human social interactions and emotions.
That's probably why Zuckerberg tries to acquire competitors - trying to lock in your behavior and then sell it to the highest bidder. Makes sense when you think about it.
When I suggest people delete FB apps from their phones, they start writhing uncomfortably, and try to justify not doing so by making some half-ass claim that their social life will suffer if they did. Its the same response I would expect from someone who is a moderate alcoholic and is told to drink less wine during the week. The addiction is obvious.
My experience after deleting FB apps from my phone - social life changed for the better and I feel less anxiety. It turns out, most of my FB "friends" weren't really my friends. And I can still check FB / Insta via web if I wanted to. Added bonus - FB can't track me as well.
FB will do what FB does - try to steal as much data and attention and sell it to the highest bidder. But you can only blame them so much. Collectively, its on people to change and take responsibility if they feel they have grievances related to FB.
Still, I have hope - awareness for social media's downside effects is only increasing. Ms. Haugen's testimony and the Social Dilemma documentary demonstrate that.
That's probably why Zuckerberg tries to acquire competitors - trying to lock in your behavior and then sell it to the highest bidder. Makes sense when you think about it.
When I suggest people delete FB apps from their phones, they start writhing uncomfortably, and try to justify not doing so by making some half-ass claim that their social life will suffer if they did. Its the same response I would expect from someone who is a moderate alcoholic and is told to drink less wine during the week. The addiction is obvious.
My experience after deleting FB apps from my phone - social life changed for the better and I feel less anxiety. It turns out, most of my FB "friends" weren't really my friends. And I can still check FB / Insta via web if I wanted to. Added bonus - FB can't track me as well.
FB will do what FB does - try to steal as much data and attention and sell it to the highest bidder. But you can only blame them so much. Collectively, its on people to change and take responsibility if they feel they have grievances related to FB.
Still, I have hope - awareness for social media's downside effects is only increasing. Ms. Haugen's testimony and the Social Dilemma documentary demonstrate that.
It's not just Facebook, it's social media in general. More precisely, it's infinite scroll, which has become a ubiquitous design decision across social media. I recently finally succeeded in developing a healthy relationship to social media, and it involved disabling infinite scroll where I could (using Hackernews, moving to old Reddit) and quitting the social media sites where I couldn't (mostly Youtube). I'm scared to touch Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter because the infinite scroll mechanism is so addictive.
I agree with that. I still use Facebook and Youtube, but I disable the News Feed and YouTube recommendations/home page using browser plugins.
I don't find any particular service difficult to quit, but its pretty much impossible to never be on some sort of dopamine grinder on some level.
Video games are a nice escape hatch in this way. If you pivot to a game, and then beat the game, there's a moment of nothingness where you have nothing gripping your attention constantly. Or at least that's my experience.
Video games are a nice escape hatch in this way. If you pivot to a game, and then beat the game, there's a moment of nothingness where you have nothing gripping your attention constantly. Or at least that's my experience.
Does anyone else find it hard to personally connect with the well-researched claim that people respond with a fight-or-flight response to ideas that challenge their core beliefs? I've always found ideas to be more interesting the more they challenge my core beliefs. This is true of math and science, but especially true of things like religion. I remember how wonderful it was as a teenager to find challenges to the ideas I was raised with, debating my positions with people online, and appreciating losing debates and having my mind opened to new ideas.
Public key encryption, especially PGP, is useless in a modern computing context. Windows has solved almost all identity management issues for the end-user base.
(did that trigger an emotional response?? It bothered me to write it)
(did that trigger an emotional response?? It bothered me to write it)
Sadly, I agree with the first half; for normal end users anyway. (Open)PGP / GNUpg are uselessly cumbersome, slow to adapt standards, useful tools that are ill-suited to the needs of most end users and have horrifically bad UI.
The second half is total bunk though, and I'd like to hear how you think that's possibly the case. Maybe there's an angle I'm missing since I don't use that platform for those things. I suspect it was just made up to see what the reactions were.
The second half is total bunk though, and I'd like to hear how you think that's possibly the case. Maybe there's an angle I'm missing since I don't use that platform for those things. I suspect it was just made up to see what the reactions were.
I took two of the most awful things that bother me about general purpose computing (and likely the larger HN community) and typed them in to see if that would trigger an emotional response.
My heart rate actually jumped 15 bpm writing the second statement.
My heart rate actually jumped 15 bpm writing the second statement.
That's a great one, and it hits close to home. I'm a huge believer of libre software. I'm typing this response in the vim-based text editor of w3m inside a Terminology terminal on dwm. Just today I fully moved the business I manage off the StatusNet/GNU Social network plus OwnCloud which I've run for the last decade to Microsoft Teams because using AzureAD and Office365 was more efficient for everyone. I haven't changed my beliefs, but I appreciate the best solutions wherever I can find them. If a better option comes along, I'll gladly take it!
