[HN Gopher] Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, les...
___________________________________________________________________
Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression
and anxiety
Author : ericdanielski
Score : 464 points
Date : 2020-02-13 18:34 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (boingboing.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (boingboing.net)
| partiallypro wrote:
| Facebook is still the best way to get people to gather. I have
| recently started a fan club for a soccer group, and without
| Facebook it would have been impossible to organize. No other
| social media platform addresses that need, that I know of, that
| has a massive reach to get people with common interests.
| Organizing events and reaching people is made much easier.
| pmontra wrote:
| I almost quit FB (almost only business) and I'm spending more
| time on HN :-)
|
| Basically I know less about my friends living far from me but
| they are second/third tier friends anyway: the time spent
| together in real life is what matters.
| codegeek wrote:
| In my humble opinion, there are 2 types of people who use
| facebook:
|
| 1. The show offs who want to share every little detail about
| their every little thing in life.
|
| 2. People who want to keep tabs on their family/friends
| occasionally.
|
| I started as #1 back in 2004 when fb was still early on and
| slowly graduated to #2.
| koonsolo wrote:
| You forgot 1 other nasty group: those who feel better by
| judging others. You won't see them post or comment, but they
| will judge everyone behind their back.
|
| I've see several cases like this from up close, including one
| extravagant girl (who wasn't doing anything wrong, just posting
| a lot), that basically cut out her entire family so she could
| post without all the gossiping.
| hx2a wrote:
| I'm considering quitting Facebook, and am currently using their
| feature that lets you temporarily deactivate your account. I'm
| trying it out for a few days to see how comfortable I am living
| without it. So far, no downsides. I'm going to keep using this
| feature until I am ready to pull the plug for good.
| mindcrime wrote:
| I'm fairly well convinced that I'm going to quit FB soon'ish. The
| main thing stopping me is that either A. the replacement "thing"
| I want doesn't exist yet, or B. it does, and I'm just not aware
| of it.
|
| Given that I have some pretty specific ideas in mind regarding
| what I want to use instead of FB (think "self hosted blog" but
| with some very particular details) I don't know that the exact
| thing I want exists yet, and I don't really have time to create
| it myself. At least not unless it just natively "falls out" of
| work I'm doing anyway, which it may well do. I just don't know
| when that'll be.
| yingw787 wrote:
| Have you considered just using FB messenger @ messenger.com?
| You can log in with your email address instead of your Facebook
| account. You can also use it while your Facebook account is
| deactivated (I deactivated mine). No news feed, no ads, just
| conversations.
|
| Not associated with Facebook, just a happy Messenger user.
| mindcrime wrote:
| Not really, because I have an ideological aversion to closed
| off / walled-garden protocols like that. Part of what my
| switch away from the whole FB/Twitter/Etc. thing is going to
| be going back to mainly using XMPP for chat. And anybody who
| can't, or won't, join an XMPP network and use an XMPP client
| is somebody I don't need to chat with.
| veb wrote:
| You might like PixelFed (https://pixelfed.social/) it's a
| completely open sourced project based on federation.
| mindcrime wrote:
| I'll check that out. Something based around Fediverse
| integration / open standards / open protocols is
| definitely a big part of what I want.
| yingw787 wrote:
| I think I like IRC as much as the next guy (probably more).
| But I also like talking to friends who aren't in tech, like
| those from childhood, high school, or college, and who went
| into medical school or business or who simply write code
| during the day and don't make it their life, and the one
| network we have in common is the one managed by Facebook.
| For me at least, I'd rather stay connected to my friends
| using any means necessary than die on a hill over a chat
| protocol.
|
| I don't ever want to be the guy who's not there for his
| friends, and I don't want to be the guy who regretted not
| staying in touch with his friends on his deathbed. I think
| that's a good reason to use Facebook, as good as any. Just
| offering my two cents!
| mindcrime wrote:
| I get, and appreciate, where you're coming from. But for
| me, I really care about promoting and encouraging use of
| Open Standards and that - to me - means eventually
| dropping my hypocritical usage of FB and the like. And I
| don't see any reason to think that people have to "be in
| tech" to use XMPP, IRC, etc. But to the extent that there
| is friction to using Open protocols, as opposed to closed
| ones, I see part of my personal mission to be helping to
| reduce that friction.
|
| _I don 't ever want to be the guy who's not there for
| his friends_
|
| Same here, but I don't see that being tied into being on
| FB or not. My family, and real friends, all have my phone
| number and/or email address and can always call, text, or
| email. People that I only interact with via IM are
| typically not the people I am closest to.
| yingw787 wrote:
| I appreciate your stance :) Keep fighting the good fight,
| maybe one day I can and will join you :)
| veb wrote:
| This is exactly what I do.
|
| I haven't deactivated my Facebook profile, but I have not
| visited it in six months or so. I can't be bothered, my news
| feed became too commercial. However I use messenger.com to
| talk to my real life friends and family. I also use Messenger
| Lite on my phone.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| It was the best thing I ever did.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| FB FOMO is a such an issue for myself. I remind myself that no
| one has a perfect life but nonetheless, I find myself driven to
| inspect profiles of people I admire, only to be horrified when I
| realize how much younger, but still more successful, they are
| than myself, or they do more interesting work, or are paid more,
| or live in a more appealing city, or take nicer vacations or
| inhabit more attractive bodies.
|
| It's perfect recipe for feeling inadequate. I console myself by
| knowing someone is lurking my profile, thinking the same thing.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| I am glad you shared your personal experience. Quite refreshing
| to read (even if it's a negative experience) in a thread that
| usually gathers a gazillion of people who "don't understand
| what's wrong, I use it only in an healthy way: for events and
| keeping in touch with friends/family a continent away".
| adamwong246 wrote:
| FB has 2 barbs which are quite painful when deployed
| together: 1) The cheap and easy social validation of the
| "like" and 2) The observation of other people's status-
| seeking, which invalidates our own.
|
| It's much like a drug- if you can use it responsibly, that's
| great. But we are just animals and all too often we gradually
| use FB more and more as a dopamine trigger. Often, this is in
| the form of edgy memes, angry politics, soft-core porn or
| just status-seeking. Add some FOMO to the mix and you will
| assuredly feel pretty crummy.
|
| The FB like button is such an insanely powerful feedback
| mechanism. I never would have thought, 15 years ago, that
| such a simple thing could take over people's minds so
| completely. But it's becoming abundantly clear that not only
| is FB playing to our weakness, they are playing us against
| each other. In the scramble for likes, we obsessively refresh
| our pages. Likes cost FB nothing but the chase for them leads
| its users to churn in circles, all the while generating ad
| revenue and which finally resolves itself as Zuckerberg's
| 18th mansion.
| robomartin wrote:
| It all started with being sick of being presented with walls of
| negative stuff (usually political, all sides) every time I went
| into FB. Not wanting to see that crap I started to put people on
| 30 day holds. I eventually decided that if I had to put someone
| on 30 day hold three times in a row I should unfriend them. And
| that is exactly what happened with a number of people.
|
| After several of those cycles I asked myself a very simple
| question: Why?
|
| That's when I unfriended everyone except close family (a little
| over a dozen people). I can now derive some value from FB.
|
| I have a long list of things FB should do to actually be more
| useful. One of the things that always bothered me was that they
| force you to toss everyone into one big pile and everyone on that
| pile is exposed to everything you say and do. Yes, sure, you can
| group friends and explicitly post to a limited subset. Frankly,
| the implementation absolutely sucks and is a pain in the ass to
| use.
|
| The model needs to change to everything being absolutely private
| and not farmed or captured by FB unless the user chooses to open
| doors beyond that.
|
| There is no reason for my friends from the gym should have any
| visibility into my family and my conversations with my family.
| The same applies to work friends or neighborhood friends. You can
| accomplish this today but the UX/UI are absolute garbage. A user
| needs to be able to put people into silos and the software needs
| to enforce privacy between silos by default. It should take work
| to pierce silo boundaries. Again, no reason for someone's bowling
| club members to ever see conversations with family.