Yes, as I'm sure many do here as well. Thats because the HN community is not representative of the average population
I can relate to it. Being challenged on a core belief is an uncomfortable feeling for me. I've learned that in order to be open minded I need to pause, listen, and take as much time reflecting as I need before I respond. Oftentimes that means I bow out of a debate with "That's interesting, I hadn't thought of that before, I really want to think about that". For me, it takes a lot of discipline to not give in to the fight-or-flight reaction, and really digest something that challenges me. And I'm not always perfect at it.
Ironically, I feel like online platforms should be a better venue for that type of thing, since it's asynchronous and you don't have people in front of you awaiting your response. Obviously it doesn't tend to work that way, though.
Ironically, I feel like online platforms should be a better venue for that type of thing, since it's asynchronous and you don't have people in front of you awaiting your response. Obviously it doesn't tend to work that way, though.
I'm like you in this respect, but I wasn't always. It took reflection and effort to realize that being challenged is more stimulating than being defensive, and more productive personally. So yes, I can understand that line of thinking, and yes, it is pretty senseless.
I grew up in a very religious (technically a cult) setting. Earlier in my life, I believed some of it. I bristled at the suggestion that what I'd been taught might be wrong. I relished in the opportunity to practice "apologetics" and debate non-believers - a concept that appealed to me deeply at the time.
And then, I grew up and left the bubble. I was fortunate enough to get a job working with people who held diverse viewpoints. I still found myself resisting those viewpoints instinctively, but I learned something that surprised me at the time: the people who held those viewpoints were good people! Who'd have thought? I'd been told those people were the enemy. Unbelievers, sinners, "of this world".
As my relationships with those people grew, the cracks in my own belief systems started to grow.
I'm now in my mid 30s, and would describe my mindset as that of a scientist. I'm excited to learn when I'm wrong, because it means I learned something new about the world.
I often think about the people I left behind, many of whom are still deeply in the bubble. I wonder if I got out because I was predisposed to have an open mind, and when given the opportunity I took it, or if I was just exposed to the right combination of things to help me see the light.
All of this to follow up on this:
> Does anyone else find it hard to personally connect with the well-researched claim that people respond with a fight-or-flight response to ideas that challenge their core beliefs?
I can still feel some kind of connection to that early version of myself, or at least I know it was there and now it's not. This history has established within me some empathy for people who still do react poorly to new ideas, and I've found that it helps me better understand (not accept) the viewpoints of others around me that might otherwise seem insane.
Edit: I know it's not great to complain about downvotes, but I'm really puzzled here.
And then, I grew up and left the bubble. I was fortunate enough to get a job working with people who held diverse viewpoints. I still found myself resisting those viewpoints instinctively, but I learned something that surprised me at the time: the people who held those viewpoints were good people! Who'd have thought? I'd been told those people were the enemy. Unbelievers, sinners, "of this world".
As my relationships with those people grew, the cracks in my own belief systems started to grow.
I'm now in my mid 30s, and would describe my mindset as that of a scientist. I'm excited to learn when I'm wrong, because it means I learned something new about the world.
I often think about the people I left behind, many of whom are still deeply in the bubble. I wonder if I got out because I was predisposed to have an open mind, and when given the opportunity I took it, or if I was just exposed to the right combination of things to help me see the light.
All of this to follow up on this:
> Does anyone else find it hard to personally connect with the well-researched claim that people respond with a fight-or-flight response to ideas that challenge their core beliefs?
I can still feel some kind of connection to that early version of myself, or at least I know it was there and now it's not. This history has established within me some empathy for people who still do react poorly to new ideas, and I've found that it helps me better understand (not accept) the viewpoints of others around me that might otherwise seem insane.
Edit: I know it's not great to complain about downvotes, but I'm really puzzled here.
I'm not sure why you were net-downvoted; your anecdote was on-topic, relative to the comment you replied to.
I have a similar background, and your use of 'of this world' may possibly indicate that we both suffered at the hands of the same cult.
Within myself, I have personally experienced both the fight-or-flight reaction to dis-confirming datapoints, and also excitement at learning something new. The former happened more often when I was still in the clutches of the cult. I think it boils down to how psychologically invested you are in your beliefs, at the time of feeling the cognitive dissonance.
I have a similar background, and your use of 'of this world' may possibly indicate that we both suffered at the hands of the same cult.
Within myself, I have personally experienced both the fight-or-flight reaction to dis-confirming datapoints, and also excitement at learning something new. The former happened more often when I was still in the clutches of the cult. I think it boils down to how psychologically invested you are in your beliefs, at the time of feeling the cognitive dissonance.
When I think about the earlier version of myself and compare him to who I am now, I don't feel a strong sense of disconnection, because although I may have seen the world differently, I remember being very aware that I was still young and didn't have enough experience to hold a fully-formed view of the world. I expected my perspective to change as I got older. I think he would be surprised that he wasn't able to find satisfying answers from people in his community but open to the ideas I have now.
The first thing I remember thinking about is how strange it is to be conscious and unable to fully trust my senses or my mind, wondering what might be beyond my understanding.