|
| I had a case with a friend of a friend who would snap tons of
| pictures whenever he got invited to a gathering at my house. He
| would proceed to post all of these pictures publicly on FB --as
| in anyone in the world could see them. I am not paranoid, but I
| don't want pictures of my kids, home and family all over the
| internet for everyone to see. If you are not a parent (and, in
| particular, if you don't have daughters, you might not get this).
| I asked this guy twice, politely, not to do that. I explained
| that taking pictures of people in a private residence does not
| entitle him to post them for the world to see without permission.
| I eventually had to pay an attorney to give him a call and get it
| sorted.
|
| Another interesting issue with FB happens when your friends post
| stuff from publications you do not care to see on your timeline.
| They offer the ability to block some people and pages, but there
| are a few holes in that. I don't remember the details. All I know
| is that I kept being exposed to garbage from a couple of people
| and the only way to not see it was to suspend them for 30 days or
| unfriends them. I eventually just unfriended them. I reached out
| to FB with the issue. They could not care less.
|
| On the business side, they angered a lot of people with their
| approach to your audience in groups or pages. I have personally
| invested tens of thousands of dollars in the past aggregating
| people behind pages only to be slapped in the face by having to
| buy advertising to reach my entire audience. Imagine having a
| page with 100K people you spent money to aggregate and only being
| able to reach a few percent of them with your updates (unless you
| pay).
|
| I remember when brands used to advertise their FB pages in TV
| ads. I never understood why they subverted their amazing brands
| to FB. Well, eventually they all stopped. You don't see that kind
| of thing any more. Businesses want to own their audience not have
| to rent it every time they need to reach to them.
|
| For all the good FB does or can do it also has some dark patterns
| that they should address.
| DailyHN wrote:
| I second that.
| nudpiedo wrote:
| the new is interesting however the article is just a quote from
| another article and a study. It ends up not pointing out any
| valuable information, like what are the underlying mechanisms.
| Basically a copycat to get free visitors traffic.
|
| Questions I wish there were answered: is it about anxious
| browsing? anxious goshipping? compare oneself to others?
| compulsive procrastination? does it apply to other social
| networks, is it related to general screen time or just mindless
| consuming? would movies and stronger leisure activities have a
| similar effect or just compulsive social network browsing and the
| mental drain of feeling like comparing to others?
|
| EDIT: spell and formating
| tsumnia wrote:
| > "stronger leisure activities"
|
| I would be curious about this part, namely in sporting
| activities where the participants are considered "lower-
| performers". I would also like to see some connection to other
| psychological studies like Fixed/Growth Mindsets. Someone with
| a fixed mindset may show more life satisfaction quitting than a
| growth mindset person.
| cs702 wrote:
| I'm predisposed to believe this is true... But I can't find a
| link to any evidence or research in the OP, which is a fluffy
| piece with little actual content. I'm flagging the OP unless
| someone posts a link to either evidence or higher quality
| content.
| eindiran wrote:
| The first link mistakenly pointed to the Bloomberg article when
| it was meant to point to this:
| https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf
|
| Some takeaways:
|
| Deactivation reduced (political) polarization:
|
| "The Treatment group was less likely to say they follow news
| about politics or the President, and less able to correctly
| answer factual questions about recent news events. Our overall
| index of news knowledge fell by 0.19 standard deviations. There
| is no detectable effect on political engagement, as measured by
| voter turnout in the midterm election and the likelihood of
| clicking on email links to support political causes.
| Deactivation significantly reduced polarization of views on
| policy issues and a measure of exposure to polarizing news.
| Deactivation did not statistically significantly reduce
| affective polarization (i.e. negative feelings about the other
| political party) or polarization in factual beliefs about
| current events, although the coefficient estimates also point
| in that direction. Our overall index of political polarization
| fell by 0.16 standard deviations. As a point of comparison,
| prior work has found that a different index of political
| polarization rose by 0.38 standard deviations between 1996 and
| 2018 (Boxell 2018)."
|
| Deactivation increased "well-being" by about 20-40% the amount
| you'd expect for someone getting therapy:
|
| "Deactivation caused small but significant improvements in
| well-being, and in particular in self-reported happiness, life
| satisfaction, depression, and anxiety. Effects on subjective
| well-being as measured by responses to brief daily text
| messages are positive but not significant. Our overall index of
| subjective well-being improved by 0.09 standard deviations. As
| a point of comparison, this is about 25-40 percent of the
| effect of psychological interventions including self-help
| therapy, group training, and individual therapy, as reported in
| a meta-analysis by Bolier et al. (2013). These results are
| consistent with prior studies."
| cs702 wrote:
| Thank you. That link should be the OP. Mods?
| jobseeker990 wrote:
| There are just a couple places using it to schedule stuff these
| day. I'm not sure how to get away from that.
|
| I can't believe none of my 200 friends post anything anymore.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| (1) This article is pretty low-quality, and provides no sources
| for anything. It certainly sounds plausible enough, but still...
|
| (2) Assuming that this is true for Facebook, I'm pretty sure the
| same result would hold true for any other social media site for
| short-form content (e.g. Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc).
|
| (3) I'm LESS sure about sites for sharing longer-form writing,
| such as Reddit and HN. I suspect that the effect is not as stark,
| but that it does hold true to SOME extent whenever you have the
| gamification of upvotes and downvotes.
| bitxbit wrote:
| I sincerely hope people at FB come to the realization that they
| can do something powerful to dramatically change the world IF
| they are willing to forgo the money.
| imartin2k wrote:
| I deleted my Facebook account about 2 years ago (created a new
| Messenger-only account for a handful of ongoing chats). I have
| never regretted this step.
| eindiran wrote:
| I think the first link mistakenly pointed to the Bloomberg
| article when it was meant to point to this:
| https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf
|
| Some of the interesting points from the paper:
|
| 1. Deactivation reduced (political) polarization:
|
| "The Treatment group was less likely to say they follow news
| about politics or the President, and less able to correctly
| answer factual questions about recent news events. Our overall
| index of news knowledge fell by 0.19 standard deviations. There
| is no detectable effect on political engagement, as measured by
| voter turnout in the midterm election and the likelihood of
| clicking on email links to support political causes. Deactivation
| significantly reduced polarization of views on policy issues and
| a measure of exposure to polarizing news. Deactivation did not
| statistically significantly reduce affective polarization (i.e.
| negative feelings about the other political party) or
| polarization in factual beliefs about current events, although
| the coefficient estimates also point in that direction. Our
| overall index of political polarization fell by 0.16 standard
| deviations. As a point of comparison, prior work has found that a
| different index of political polarization rose by 0.38 standard
| deviations between 1996 and 2018 (Boxell 2018)."
|
| 2. Deactivation increased "well-being", by about 20-40% the
| amount you'd expect for someone getting therapy:
|
| "Deactivation caused small but significant improvements in well-
| being, and in particular in self-reported happiness, life
| satisfaction, depression, and anxiety. Effects on subjective
| well-being as measured by responses to brief daily text messages
| are positive but not significant. Our overall index of subjective
| well-being improved by 0.09 standard deviations. As a point of
| comparison, this is about 25-40 percent of the effect of
| psychological interventions including self-help therapy, group
| training, and individual therapy, as reported in a meta-analysis
| by Bolier et al. (2013). These results are consistent with prior
| studies."
|
| 3. After the experiment ended, people in the treatment group
| didn't feel like they needed to go back:
|
| "As the experiment ended, participants reported planning to use
| Facebook much less in the future."
|
| "About 80 percent of the Treatment group agreed that the
| deactivation was good for them."
| kristiandupont wrote:
| It seems that throughout history, we've discovered things that
| were exciting and hyped only to later realize that the
| addictiveness was damaging for society, leading us to regulating
| it (or attempting to do so).
|
| I wonder if what we're going through right now with social media
| will look irresponsible and quaint the way smoking does in Mad
| Men at some point in the future.
| thosakwe wrote:
| Sounds like confirmation bias to me.
| oxymoran wrote:
| This is only true if you quit all social media. I started using
| Twitter for 1 specific topic and now it's all back.
| oblib wrote:
| I think your experience with FB has a lot to do with whom you
| have on your "friends list".
|
| I only have about 200, most of whom don't post much. Of those who
| post a lot of political stuff I have a fairly good mix so I see a
| lot of that but I don't get all heated up over it.
|
| A lot of great and funny stuff comes up on my feed so I have a
| lot of fun with it.
| sakisv wrote:
| I wonder, have fb quitters stopped using all social media? Have
| they also stopped visiting news websites?
|
| My point is, is Facebook the only negativity inducing platform? I
| know for me it isn't. The question is how do you deal with the
| rest of them? Do you balance news intake against the impact on
| your mental health or you stop consuming news entirely, because
| in the end whatever it's set to happen will happen regardless?
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| I only use HN and Reddit.
|
| The only regret I have about deleting FB two years ago: not
| copying down friends' birthdays.
|
| The solution? Ask them.
| dade_ wrote:
| I still use LinkedIN, meetup (if that counts) and kept my
| rarely used Twitter account. Snapchat died on its own, that is,
| all of my friends quit posting on it - I assume they use
| Instagram now, but I won't touch it.
|
| I try to keep all news on RSS feeds to avoid clickbait and ads
| pretending to be articles.
| lallysingh wrote:
| Not me. Just FB. Removing just that is a big improvement. I'm
| still on IG. I don't look into Twitter much anymore, because
| it's not too different from FB.
|
| Social media isn't news. Most of what we call news isn't.
| There's very little useful news out there. I read "The
| Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption" by Clay
| Johnson which covered the topic quite well.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| quit facebook about two years ago. i stopped using my real name
| on social media, use random names and gibberish for accounts.
|
| i also stopped reading any news, it's all tainted bullshit
| anyway by whoever paid the most to have it written. i talk more
| with people around me to get the news.
| ryannevius wrote:
| I can't speak for others...but Facebook was my social media
| gateway drug in 2006. Maybe unsurprisingly, it was also the
| catalyst which led to me quitting most social media platforms
| (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others). Soon after, I made
| a commitment to only consume news on Saturday mornings. The
| combination of all of these things has helped immensely, and I
| honestly feel like I'm missing very little.
| zweep wrote:
| I haven't hard quit anything but vastly reduced all of these
| things. Yes, I have vastly reduced my visits to news websites,
| Twitter, etc. I have increased my consumption of monthly
| periodicals, books, and movies.
| finaliteration wrote:
| I quit Facebook about 2.5 years ago but was still on Twitter
| and Instagram for awhile. About six months later I dropped
| Twitter, and then about a year ago I dropped Instagram. I found
| that having any of them just added to my anxiety, depression,
| and overall feeling of being dissatisfied with my life. I don't
| currently miss any of them, and I find myself having a lot more
| time to read books and work on things I'm passionate about.
| I've also found that the people who actually care still keep in
| contact with me on at least a weekly basis, and it's a lot more
| personal and rewarding because we communicate directly rather
| than through "the void" of social media.
|
| I've also found other benefits of quitting such as spending
| less money because I'm not seeing as many ads for things I
| don't need, and not feeling influenced to visit/participate in
| some activity just because other people are doing it. Maybe
| it's my own lack of willpower, but I found myself doing and
| buying a lot of things that ultimately did nothing for me
| because of the constant flood of information from social media.
|
| Obviously other experiences will vary and I don't judge anyone
| who feels like they need social media and gain something from
| it, but for me it added very little to my life and I feel a lot
| better without it.
| eindiran wrote:
| One data point: I deleted my Facebook some time in late 2012 or
| early 2013. I have since deleted all my social media accounts /
| not join in on the rush to get new ones, with the exception of
| Mastodon (which I use very rarely) and HN. I don't go to news
| websites and just accept that I will find out about some things
| later than people who are more plugged in than me. When I need
| to know more about something in particular I will look that
| thing up, allowing myself to read about it on whatever source
| has a good piece on it, so I still consume some news but never
| passively.
|
| I think even HN can be too reward-driven for me personally (I
| enjoy getting upvoted, etc). I've found that my relationship
| with all online information platforms was kind of destructive
| while I was doing it (things like autopilot opening Reddit in
| an elevator, not seeing anything and then opening another
| Reddit tab immediately). I've come to view information,
| especially on sites with an infinite feed, kind of like sugar:
| it's very good and can be okay in moderation, but if left to my
| own devices I would go overboard, so I have to specifically
| police myself.
|
| I thought sticking to my "information diet" would be much
| harder than it is. I miss very little of what I used to
| consume: I reach out to the friends I want to keep up with, I
| look up the news I want to read, and I get to be relatively
| insulated from the constant torrent of negativity/targeted
| advertising/etc that happens on platforms like Twitter,
| Facebook, Reddit, etc.
| wronglebowski wrote:
| Personally I've changed to leveraging social media to pursue my
| work and some specific interests. No friends or family.
|
| HN for stay current in my industry.
|
| A very curated Twitter via a third party client for following
| specific tech creators.
|
| No FB, IG or Reddit. No keeping up with the Jones's or lusting
| after others lives.
|
| If I want to talk to someone I make a habit of doing it
| regularly. I text friends and family at least once a week just
| to say hi. I attempt to maintain my relationships actively
| instead of the passive "likes" you can send through social
| media.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I do FB for hobbies... The groups can be pretty amazing, from
| tabletop RPG resources to ham radio hardware support to just
| watching a favorite musician like Haywyre uploading "musical
| sketches." There's a lot of good stuff.
| sub7 wrote:
| Whatsapp growth is off the charts - that's the vertical to attack
| IMO.
| m0zg wrote:
| Quitters of just about _any_ harmful habit will report all that.
| This doesn't mean that FB is harmful to everyone or even to a
| substantial fraction of its users. It's just that people who feel
| it is harmful for them are much more likely to "quit" it, and
| report improvement when they do. I bet people who just started to
| use FB also report more life satisfaction and less depression and
| anxiety. They made a change they felt they needed to make, in
| both cases.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Could be an example of the Hawthorne effect - observing any
| behavior increases performance in that behavior:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect.
|
| Also, it's amazing the kind of site HN will upvote if it confirms
| their priors. This site is the most spammy looking thing, and it
| does not link to the original study like it claims (both links
| lead to a totally separate article).
| killerdhmo wrote:
| Do.. you not know what Boing Boing is?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing
| sithadmin wrote:
| Boing Boing definitely has an issue with looking, and
| frankly, acting like blogspam these days. Still some
| interesting original content, but the site design is pretty
| garish, and it's not always clear what is or isn't an
| advertisement.
| cm2012 wrote:
| I know its a three paragraph article with two broken links,
| on a page with 10 ads, and a spammy looking zoomed in photo
| of Mark Zuckerberg.
| ralmidani wrote:
| I use FB almost exclusively for news about the Middle East,
| especially Syria where the Assad regime actively targets
| journalists who tell the truth about what is happening there and
| very few Western journalists are going into the areas the regime
| is bombing. I have vowed to not use FB once the regime is gone,
| people can gather freely, and real news media can operate openly.
|
| My FB feed is mostly depressing these days, as it is filled with
| images of (among other things) maimed and murdered children. I
| can see how avoiding that would probably make me happier and more
| productive, but FB also helps me stay up to date on amazing
| humanitarian work being done in liberated areas. I also feel that
| burying my head in the sand would be a betrayal of my fellow
| Syrians who have, and still are, sacrificing so that my children
| as well as theirs won't have to fear state terrorism.