The first thing I remember thinking about is how strange it is to be conscious and unable to fully trust my senses or my mind, wondering what might be beyond my understanding.
>"that people respond with a fight-or-flight response to ideas that challenge their core beliefs?"
I believe a large part of this is due to people's personalities. Namely, Openness and Agreeableness. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits) It stands to reason that someone who is low on openness and not agreeable would react poorly to their core beliefs being challenged, and vice versa.
I believe a large part of this is due to people's personalities. Namely, Openness and Agreeableness. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits) It stands to reason that someone who is low on openness and not agreeable would react poorly to their core beliefs being challenged, and vice versa.
I suspect it depends on how much social and psychological equity you have invested in the core beliefs, when they get challenged. If you've never experienced much indoctrination, I can completely understand why it would be hard for you to relate.
I’m not sure what you would consider indoctrination, but I was raised in a traditional religion and was considering a religious career when I started debating doctrinal issues with others. It wasn’t a lightly made decision to admit that some of my opponents had better arguments, but I was more grateful to be educated than disappointed that I had been wrong. I have always preferred the knowledge that comes from losing to a worthy opponent to the satisfaction of winning an argument.
My reply was influenced by my own experience & biases. While I'm generally negative towards religion overall -- because of the specific one I was brought up under-- I do have to recognize that some people have had healthier, more positive experiences with their own. So when I said 'indoctrination', I was specifically thinking of religions that shield their untenable doctrines by vilifying critical thinking skills.
I want to thank my insufferable American aunt who did nothing but spin every post and comment into being about her. Made it very easy to quit about eight years ago.
Twitter is trickier. I actually enjoy the discourse (once I figured out how to filter the loud angry idiots).
Twitter is trickier. I actually enjoy the discourse (once I figured out how to filter the loud angry idiots).
You know what worked for me to get rid of Facebook? I turned it into a chore and eventually broke it.
When I deleted my old account and created a new one a few years ago, I decided to run a little experiment: I started hiding everything that was not posted directly by friends. "[unknown person] posted on [friend]'s wall"? Hide [unknown person]. "[friend] liked a post by [some page]"? I hid that page. A friend shared a post by someone or from a page? You bet I hid those too. And the same for groups, events and so forth.
I did that a little bit every day, for 3 years, until Facebook became pretty much barren. My friends only really post a handful of things a day and the rest is just cruft. Around that time I also discovered that Facebook started exposing who had uploaded your contact info as part of a marketing list... so I started leaving negative reviews and blocking those pages.
Does this sound like a total bore and a chore? Yes, yes it was. I think I got it going for so long mostly out of spite for the platform. Eventually, it got so bad that it started literally breaking Facebook for me. Sometimes no posts would load at all. Eventually, some of the hiding options stopped working! After a year or so, the experience got so janky and unrewarding I just deleted my account. I took the chance to get rid of Instagram and WhatsApp as well, since this was around the time where the latter started pushing for more telemetry.
I got most of my closer friends to jump on Telegram and Signal. I do miss Facebook a bit, in that it's become harder to keep up with some people that don't use other platforms... but not too much. I'm setting up a blog for myself to share whatever I want to write, my tech tutorials and maybe set up a photo gallery.
When I deleted my old account and created a new one a few years ago, I decided to run a little experiment: I started hiding everything that was not posted directly by friends. "[unknown person] posted on [friend]'s wall"? Hide [unknown person]. "[friend] liked a post by [some page]"? I hid that page. A friend shared a post by someone or from a page? You bet I hid those too. And the same for groups, events and so forth.
I did that a little bit every day, for 3 years, until Facebook became pretty much barren. My friends only really post a handful of things a day and the rest is just cruft. Around that time I also discovered that Facebook started exposing who had uploaded your contact info as part of a marketing list... so I started leaving negative reviews and blocking those pages.
Does this sound like a total bore and a chore? Yes, yes it was. I think I got it going for so long mostly out of spite for the platform. Eventually, it got so bad that it started literally breaking Facebook for me. Sometimes no posts would load at all. Eventually, some of the hiding options stopped working! After a year or so, the experience got so janky and unrewarding I just deleted my account. I took the chance to get rid of Instagram and WhatsApp as well, since this was around the time where the latter started pushing for more telemetry.
I got most of my closer friends to jump on Telegram and Signal. I do miss Facebook a bit, in that it's become harder to keep up with some people that don't use other platforms... but not too much. I'm setting up a blog for myself to share whatever I want to write, my tech tutorials and maybe set up a photo gallery.
OT: I have quit FB more then 5 years ago, but every time I see a post like this I fear that I am still addicted. Not to FB but to HN...
As someone who's recovered from multiple substance addictions in the past, it is so painfully obvious when I see social media addicts. It's literally the exact same behavior. The compulsion, the lack of awareness, the ignoring of friends and loved ones while mindlessly scrolling; it's all there. Social addiction is even more sinister because the feedback loop is scientifically optimized in a way no substance could ever match, and it feeds the most base primal need that humans have which is status and recognition. It's more powerful than even hunger. I don't know how we can possibly get away from this.