| keenmaster wrote:
| One of the benefits of social media is supposed to be
| transparency, and I believe that. However, isn't it an
| indictment of global callousness that so many people have seen
| Assad's destruction of Syria and no one is helping? In fact,
| Russia's bot armies far outnumber Syrian refugees on Facebook,
| and they're spreading confusion on the whole situation. They're
| making it seem like Syria is some sectarian black hole, where
| no one is innocent, and global action will accomplish nothing.
| That keeps everyone else out, Russia and Iran in, and leaves
| Syrians to be genocided day in and day out. More people rallied
| behind Kony 2012, even though it was a campaign of lies. The
| American public has been successfully and systematically jaded
| into glossing over the whole Syrian tragedy.
|
| Facebook is probably a net-negative for Syrians all things
| considered. Your social network may know the truth of who is
| committing 98% of the crimes, who invited ISIS/terrorists into
| Syria, and who is responsible for a modern-day genocide (half a
| million people erased from existence so far), but unfortunately
| that's not the case for the vast majority of people.
|
| After Syria is destroyed, the history books will ask: how did
| we allow that to happen? What happened to Never Again? Social
| media will be part of the answer. We are reduced to tears when
| watching a film about Rwanda, and merely confused when hearing
| about Syria. Dictators love it when you are confused, because
| truth is their greatest enemy. In a state of confusion, the
| truth is not fully resolved. Moral clarity is dead. The
| solution starts with caring strongly about this problem. Only
| then can we begin to address it.
|
| I would be pleasantly surprised if we're not both downvoted.
| You have my solidarity. I know how hard it is for you to
| receive zero empathy, and sometimes even aggression, when
| speaking the truth of who slaughtered your people and deprived
| you of your country. Keep telling the truth regardless. Part of
| the problem (of confusion and jadedness) inadvertently
| originated in the tech industry, and part of the solution will
| come from the tech industry. It won't know or care about the
| issue until victims come forth and make the problem clear. The
| tech industry needs to hear your voice. Creating a tool that
| is, on net, an accessory to perpetrators of genocide and
| manipulators of the public, without fixing it, is very, very
| problematic. Separately, Youtube is deleting video evidence of
| the genocide (even though it said it doesn't mean to). Many of
| the posters of those videos are no longer alive, or not in a
| situation where they can raise a dispute with Youtube. That is
| perfectly legal, and almost noone knows or cares.
|
| ---------------------------------------------------------
|
| FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, are you listening? A genocide is going on.
| Facebook, your platform is being leveraged by the perpetrators
| of the __genocide __. Google /Youtube, you are continuing to
| delete critical video evidence of the genocide from your
| servers forever even though activists put you on notice. Help.
| projektfu wrote:
| The US had a moment to help when the Free Syrian Army existed
| in the first year or so of the conflict. For some reason, our
| leaders had cold feet and allowed our natural ally to be
| wiped out.
|
| The UN was hamstrung by Russia and China's veto power.
|
| No smaller power was willing to take on Russia in a proxy
| war.
| kazinator wrote:
| The pattern you describe is very similar to what happened
| in Europe around WWII. Places like Poland and Slovakia
| produced local uprisings (against the Nazis). The Allies
| basically sat idly by while those got crushed, enabling the
| Soviets to then move in and create the Eastern Bloc.
| ralmidani wrote:
| Arming FSA was a good option for much longer than just the
| first year (and still is). Obama's advisors (including
| Clinton at State and Panetta at DoD) advocated this, but
| were overruled. A large factor was his overwhelming desire
| to secure a deal with Iran, which even caused him to walk
| back from his "red line" when Assad used chemical weapons
| in 2013.
| keenmaster wrote:
| Even beyond militaristic action, there are so many low
| hanging fruit that weren't picked. It took until 2019 to
| sanction any appreciable number of people in the Syrian
| regime. Many relatives and employees of the Syrian regime
| are happily flying back and forth between Damascus and
| Europe. Their illicit assets are safely parked in foreign
| bank accounts. They're sending their kids to LA and San
| Francisco, buying $2M homes with straight cash and going to
| the best private schools. Severe sanctions should have hit
| anyone even remotely involved with the Syrian government as
| soon as it became clear how many innocent people were going
| to be killed. Foreign assets should have been seized as
| damages to be distributed to the Syrian people in the
| future.
| projektfu wrote:
| Sure, but I find these sorts of sanctions to be
| ineffective at the stated goals of preventing killings,
| etc. And Russia and China, at least, were not planning to
| participate, leaving a wide open avenue. The UNSC
| couldn't pass sanctions because of their vetoes.
| keenmaster wrote:
| America and Europe can only be hamstrung by Russia's veto
| if they allow that to happen. There are many global
| measures that could have helped the Syrian people outside
| of any action by the UN Security Council. Nonetheless, I
| agree with you that America left a void of leadership,
| and that allowed Russia to walk in unimpeded. The Syrian
| people were about to oust their dictator until Russia
| came in with reinforcements. My point is, America
| wouldn't have even needed to send in the Air Force. The
| most important course of action would have been to
| prevent Russian entry. That could entail a guarantee that
| "if Russia or Iran enters Syria, we will create a
| civilian safe zone using the Air Force." The safe zone
| would have both saved civilian life and protected the FSA
| from aerial bombardment.
| kazarnowicz wrote:
| This is insane. I had no idea it was that bad. Do you have
| any sources where I could learn more?
| keenmaster wrote:
| Assad's torture dungeons -
| https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/12/16/if-dead-could-
| speak/ma...
|
| Mass arbitrary execution -
| https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/middleeast/syria-
| executions-a...
|
| Rape and sexual violence used for political means - https:/
| /www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/16...
|
| Deliberate Syrian & Russian Air Force targeting of
| hospitals and systematic erasure of medical personnel -
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2016/03/syrian-
| and...
|
| Chemical weapons used to gas civilian neighborhoods,
| including many children, even after the supposed removal of
| the chemical weapon stockpile (which earned Obama praise
| and earned the OPCW a Nobel Prize):
|
| - https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/06/u-n-commission-
| calls-ou...
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bM8kTOsOk (warning:
| disturbing footage of gassed kids)
|
| Assad inviting terrorists into the country to use them to
| confuse the world, slander protesters, and obfuscate the
| genocide - https://www.thedailybeast.com/assad-henchman-
| heres-how-we-bu...
|
| "Over 500,000 Syrians have been killed and 13 million
| Syrians have been forced from their homes in _the worst
| humanitarian crisis since the World War II_ " - Holocaust
| Museum (emphasis added, that really means something coming
| from the Holocaust Museum) -
| https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-
| releases/museu...
| ralmidani wrote:
| Thank you for your kind sentiments! I do what I can. I think
| most decent people who aren't blinded by ideology are
| sympathetic when they find out what is going on. Two Syrian
| documentaries made it to the Oscars this Sunday, although
| disappointingly a film with an Obama association was given
| the prize.
|
| I think it's important to distinguish between regular people
| on the one hand and politicians and bureaucrats on the other.
| I still have faith in a large section of humanity, which sees
| these atrocities and is outraged by them, but often feels
| powerless to stop them.
| phyek wrote:
| You got to be kidding me. You "exclusively" rely on FB for
| news? That's like trusting a Nigerian scammer with your money!
| Seenso wrote:
| > You got to be kidding me. You rely on FB "exclusively" for
| news? That's like trusting a Nigerian scammer with your
| money!
|
| Context is important. In this case, he actually has some
| pretty defensible reasons for using Facebook this way: active
| suppression of local independent journalists and low activity
| by independent Western journalists. My guess is his
| alternative to Facebook is probably some pro-Assad propaganda
| rag. As bad as Facebook is, that's worse.
|
| Your reaction would be more appropriate for someone chose to
| rely on FB for news about the US or Western Europe.
| wutwutwutwut wrote:
| That's not how I interpreted it. I thought he meant that he
| didn't use Facebook for other things.
| ralmidani wrote:
| Yes, your interpretation is correct.
| tidology wrote:
| I deleted my FB account like 2 years ago? Never looked back.
| Unfortunately, I still see way too many people around me still
| using it. Have little faith on masses quitting the service.
| tempsy wrote:
| Twitter is far more addictive for me, and makes me feel worse.
| cityzen wrote:
| ITT lots of people justifying using Facebook.
| willart4food wrote:
| 1. Unfollow everyone
|
| 2. follow pages and groups that interest you
|
| 3. LAUGH at the comments of idiots that get their kicks out of
| life by vomiting non-nense.
|
| The future of Facebook looks a lot like the old AOL.
| chakerb wrote:
| Unfortunately I can't quit Facebook because it's the only way to
| know people from the other sex. I tried Tinder for a couple of
| months and it didn't work for me. My assumption is that people
| feel safer to interact with you if you have friends in common.
| That's said, I don't use Facebook that often, if I start talking
| with someone and we enjoy each other company, I kindly ask if we
| can use WhatsApp and if so, I will stop using Facebook for a
| period of time.
| rhegart wrote:
| True for me, 1 year+ of no fb or insta. Feel so much better than
| before and I didn't even realize I had anxiety until it
| disappeared
| papreclip wrote:
| I open facebook for 2 minutes a week and scroll through my
| relatives' baby and pet pictures. I don't get how the site is
| such a specter of misery for some people
|
| Twitter I would understand a little better. It's such a tar pit
| of negative energy, insults, rage bait, etc
| Diederich wrote:
| Right. My use of Facebook is similar. I almost never look at my
| 'feed'. I search on specific people and look at what they post,
| but on variable intervals. I'll look at a few people's posts
| once a day. Others, once a week, etc.
|
| > I don't get how the site is such a specter of misery for some
| people
|
| I understand what you're saying; it doesn't have much sway over
| me either. But it does over a lot of other folks, by design.
| And that pull is very real, and quite powerful.
| agumonkey wrote:
| There a 'depressing' side of passive information intake. It
| satisfies but thinly. If your life is not balanced you can
| kinda get stuck on thin, aptly named, feed.
| maximente wrote:
| not sure if you're being flippant re: 2 minutes but that's
| almost certainly undersold. you'll have to forgive me but i'm
| extremely skeptical of that claim if made seriously.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Righto. I've found that I'm much happier and have more "life
| satisfaction" when I use Facebook.
|
| But I also use Facebook primarily for organizing events and
| group activities.
| Forgivenessizer wrote:
| As for myself, and most men, ordinary and dull, being devoid
| of that which attracts women, the vacuous but sonorous, like
| me, fb is perpetually the Garfield cartoon where John is
| sitting by the phone waiting for anybody except his mom to
| call. And then cobwebs.
|
| Deleted, I'll project my soul into the stars and find better
| company, and sing hymns with Epictitus and Nolan.
| jayd16 wrote:
| People can feel obligated to post those pictures. There's
| social pressure to respond to posts. Deleting Facebook can be
| easier than the social friction of using it but breaking
| perceived social obligations.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I'm very happy that there are those that can interact with
| Facebook without negative side effects. If you're in that
| category, I hope the site adds value to you and you enjoy it.
|
| I can't. Yes, it's a failure on me, but my experience is better
| without Facebook in my life.
|
| You mention negativity, and that's part of it. I saw a steady
| stream of "the world's on fire" type posts. The other side, the
| rosy view of my friends and family also wasn't great. It was a
| steady stream of my brain using this as a chance to remind me I
| can't live up to these people, that I'm falling behind, and
| that in general, I suck.
|
| It's not true. I could have crafted an equal fantasy and posted
| it, but I'm not that person. I could let the positive and
| negative posts go without influencing my mental well-being, but
| I'm apparently not that person.
|
| All of this is a long way of saying, for me, Facebook is
| baggage I had to carry around with me. I didn't need to open
| it, but I knew it was there, ready to mock me at any time. Now
| my account is gone, and that bit of unnecessary baggage is
| gone. It added nothing to my life, only made it worse.
| ajross wrote:
| Right, which is why the result in the headline seems
| misdirected. "Facebook quitters" are, in fact, a special
| group. They/you recognized problems that were addressed by
| quitting facebook! And the study found that when this
| population removes something they feel is a problem, they
| feel better. That's... not really surprising, if you think
| about it. And importantly, it's not a result that says
| "social media will make everyone feel bad".
|
| I'm one of the normies like the grandparent comment. I don't
| use Facebook all that much, and most of what I see there is
| just a stream of banal life events from a selection of people
| that I'd otherwise not hear from. Most of it isn't that
| interesting directly, but I'll admit that my life is enriched
| by retaining these relationships I'd otherwise have dropped.
| It's definitely not something I feel bad after using.
|
| Obviously that's not your experience, and there's nothing
| wrong with that. Certainly you shouldn't be forced to use
| this platform if it makes you unhappy. Really this just goes
| down to "people are all different and we all have to find our
| paths through the world". Technology changes the battlefield
| a little at the margins, but it hasn't changed the war.
| kazarnowicz wrote:
| You just changed my mind a little about Facebook. I mean, I
| still think they're a threat to democracy, but you made me
| see the value of a feed with a small group of people.
| graeme wrote:
| It sounds like your two feeds are very different. I didn't
| like facebook, then unfollowed everyone except immediate
| family. It's nice now! Not distracting, occasional baby
| pictures.
|
| One of facebook's worst long run mistakes was optimizing for
| engagement vs. enjoyment. It boosts metrics but makes people
| quit or go cold turkey.
|
| Instagram has never felt like that.
| bob33212 wrote:
| Facebook doesn't care about enjoyment. They want to
| maximize eyes on the screen time and sell that for maximum
| ad revenue. If you are someone who would like to spend 5
| minutes a week on Facebook catching up with friends they do
| not care about you.
| hkmurakami wrote:
| They may not care about you, but that doesn't mean we
| can't mold it to meet our needs.
|
| I try to behave on Facebook like it's 2005 again, before
| the outrage or glamour.
|
| That being said I think it's totally reasonable that the
| difficulty each of us experiences in trying to exert such
| control will vary.
| graeme wrote:
| Possible. But I used facebook a lot more when I enjoyed
| it. I enjoy instagram now for example and use it a lot.
|
| Facebook showed me stuff I didn't care about it that
| aggravated me, so I stopped using it. _now_ I'm in thE 5
| min a week category. But I'd rather follow more people,
| but only the important stuff
| taurath wrote:
| My family only reposts articles and never has anything to
| say themselves.
| filoleg wrote:
| Sounds like a problem with your family and not Facebook.
| But quitting Facebook will indeed help you distance
| yourself from all of that, so, I guess, it is still a net
| benefit.
| Forgivenessizer wrote:
| The main problem is in the name. It's a face book. As a
| famous male model said, "it's a face game", when asked why he
| didn't body sculpt. The face is hardest to change. If you're
| kind of ugly like myself, you'll never win in the superficial
| arena, because no striving beautifies but the soul. And I
| will assure you no woman was attracted by a pure soul ever,
| get the thought out of your mind. Power, yes, such as the
| power of the church and the security of it, but not authentic
| and actual virtue observable and present and real, never in
| the least, except as a mask, but not from the self, attested
| by the difference of fervency, no fever of devotion is caught
| by a woman for goodness itself.
|
| So, the simple reason why fb sucks is that women are in
| charge of it, it's the gossip corner. And therefore it
| descends into the angst of pettiness and uselessness, as
| these are the names of the servants of the superficial.
|
| But the reason why fb is a problem is the fault only of men,
| wimps who won't give it the one finger salute and delete it.
| new2628 wrote:
| I drink one glass of fine red wine once a week while having a
| nice conversation with a good friend. On other occasions I have
| a shot of strong brandy before stepping out on a cold winter
| evening. I don't get how alcohol is such a specter of misery
| for some people.
| graeme wrote:
| Fair point, but the analogy is off: the feeds aren't the
| same. Most people don't get too anxious about relatives
| babies and pets.