No substance could ever match? More powerful than hunger? I strongly challenge that.
>No substance could ever match?
If you plot the area under the curve of addictive behavior engaged in over a lifetime, absolutely. People can quit substance addictions. You know that your addiction is harming you and actively destroying your life while you are engaged in it. Those feelings eventually lead most people to quit if they don't die. But social addiction is different. It feels like you're actually doing something useful and good, while it rots away your agency and sense of self. You become a mindless scroller whose tastes, preferences, ideologies, and overall cultural milieu become entirely mediated through engagement algorithms without you ever being aware of it.
If you plot the area under the curve of addictive behavior engaged in over a lifetime, absolutely. People can quit substance addictions. You know that your addiction is harming you and actively destroying your life while you are engaged in it. Those feelings eventually lead most people to quit if they don't die. But social addiction is different. It feels like you're actually doing something useful and good, while it rots away your agency and sense of self. You become a mindless scroller whose tastes, preferences, ideologies, and overall cultural milieu become entirely mediated through engagement algorithms without you ever being aware of it.
It’s a pretty reasonable hypothesis. Social drives are innate and are likely at least as powerful the drive for food, and may be prioritized higher.
I would think a strong challenge would contain _some_ rebuttal?
When people get hungry enough, they become willing to eat even their friends and family.
Having spent a fair amount of time in internet cafes in my youth I can tell you certainly I have seen my fair share of people who have neglected sleep as well as sustenance and some fairly other fundamental drives to consume digital media for at times days without pause.
Oh, I get it now. I remember that some years ago I saw some news about a Korean kid that died from playing a game for three days in a row, without sleeping.
If you ever heard about Maslow hierarchy, the status is way towards the top. Things like hunger, safety and not being in pain is much lower. So I highly doubt many people would forgo food and agree to be in constant excruciating pain just to be able to access facebook.
I think more reasonable stance would be that addicted people stop caring about what they eat, and prioritize time spent on Facebook instead of time spent on cooking better food.
Have you ever met a nutrient deficient heroin, crack or meth addict? I'd be willing to bet those habits are closer to the top than food, but they seem to forego it and take that as far as they can without dying. We are talking about addiction here after all.
Those are physiological addictions that literally rewire your body chemistry and how your brain perceives reality. There's addiction and there's addiction.
What do you think happens to you when you love, when you hate, when you feel rejected, appreciated, embraced, venerated, when you feel like you're being venerated without effort, you may feel like you're cheating and get a rise of it, or feel guilty from it, but in every case there's an endocrine response.
All of these chemical pathways are triggered by the hollow nonexistent social interactions, it can be an emotional rollercoaster and at the core is stimulation by endogenous compounds that can also be chemically addictive. You're finding a distinction that simply isn't there.
All of these chemical pathways are triggered by the hollow nonexistent social interactions, it can be an emotional rollercoaster and at the core is stimulation by endogenous compounds that can also be chemically addictive. You're finding a distinction that simply isn't there.
I dare you to show me any mention in the scientific literature of a physiological addiction to facebook comparable to opioid or alcohol dependency. A reductionist approach of "everything in a body is chemistry" does not mean all chemistry is alike. Normal emotions to not create the same long-term effects in body's neurochemistry as things like opioids do. That's why people take them - you can't really just get rid of an excruciating pain by thinking about something fun. You can by taking drugs, because drugs meddle with the body chemistry in a much stronger way than the normal endocrine response does. That meddling has a bad side - since it's so much stronger and invasive, it creates permanent damage. Looking at cats on facebook also causes chemical reactions, but not nearly as strong as the drugs do.
I'm pretty sure there are substances that can match whatever addictive qualities you get from reading a screen. My best friend from high school died while detoxing from alcohol. I'm reasonably sure social media withdrawal is not physically dangerous.
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I quit Facebook around 6 years ago and it was So easy. Facebook is trash, the ui is trash, I mean it's ridiculous, and that was 6 years ago. I can't imagine how bad the ui is now, but it gives me a headache to try.
I can only imagine it must be likes, I've rarely gotten likes on any platform. I assume it is because I am writing what I can only assume is gibberish to others. This simple fact stopped me from being addicted.
Be less likeable and quitting social media is super easy. Just tell the truth, that seems to work great at reducing likes.
I can only imagine it must be likes, I've rarely gotten likes on any platform. I assume it is because I am writing what I can only assume is gibberish to others. This simple fact stopped me from being addicted.
Be less likeable and quitting social media is super easy. Just tell the truth, that seems to work great at reducing likes.
It was really hard to quit for me for sure. Near the end I kept telling my friends it feels like posting to FB is just slapping the feeder button in a rat cage, or that I feel like I'm suffering for outrage burnout. I quit just before the lead up to the 2016 election because my feed was becoming a warzone and it was really upsetting. I didn't like seeing family who I loved turning into raging assholes. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made but in some ways it was almost like when I was trying to quit smoking. I'd go away for a week and come back, tell myself I quit again and come back again in one to two week cycles. The only thing that got me to finally leave was backing up all my account assets and actually deleting it. I've never looked back. I feel like I made the right choice especially seeing things like /r/hermancainaward and seeing how polarizing the effects of social media are still accelerating discourse. I think the worse thing is seeing dialogue by meme becoming the most prevalent method of sharing ideas. Taking a complex idea shaving it down to 5 to 10 words with funny image in the background is not the way to have an argument, changes no minds, and seems to have hypnotized entire demographics into ideological mania.
Equally true if you replace "Facebook" with "online media". They optimize their articles and headlines for virality, including this one, just as aggressively as FB optimizes its algorithms. They're just two different parts of the same electronic drug-pushing machine.
Give your attention and care and trust to the goals and people in your life that are worthy of it.
Give your attention and care and trust to the goals and people in your life that are worthy of it.
That "Facebook" we always speak of is never the same thing for everyone. Every Page "like", every "friendship", will change what one sees in their social bubble.
I, for one, am glad that my social bubble is utterly boring and un-engaging, and my level of engagement with Facebook is inversely proportional to my engagement/passion in life as such.
I, for one, am glad that my social bubble is utterly boring and un-engaging, and my level of engagement with Facebook is inversely proportional to my engagement/passion in life as such.
What I noticed about my son’s peer group is that FB just doesn’t occupy their mind share. It’s mostly Roblox, Minecraft, Netflix, YouTube or some other game.
FB may well be an addictive space now but I suspect its growth has just about peaked. I keep hearing kids say that FB is something adults use and hence isn’t cool or trendy.
FB may well be an addictive space now but I suspect its growth has just about peaked. I keep hearing kids say that FB is something adults use and hence isn’t cool or trendy.
Those sound like pretty young kids. Teens are more actively seeking socialization, but they also gravitate to places adults aren't. Unfortunately it doesn't sound like the new generation of sites like Tiktok is any less insidious.
Among millenials at least in my experience it seems like once parents joined fb it had a strong quieting effect almost instantly.
Unfortunately youtube is just as bad or worse than Facebook for leading people down extremism rabbit holes.
The uproar over and magnitude of digital ink spent on Facebook is interesting.
This uproar seems to persist even if the discussion is restricted to Americans who are adults and not using Facebook for a commercial purpose (i.e. the use is for amusement or in free time).
It seems to be a disconnect from the generally pro-free speech, pro-personal liberty/accountability tone of HN.
Are HN'ers calling for regulating social media companies because of toxic/manipulative/addictive free content served to adults?
If so, who gets to decide?
This discussion is separate from the monopoly power, anti-competitive, anti-democracy angles, which are discussions all their own.
This uproar seems to persist even if the discussion is restricted to Americans who are adults and not using Facebook for a commercial purpose (i.e. the use is for amusement or in free time).
It seems to be a disconnect from the generally pro-free speech, pro-personal liberty/accountability tone of HN.
Are HN'ers calling for regulating social media companies because of toxic/manipulative/addictive free content served to adults?
If so, who gets to decide?
This discussion is separate from the monopoly power, anti-competitive, anti-democracy angles, which are discussions all their own.
Firstly, from my point of view they're already heavily censoring content via their algorithm. Facebook hides posts that decrease engagement and amplifies posts that increase engagement. If the argument for absolute free speech is that misinformation should be fought with information (meaning, if some folks are telling people to drink bleach as a cure for covid, the remedy is to tell those same people not to drink bleach, and let the people decide for themselves), that's impossible what with Facebooks algorithmic censorship. It's nearly impossible to reach those people, and it's not even possible to even hear what argument they're receiving in order to rebut.
Secondly, in terms of liberty, Facebook is a company doing what they feel they need to do. What course of action, aside from government intervention, would prevent them from removing posts they thought were harmful? What would be the threshold for the government to intervene in a web service's moderation policy?
Secondly, in terms of liberty, Facebook is a company doing what they feel they need to do. What course of action, aside from government intervention, would prevent them from removing posts they thought were harmful? What would be the threshold for the government to intervene in a web service's moderation policy?
If the platform is controlling what you see or interact with based on opaque algorithms does that really still qualify as free speech?
I disconnected from nearly all social media about four years ago, and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
I did not even notice the recent Facebook outage in my daily life, and wouldn’t have even been aware of it without HN.
I did not even notice the recent Facebook outage in my daily life, and wouldn’t have even been aware of it without HN.
Same here. It's been glorious getting all of that wasted time back. (To say nothing of the weird, latent background depression that suddenly vanished when I deleted said accounts.)
I noticed right away because whatsapp went down. Pretty much all my social media is on whatsapp now.
In the past several years I was able to leverage Facebook groups to meet people and find activities when I moved abroad, furnish an apartment when I moved back, discover a niche retro gaming community that I adore, share photos and memories with old friends when a high school friend passed away, collect stories and remembrances that were shared for an uncle who died and share those with his elderly, non-tech parents, to name just a few experiences that would be difficult to replicate without Facebook.