|
| It's like one person has juice and the other has brandy.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| You know what's off ? GP's comment about how he doesn't get
| why and how Facebook's usage is problematic for some. On
| HN. Where we have been talking about every aspects of
| Facebook every 6th submissions for years.
| varenc wrote:
| Similarly: Alcohol quitters report more life satisfaction,
| less depression, and anxiety
| downerending wrote:
| I don't get how alcohol quitters experience more life
| satisfaction, less depression, and anxiety.
|
| (Also, worst Oxford comma ever...)
| jariel wrote:
| Actually, those who drink in moderation are more successful
| and happy than those who quit.
| war1025 wrote:
| I believe they have re-run the study or further examined
| it and determined that the causality is reversed.
|
| Picking up moderate drinking isn't going to make you
| healthier / more successful.
|
| It's just that successful people tend to be healthier and
| also are more likely to have a healthy relationship with
| alcohol.
| jariel wrote:
| If this is the case, quitting drinking will still not
| likely yield 'more happiness' ergo, the fact remains.
| arrow7000 wrote:
| So what you're saying is people without an addiction are
| happier than people who are addicted? Shocking stuff
| jariel wrote:
| What I'm saying is that the analogy of alcohol is not
| helpful.
|
| Social Networking is not inherently toxic, and quitting
| many things: sugar, television, even meat, might have the
| similar effects for some small group of people.
|
| In fact, the entire thread is based on three levels of
| indirection of misinformation: the Bloomberg article
| misquoted the paper, and the short-summary referencing
| Bloomberg made it worse.
|
| Here is the summary of the findings [1]:
|
| "We find that deactivating Facebook for the four weeks
| before the 2018 US midterm election (i) reduced online
| activity while increasing offline activities such as
| watching TV alone and socializing with family and
| friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and
| political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-
| being; and (iv) caused a large persistent reduction in
| post-experiment Facebook use"
|
| So that's a little bit more information now isn't it? And
| completely conflates the Facebook/wellbeing issue with a
| host of other things.
|
| Most poignantly, stopping Facebook usage _reduced_ the
| amount of _factual knowledge_ a person had access too. So
| maybe that 's not so good?
|
| Maybe by 'removing Facebook' people are simply a little
| bit more removed from the issues of the day (like
| elections) many of which can be contentious.
|
| So 'ignorance is bliss' is the result of the study? Or is
| it really something materially related to Social
| Networking.
|
| I think we'll need to do some more studying to find out.
|
| []
| http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf
| sachdevap wrote:
| I can't upvote a second time, but this was a very good use of
| analogy. I am going to save this for later.
| Numberwang wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| I started out doing this and now I drink a bottle every
| night. No problem.
| s_y_n_t_a_x wrote:
| You're comparing social media usage to alcoholism?
|
| One is physically dependent, one is a fucking website.
|
| Ignore posts from people that cause you stress, or just don't
| scroll through the website.
|
| I keep mine to keep in touch with people, but I don't view
| other people's stupid thoughts. Of course that's not going to
| be fun.
| tareqak wrote:
| Both can be addictions whose severity range can range from
| inconsequential, to minor, to debilitating, to life-ending.
| whytaka wrote:
| Almost everyone has uncontrollable mental patterns. Some
| are more self destructive than others.
| GcVmvNhBsU wrote:
| One is a physical dependence, the other is a psychological
| dependence.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480687/
| s_y_n_t_a_x wrote:
| Well now we are getting into regulating dopamine
| responses, which is too broad to apply to a single
| website which is probably why the article doesn't have a
| source.
|
| This article is just a hit piece. This is the trash on HN
| these days.
| Vysero wrote:
| When you quit Facebook do you puke for 5 days straight and
| shake violently all the while?
| npunt wrote:
| If there's one truth to social networks its that everyone's
| experiences on them are different, based on who you're
| connected to, where you grew up, what life stage you're in, and
| whether you have interests adjacent to toxic or problematic
| spaces. It's quite similar to the adage "you are the average of
| the five people you know best", but on a global scale.
| Radically different experiences can emerge from the same
| platform.
|
| Personally, my experiences on FB are extremely tame and similar
| to yours. However I intentionally sabotaged my experience by
| unfollowing nearly everyone several years ago. Even my rather
| fallow feed is an engine of engagement and addictive impulse,
| in part because of years of conditioning myself to go there
| when I was bored.
| _--___-___ wrote:
| Don't really remember how, but my family switched to using a
| single snapchat group to share baby and pet pics, which imo
| works better for that use case. Even taught my grandmother how
| to open stories, even if she sometimes gets lost when they
| update the app. Maybe not much better than FB on most issues,
| but it's nice to get in and out without the facebook timesink,
| and these kids (probably) don't have to worry about
| embarrassing pictures on the public internet forever.
| ricefield wrote:
| Yeah I'm really confused by the whole "my life got so much
| better when I got off FB" trope. I don't spend a lot of time on
| Facebook, but my time spent there is generally pretty positive
| - I really enjoy getting updates from my friends and family and
| seeing their photos.
| blakesterz wrote:
| I'm confused by it too, but I see it in some members of my
| family. Full grown, middle aged adults, absolutely ADDICTED
| to their Facebook feed. Sitting in a room full of people and
| glued to Facebook. I don't get it, but I can say without
| adult that those who are addicted to FB are also the most
| unhappy. So I see that correlation in my own life. I don't
| know that FB causes or contributes to their unhappiness, or
| if maybe it's an escape for them, but I see it.
| bitwize wrote:
| I think if you have basic bitch-ass friend who are always
| posting about "living their #bestlife" and/or are at risk of
| starting drama, you're in for a shitty time on Facebook. More
| so if you're like this yourself.
|
| People with lives to lead off social media have fewer of these
| problems.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I don't get how the site is such a specter of misery for some
| people
|
| That's fine, great even, but do you believe those people are
| reporting their own experiences accurately?
| hkmurakami wrote:
| I'm just like you. Friends' family, dogs, humor posts. I've
| aggressively unfollowed connections who exhibit/show
| behavior/posts/lifestyles I don't want to be exposed to.
|
| Take control of your social media. It's great!
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| My FB experience is like yours, but I had to mute friends and
| family who are perpetually outraged, as well as those who ask
| for help every day on things like which shoelaces to buy. I
| also raised the feed prominence for people who rarely post.
|
| Similarly for Twitter, I don't follow people who post ragebait
| or feel the need to comment on everything.
| Vysero wrote:
| I don't get it either. Then again I don't get how Twitter or
| any of social media site could be either.. thin skin I guess.
| zelly wrote:
| > Twitter I would understand a little better. It's such a tar
| pit of negative energy, insults, rage bait, etc
|
| And orange website isn't?
| zeroego wrote:
| Some people are more heavily integrated into the platform. My
| SO is a part of multiple groups based around common
| hobbies/preference in memes. Although there's a lot of good
| content in these groups they can get pretty toxic. Also, seeing
| your immediate family post political rants/flame other family
| members or random people on the internet can be disheartening.
| krtong wrote:
| Someone needs to come up with a single-player social media
| website that helps people be alone. At the very least it would be
| a hilarious social commentary.
| factsaresacred wrote:
| Facebook kinda tops out as you get older and the rate of adding
| new friends declines. Turns out most people are doing variations
| of the same thing and it gets dull fast (admittedly maybe I need
| more interesting friends).
|
| Twitter is novelty and Instagram is aesthetics. Facebook is
| reruns of the same ol' show.
| 4ec0755f5522 wrote:
| FB is mostly a tool for evil but it's got some amazing parenting
| resources. On the evil side you have the anti-vax nutters but you
| also have supportive parent groups for whatever weird
| disorder/issue/disease/problem your kid might have where the
| evidence-based stuff is winning out. Global scale organizing of
| these resources is a net benefit for sure.
|
| I suppose 10 years ago they would have been on yahoo groups. 10
| years before that, mailing lists. Now they're on FB and I guess
| that's alright if you don't mind FB knowing everything about your
| kids problems.