I don't like Facebook, but I can't deny the value it has added to my life.
I don't like Facebook, but I can't deny the value it has added to my life.
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This is always the response. But I would say ask yourself, do you truly need these things? Or are the fleeting superficial connections that you maintain through social media simply distracting you from seeking truly meaningful interactions, and substituting an artificial (although comforting) facade in its' place?
If you truly care about someone, you will call and talk to them. Or orient your life in a way that facilitates that relationship. Otherwise what you are doing is tantamount to slacktivism.
If you truly care about someone, you will call and talk to them. Or orient your life in a way that facilitates that relationship. Otherwise what you are doing is tantamount to slacktivism.
Beautifully put. I have a cousin who always updates me on what his extended family is doing as though he's talking with them weekly. Turns out he's just regurgitating Facebook status updates to me. He may as well have been talking about Lionel Messi or Kylie Jenner
Did I truly need to gather the sentiments of my dead uncle's friends and coworkers to print out and share with his grieving parents? I'm going to say yes, I did. Of course, none of what I referenced precludes using a different platform for the same experience. I wish I had been able to gather those posts from WT.Social or some other platform I don't think is ravaging our culture. But that's not where the people are.
As for this: "Or are the fleeting superficial connections that you maintain through social media simply distracting you from seeking truly meaningful interactions"
I have more than enough meaningful interactions in my life, and having less intimate interactions with a broader range of people doesn't distract or detract from those more significant connections. Sometimes, those less personal connections are what have eventually led to some of my most important connections.
As for this: "Or are the fleeting superficial connections that you maintain through social media simply distracting you from seeking truly meaningful interactions"
I have more than enough meaningful interactions in my life, and having less intimate interactions with a broader range of people doesn't distract or detract from those more significant connections. Sometimes, those less personal connections are what have eventually led to some of my most important connections.
I drove from Mexico to Panama. The Pan-American highway group and several of the expat groups were indispensable sources of information.
I was able to get out of Nicaragua during the big protests in 2018 because someone on the Nicaragua expat group told me they were letting foreign-plated vehicles through the roadblocks. I never would have had the nerve otherwise to walk up and say, "Hey, I'm an American, that makes me special, please let me through."
Several hiking groups here in LA have also been invaluable for me.
Not everyone has the same lived experience.
I was able to get out of Nicaragua during the big protests in 2018 because someone on the Nicaragua expat group told me they were letting foreign-plated vehicles through the roadblocks. I never would have had the nerve otherwise to walk up and say, "Hey, I'm an American, that makes me special, please let me through."
Several hiking groups here in LA have also been invaluable for me.
Not everyone has the same lived experience.
In contrast, I have done none of those things, but because I have no idea if anyone else I might have otherwise connected with or known has done them, either, I've lost nothing. It's not like I have no one to tell stories to or no communities I'm a part of. I just didn't find them on Facebook. People still tell me when family or close friends die. I didn't become unreachable.
I don't really "tell stories" on social media, I'm not much of a sharer on these platforms, rather I was giving examples of when it was a useful resource, and specifically instances where the resource doesn't have an obvious replacement. I'm not sure I relate to the idea of "lost nothing". By that logic I'd have "lost nothing" if I neve flew on a plane, or sat quietly in a room for 10 years. But in terms of pursuing things I do want to do, Facebook has been a helpful resource on a number of occasions.
As for people dying, that for me has been far and away my most valuable use of Facebook in recent years.
As for people dying, that for me has been far and away my most valuable use of Facebook in recent years.
And, yet, here you are on HN ;D
>... nearly all...
Indeed! Considered that and yet I only recently started referring to HN as my social media recently and thought that might add to the conversation.
I joined in 2011 and hard--deleted my account in 2012. I was working on public critiques of a well-funded scam industry at at the time, and concerned about peopple using FB to harrass my family. But I was also inspired to leave by a quick series of unilateral anti-user changes to TOS implemented with no warning or opt out by Br'er Zuck et al. I still use some surveillance media platforms for news aggregation and hobby purposes, but the whole FB ecosystem is dead to me and I feel fine
I have no interest in supporting Facebook, but this article takes a bunch of generals ideas and opinions and states them as fact with little attribution in the context of each statement.
Addiction is a complex subject. Personally, I think FB/Social engagement is habituation, but if somebody shows me there is a persisting dopamine/oxy rush, and its affecting neurotransmitters such that when you don't do it, you feel down, I might change my mind.
"addiction" is this decades "Schizophrenia" or "bipolar" being misapplied, when it has specific meaning.
I should of course add, not a doctor, not a clinical psychologist. Maybe habituation and addiction are closer than I think.
"addiction" is this decades "Schizophrenia" or "bipolar" being misapplied, when it has specific meaning.
I should of course add, not a doctor, not a clinical psychologist. Maybe habituation and addiction are closer than I think.
The issue is not Facebook.