|
| So yeah FB still evil warmongers against privacy but its power to
| organize moms does some little bit of good in this world.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Is that a net benefit, though? Couldn't those communities re-
| organize onto platforms that don't harm democracy and
| rationality? On the one hand, anti-vaxxers have caused a lot of
| damage, and FB aided in that; on the other hand, FB in general
| has taken revenue and power from those groups, and do we want
| FB to have more or less power?
| welly wrote:
| "Facebook is designed to make you anxious, depressed and
| dissatisfied"
|
| Really? _Designed?_ Come on.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Well, it's designed to capture eyeballs; and those are
| definitely mechanisms to capture eyeballs.
| schallis wrote:
| Rather than going cold turkey on Social Media, I've found it more
| effective to reduce the amount of content I'm exposed to e.g. for
| Facebook unfollowing all groups, turning off all notifications,
| reducing friends; for Instagram unfollowing almost all accounts
| And turning off all notifications etc.
|
| This has the effect that when I DO inevitably visit these sites,
| I spend far less time there and it's much less entertaining since
| I reach the "bottom" much quicker.
|
| Over time I've been able to wean myself off.
| chrysoprace wrote:
| I'd really like to quit Facebook but I'm holding out for three
| reasons:
|
| a) Facebook Chat is a way to get a hold of friends or vice versa.
| SMS is often slow (less of a sense of urgency I guess), and not
| everyone has my number or even use SMS.
|
| b) The network effect. It's a great way for introverts such as
| myself to get in contact with someone without the "what's your
| number?" question.
|
| c) Events. If I didn't have Facebook I would probably not know
| about them.
|
| How do introverts who quit Facebook get over these obstacles?
| [deleted]
| M_bara wrote:
| I am clocking about 10 years w/out FB. Not on whatsapp and all
| that other stuff. I'm quite happy & when folks ask me how to get
| in touch, My standard reply is SMS/Phone or Face2face :)
| senderista wrote:
| Even if Facebook/Twitter didn't make me less happy or turn me
| into a person I didn't want to be, I would have quit them for the
| sheer opportunity cost of time spent on them that my long-term
| self would rather be spending on other things. (Obviously could
| apply to HN as well haha.)
| merpnderp wrote:
| Can relate, I haven't missed it a bit.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| Ditto. From my experience and assumptions by many media I've
| seen, people tend to post the best of what is going on in their
| lives to social media. Subsequently, not seeing the bad or
| mundane in comparison to oneself, causes anxiety. There are
| many other aspects to the social media that might affect life
| satisfaction. Time spent on the platform rather than being
| productive is one that comes to mind.
| vidanay wrote:
| Unfortunately, I can't say the same. I quit FB a month ago,
| and sadly not a single "friend" has emailed me or phone
| called me since then asking "yo, what's up dude?"
| ghastmaster wrote:
| If you are upset with the way they treat you, then perhaps
| you should reconsider your relationship. Have you contacted
| them? I personally go years without speaking to some of my
| friends and pick up right where we left off. It feels like
| there has been no time gap. I do not put much stock in
| friendship. It would not be upsetting to me if none of my
| friends contacted me ever again. You may not be the same.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I confirm. Facebook stopped properly working for me today: I use
| it mostly on a smartphone via a mobile Firefox, and it stopped
| showing more than 4 lines of text in every post, drawing a non-
| working 'more' link at the end of line four. So, I decided not to
| report the issue because I feel myself much happier without
| Facebook.
| beepboopbeep wrote:
| I often forget I even had a facebook. There really is just zero
| value add to my life from that website.
| mattrp wrote:
| I used to subscribe to the idea that facebook helped you stay
| close to friends and family. But the issue is most of the
| friends and family who I want to hear from and wants to hear
| from me have too much going on to really be active. So the
| remainder of facebook is peripheral contacts who think that by
| posting someone's else content (a meme, a political thought, a
| call to action, whatever) it's somehow valuable to everyone
| else. I hear marketplace is useful and is supplanting
| craigslist. But when I look at it, it's full of off-site ads
| for products I have no interest in buying. Very little of it is
| actual neighbor to neighbor legitimate items for sale. I
| deleted the app from my phone over a year ago and haven't
| really missed it. More importantly, I really fail to see the
| value that facebook provides.. can you imagine if they'd really
| pitched to VC's what they've become they'd ever been funded in
| the first place? "Hi, we are going to attract users who used to
| forward email spam to all their contacts in the CC line and
| give them a place online to collect all their BS on one
| convenient place and then we're going to market all sorts of
| crap at them."
| root_axis wrote:
| For those that believe access to Facebook is a human right, does
| the idea that Facebook might be physiologically unhealthy factor
| into that reasoning?
| Lammy wrote:
| From the title I initially wasn't sure if this would be about
| people who quit using Facebook becoming happier, or people who
| quit working there. Anecdotally both are true among my peer group
| :)
| [deleted]
| gzu wrote:
| The overwhelming theme of social media is propagating envy. Look
| at this amazing vacation, look at how handsome I am, look at this
| happy family with baby and wedding photos, look at all my money,
| look at me landing a great job, look we just bought a beautiful
| new house.
|
| How can one be content with your own life if you're constantly
| comparing yourself to everyone else. Removing images and video
| might go a long way.
| medymed wrote:
| Also, adding some degree of anonymity. It's much easier to
| delight in a story/post where there's less orientation of the
| story to an attention-hungry identity and less social pressure
| on friends to 'like' and so forth. Not that anonymous social
| forums are without problems.
| schallis wrote:
| Rather than going cold turkey, I've found it much more effective
| to find ways to reduce my engagement e.g by turning off
| notifications for all platforms, unfollowing friends, groups etc.
|
| I've significantly reduced my Social media usage using this
| because I'm no longer tempted to scratch the itch of a
| notification, and when I do visit, there's far less content so
| I'll almost always reach the bottom' now. I basically no longer
| use Facebook because I've made it barren for myself and
| significantly reduced time spent on Instagram.
| garrygosh wrote:
| I like looking at my friends pictures on Facebook. But I never
| understood why I would post any pictures myself. I don't
| understand the upside. Even my profile photo is blank.
| coderunner wrote:
| As an aside, if anyone has any unusual things that you have done
| that have helped with depression, please mention them. I've done
| the usual route of therapy and meds but that didn't help with my
| depression or suicidal thoughts. Thanks in advance.
| smallgovt wrote:
| You might want to check out 'The Book of Joy' by the Dalai Lama
| and Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize winner and archbishop). The
| book lays out what these two men believe are the fundamental
| pillars of enduring happiness. Instead of doing a poor job
| summarizing the contents, here's a link to Amazon if you're
| interested: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CZCW34Q. Wish you the
| best.
| downerending wrote:
| Damn. Alcohol helped me some, but it's rather difficult to
| recommend that.
|
| Simply accepting that it's going to be part of my life forever
| has helped some as well. I look for small pleasures, and it
| takes my life off of my thoughts for a while.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Continue to see a licensed professional but one thing I've
| learned is that people tend to be happier when there is
| something to look forward to. If everything pending in your
| life is a dread, it can be a downward spiral. The best approach
| is to find that thing for you. It could be volunteering or a
| hobby. It doesn't have to be the perfect thing but just pick
| one. Learn how to take photographs and how to use a camera with
| f-stops. Learn how to bake pastries. Join civic clubs or church
| clubs or hiking clubs. Join a gym and get in shape. If you
| don't like it, try something else. Search on meetup.com or
| other similar. Most of these things have an impassioned group
| of people who will talk about the group's focus for hours on
| end. It creates anecdotes and funny stories and events to look
| forward to. It creates a sense of accomplishment even if you
| only get better at thing X very very slowly. You make progress
| and improve.