The issue is being equipped to handle information forwarded by your FB friends. Skeptical thinking, the impulse to distrust anecdotes first, the impulse to double check articles by using other news sources: It's a skill that should be taught to kids early.
I enjoy Facebook to read about what my extended friends and family are doing. I'm ok with FB showing me ads, even personalized ads, if that is what it takes to use this free service.
The issue is being equipped to handle information forwarded by your FB friends. Skeptical thinking, the impulse to distrust anecdotes first, the impulse to double check articles by using other news sources: It's a skill that should be taught to kids early.
I enjoy Facebook to read about what my extended friends and family are doing. I'm ok with FB showing me ads, even personalized ads, if that is what it takes to use this free service.
I'm not sure that it actually is dopamine addiction. Wouldn't we need to have some sort of brain assay to say that it is? There is another chemical though, which does not have as deleterious effects as dopamine, and that's oxytocin. Oxytocin, if I recall correctly, doesn't have the boom-bust cycles (ups and downs), it's just a free glowing high that may have source in social relationships.
Addicion or not, still something in communication domain we needed - messages that are a bit more permmament then sms's and IM.
But yea, scroll of ignoring is a brain cancer and time waster.
HN looks similiar, but for sure it contains Usenet like quality of content, usually. But maybe in last year or two day to day links are less fresh...
And, mandatory :> I logged off FB years ago and wish it disappear from Inet for good !!
But yea, scroll of ignoring is a brain cancer and time waster.
HN looks similiar, but for sure it contains Usenet like quality of content, usually. But maybe in last year or two day to day links are less fresh...
And, mandatory :> I logged off FB years ago and wish it disappear from Inet for good !!
Instagram, maybe. Original Facebook? Easy to go cold turkey, tough to fully delete account though… it’s like deleting your contact list.
I never could understand what was addictive. I kept my account for a few years because I used the chat and posted art my friends and family would enjoy. When I got a smartphone I quit the platform since I could do that stuff on my phone's messaging app. Only thing that seems appealing to me now is the marketplace versus Craigslist.
At least it's not as bad as opioids, actual smoking, gun violence and sugar. Real problems that are neglected in America.
I disagree.
If someone provided a simple service for friends and families to share photos and updates, it's possible Facebook could be disrupted. I have no evidence to back up my claim, but I think those are the only things people truly care about.
It is the only thing I miss after deleting it two years ago. I certainly don't miss Messenger, the Feed, or news.
If someone provided a simple service for friends and families to share photos and updates, it's possible Facebook could be disrupted. I have no evidence to back up my claim, but I think those are the only things people truly care about.
It is the only thing I miss after deleting it two years ago. I certainly don't miss Messenger, the Feed, or news.
You mean something like Cluster? Our family has used it for years.
https://cluster.co/
https://cluster.co/
I have been just as addicted to Hacker News as I have been addicted to Facebook. Since I discovered this site in 2007, it has at times been a daily routine to come here. Of course you don't spend as much time on HN as on FB. It only takes a few seconds to scroll to the end on HN.
I am sorry but there is no way that that lack luster product is half as addictive as porn let alone opiods.
All of our first hand experiences disprove the narrative. Anyone here helplessly addicted? Sure a couple people might have issues but treating it like digital cocaine is a bit much.
All of our first hand experiences disprove the narrative. Anyone here helplessly addicted? Sure a couple people might have issues but treating it like digital cocaine is a bit much.
I think it's becoming a more and more accepted that some subset of the population just can't help themselves the question is what do we do with them? A second internet with permeated child safety controls?
I think “most” is a little exaggerated. Most people I know rarely post anything or when they do it’s actually useful. Same for Twitter. I don’t know anybody who posts a lot or gets into flame wars.
I quitted 8 years ago, banned in my personal DNS, never looked back.
I use private chat apps to replace it, and full disclosure I enjoy from time to time loosing some time on twitter.
INT-P speaking, this may be helping me.
I use private chat apps to replace it, and full disclosure I enjoy from time to time loosing some time on twitter.
INT-P speaking, this may be helping me.
I used to think so, now I'm living a more nomadic life. It's a convenient way to text and call people when you don't have a set phone number.
facebook helped me stop visiting, by insisting on showing me absolutely everything from one acquaintance (who is a fine person), all the dog photos from another friend, and effectively nothing else.
no idea what sort of failure mechanism that was, but it made things really boring.
i’ve still got my account, there’s just no point. i know what i’ll see already.
no idea what sort of failure mechanism that was, but it made things really boring.
i’ve still got my account, there’s just no point. i know what i’ll see already.
I replaced my Facebook addiction with HN. Much better here and I learn useful things during procrastinating.
It's been 6years since I actively used Facebook. But they acquired everything that I'm addicted to.
Did not even noticed it was down. I think the problem are the people - Zuck just making bank on the weak.
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Easy. It became so packed with fake posts and paid-for crap that I got bored and quit oh, years ago.
"Most may never be able to quit" I completely doubt that...
bull, i closed my account last night. not tough.
Phew, managed to quit FB in 2009.
Do you know what should be illegal? The way facebook does account deletion.
When you 'delete' your account, you actually put it into a special state for 30 days. If you log in, even accidentally, during those 30 days, the cancellation is canceled. So, if like most Facebook addicts (as I was), you had the habit of typing 'facebook.com' every 30 minutes or so, it would undo your facebook deletion request.
The proper thing to do is to either delete the account immediately (although I understand why maybe losing all your data is a bad idea), or, get rid of the automatic reinstatement and require users to go through a separate process to reclaim their accounts before data purging.
Facebook knows that by operating with this cancellation scheme, they can basically prevent cancellations of the addicted, since moments of clarity when someone requests deletion are soon clouded by moments of habit when someone types in 'facebook.com' to satisfy the itch.
When you 'delete' your account, you actually put it into a special state for 30 days. If you log in, even accidentally, during those 30 days, the cancellation is canceled. So, if like most Facebook addicts (as I was), you had the habit of typing 'facebook.com' every 30 minutes or so, it would undo your facebook deletion request.
The proper thing to do is to either delete the account immediately (although I understand why maybe losing all your data is a bad idea), or, get rid of the automatic reinstatement and require users to go through a separate process to reclaim their accounts before data purging.
Facebook knows that by operating with this cancellation scheme, they can basically prevent cancellations of the addicted, since moments of clarity when someone requests deletion are soon clouded by moments of habit when someone types in 'facebook.com' to satisfy the itch.
If you can be free to be addicted to alcohol, weed, or cheeseburgers...then you should also be free to be addicted to junk data
Instagram is actually much worse. FB is not super addictive, at least it wasn't for me. But IG is, and it very clearly has been _designed_ to be that way. It took some effort for me to get off it, and my wife is unable to kick the habit even after I demonstrated to her _with data_ that her Instagram browsing is now a full blown part-time job, and that time could be put to a much better use. TikTok, FWIW, is even more addictive than that, on top of effectively being foreign intelligence spyware. This is being done deliberately much for the same reasons Big Tobacco added stuff to tobacco to make people buy more cigarettes.
There are basically two benefits to social media, in my view:
1. It de-centralizes narrative peddling from just 5 or so people who own all of the media to a much greater number, so it gets harder to "make people believe in absurdities to get them to commit atrocities". I'm sure someone will argue the opposite, but the fact is, if FB existed in early 00s, NYT would not be able to sell us the Iraq war. Ms. Haugen is arguing that the 5 people should regain that capability. I disagree with this very strongly. I'd rather have disinformation from multiple sides rather than from just one - easier to read between the lines that way.
2. It lets families and circles of friends communicate a bit more effectively than, say, an instant messenger would. I think the trend there is actually towards messengers - my friends worldwide basically have our own "feed" in Signal which we do not share with anyone else, and from which messages disappear after 4 weeks. Zuck clearly saw this trend much earlier than most people, hence the acquisition of WhatsApp for an eye popping amount of money.
IG / TikTok are borderline useless in either of those things. They just drive jealousy, depression and mental illness in people since no matter how well off you are your life won't be as exciting as the collage that consists of the best 30 seconds of someone's year. It basically looks like your life sucks and everyone else's doesn't, even though it could very well be the other way around IRL, and things intrinsically seem that way to nearly everyone who uses the product.
As a side note I'm very disappointed that Petapixel chose to participate in what is an obvious and crude political hatchet job.
There are basically two benefits to social media, in my view:
1. It de-centralizes narrative peddling from just 5 or so people who own all of the media to a much greater number, so it gets harder to "make people believe in absurdities to get them to commit atrocities". I'm sure someone will argue the opposite, but the fact is, if FB existed in early 00s, NYT would not be able to sell us the Iraq war. Ms. Haugen is arguing that the 5 people should regain that capability. I disagree with this very strongly. I'd rather have disinformation from multiple sides rather than from just one - easier to read between the lines that way.
2. It lets families and circles of friends communicate a bit more effectively than, say, an instant messenger would. I think the trend there is actually towards messengers - my friends worldwide basically have our own "feed" in Signal which we do not share with anyone else, and from which messages disappear after 4 weeks. Zuck clearly saw this trend much earlier than most people, hence the acquisition of WhatsApp for an eye popping amount of money.
IG / TikTok are borderline useless in either of those things. They just drive jealousy, depression and mental illness in people since no matter how well off you are your life won't be as exciting as the collage that consists of the best 30 seconds of someone's year. It basically looks like your life sucks and everyone else's doesn't, even though it could very well be the other way around IRL, and things intrinsically seem that way to nearly everyone who uses the product.
As a side note I'm very disappointed that Petapixel chose to participate in what is an obvious and crude political hatchet job.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go refresh the HN front page for the 10th time today, and after checking how many upvotes I got on my latest comments, don't mind if I jump back over to reddit for a while, and then back to watching the Larry David clips that YouTube is sending my way.