|
| "My own sense is that -certainly for males, and maybe for
| anybody, having a certain amount of fitness and strength makes
| you proud, and being proud is the most reliable source of
| happiness that I know." - Stewart Brand
| war1025 wrote:
| Some steps for making Facebook more manageable:
|
| 1. Deliberately go through and prune your friends list down to
| people you actually interact with or care about updates from
|
| 2. Any time someone shares something you think is dumb, click on
| the corner of the post and select "Hide all from <page>". This
| lets you hide anything your friends share from various meme sites
| without blocking their legitimate posts
|
| 3. Any time you see an ad for a product you don't care about or
| don't want to see, click "Hide ad" then it will pop up a dialog
| and you can select "Hide all ads from <company>"
|
| 4. Go through your "liked" pages and unlike / unfollow any that
| are irrelevant to you.
|
| I do all of the above and Facebook often just stops loading
| content for me after the first 20 or so posts.
|
| My wife does none of the above and can easily scroll for an hour
| without reaching an end to the content.
| zelly wrote:
| People who follow through with major decision report higher
| satisfaction, says new groundbreaking study.
| aikah wrote:
| I mean there is no point quitting Facebook to spend all your time
| on Twitter or Instagram either... They are objectively as bad,
| especially Twitter which is 24/7 of nonsense and petty drama and
| people yelling at each other or organizing virtual lynch mobs...
|
| Facebook as a way to keep in touch with close friends, as a
| private family network is fine.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| My problem is these are my escapes. If I don't use them then I do
| not know what else to do with my time.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| A very good point. And we can't really say for sure if _you_
| would have a better experience, should you decide to give it
| up.
|
| I like the idea of providing people with more contextual and
| appropriate psychological support than just "hey look, some
| evidence that it can be a good idea to quit."
| INTPenis wrote:
| What gave me the most satisfaction is quitting the news.
| Incidentally I don't have or use any social media either. Except
| imgur and sometimes among the funny memes I get news.
|
| But I'm afraid for people I meet who always remind me of all the
| awful things they've seen in the news. I'm aware of none of this
| until someone tells me.
|
| And yet my life is the same as everyone elses. Not knowing what
| is going on, living in a country with a high standard of living
| and personal safety, doesn't affect me at all.
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| Yeah. So what if the Reichstag burned down? Doesn't really
| change my day to day life.
| jfengel wrote:
| You are presumably being sarcastic, but in a lot of ways it
| illustrates the point. The Reichstag fire was a false-flag
| operation, used to justify an emergency decree. People who
| read the news were misinformed about the event.
|
| By that time, it was already too late. They had elected a
| paranoid, despotic government a month before, and the fire
| itself was merely a fig leaf for things they were going to do
| anyway. They'd been using the media as propaganda for years,
| counting on people who read newspaper articles to be easily
| terrorized, and vote in a government that promised security.
|
| It wasn't the fire that changed their lives. It was their
| belief in the daily media. If they took a calmer, more
| skeptical approach, things might have turned out better for
| them.
| [deleted]
| anderber wrote:
| I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me
| feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power
| accountable. If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the
| news, what effect would that have in our Govenment?
| Rudism wrote:
| I've been avoiding news as well since the last Presidential
| election. I can appreciate that this is terrible advice in
| general, but for the sake of my blood pressure, health in
| general, and mental well-being it's the best choice for me.
| projektfu wrote:
| The news these days has no attention span and pounds on the
| most catchy story all day. Right now it's novel coronavirus.
| I bet people who watch CNN are highly stressed out about it.
| I caught a few minutes during a tour of the CNN center and I
| was glad I won't be seeing that reporting all day. As soon as
| a more gruesome story comes along, the reporting will change,
| it'll forget about the virus, and life will go on.
|
| There must be a better way to truly accomplish keeping
| government accountable. Think about your locus of control.
| Most reporting is about things that do not directly affect
| you, you cannot change them, and they have some emotional
| value that keeps them in the news. Where you can effect
| change is in your locality, or with your local
| representatives, voting in larger elections, writing letters
| to staff, joining advocacy groups, etc. I think the constant
| drumbeat of bad news makes people less likely to do any of
| these things.
| amurthy1 wrote:
| Reading news is useful if it helps inform you about issues
| that you can take action to help address whether via voting
| or other political action.
|
| This is most pertinent at the local level where your vote has
| more impact and it's more feasible to take action on specific
| issues when you learn about them.
|
| Reading about presidential scandals every day when you likely
| already know who you're voting for just drags you down and
| benefits no one besides the media companies profiting off
| your attention.
| koonsolo wrote:
| I noticed that certain politicians do their best to reach the
| media and news, and others just do their job.
|
| Why would the news be the best source to judge your
| politicians?
| firethief wrote:
| I'm struggling to think of anything that could serve as a
| better source, or even a reasonable runner-up. Am I taking
| a broader interpretation of "news"? I would agree that
| cable news is probably a net negative; web aggregators like
| Google are hazardous, and following individually-selected
| news sites is a lot of work, but what else is there?
| banads wrote:
| You can look at their voting record, or who they take
| money from. There a number of "non-news" websites that
| have this information.
| firethief wrote:
| Yes the important stuff is public record, but it's also
| hard to analyze the primary sources. Bills tend to have
| misleading names, mixed content, and non-obvious agendas.
| Context is important; it's not uncommon for someone to
| oppose a weak bill because politically the alternative is
| a stronger one, not inaction. The FEC database is
| hideously formatted anomaly-filled MS Access stuff. I
| generally let someone else do the analysis, but then
| that's "news" (or at least subject to the same
| pitfalls?).
| AJ007 wrote:
| You are largely being informed by PR people and lobbyists.
| Also facts are generally missing or just wrong when published
| in real time. Books gives a much more accurate and
| accountable view of events.
| dave5104 wrote:
| Not sure how books really solve that. If I was interested
| in following the recent impeachment, what books am I going
| to read? I'm sure there will be plenty available within the
| year, but that's a little late for anyone who wants to know
| what's going on right now.
| banads wrote:
| Books definitely won't help you satisfy impulsive urges
| for 24/7 live updates on such minutiae; but then again,
| what practical use would you have for trying to stay
| perpetually up to date on the current status of the
| impeachment process?
| zepto wrote:
| The impeachment is already forgotten.
| jfengel wrote:
| That's precisely it. There will be plenty of books
| available before November, and their authors will have
| had a few months to digest what happened and its
| aftermath.
|
| And November is the only time it really matters. Until
| then, you can shake your tiny fist, but in November you
| get to make a choice that counts, literally.
|
| You could follow it in real-time for the entertainment
| value, if you want. But if you actually want to make an
| informed choice when it matters, you'll have no trouble
| finding a book that summarizes it, and it will take far,
| far less time than trying to keep up with it (and
| remember it all come November).
| throwaway21320 wrote:
| > But if you actually want to make an informed choice
| when it matters, you'll have no trouble finding a book
| that summarizes it, and it will take far, far less time
| than trying to keep up with it (and remember it all come
| November).
|
| I also doubt there are a lot of people who were following
| the impeachment because they wanted to decide whether or
| not to vote for Trump. If you already know how you'll
| vote, following the day to day political battles is, as
| you said, merely entertainment.
| [deleted]
| sevilo wrote:
| I actually hold a more optimistic view toward the effect of
| people not staying up to date with the news, I feel like a
| good part of reason why there are so much anger in the world
| right now, and political spectrum becoming more extreme is
| partially due to how news get reported, you rarely rarely see
| an objective view of matters on news. They're often used as
| PR outlets for political parties.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I absolutely understand what you 're saying. But part of
| me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power
| accountable._
|
| So, how does that work out for you?
| leot wrote:
| You could say the same about not voting.
| sykick wrote:
| In the context of the article and the point OP made it's
| working out great not being informed or voting. At least
| for me. I don't stress or get worked up by stuff. I feel
| like I'm a lot happier these days. Deliberate ignorance
| is not for everyone but it does work well for me.
| coldtea wrote:
| Well, if you can say the same thing about voting _and_
| not voting, then it makes not much of a difference either
| way...
| HuShifang wrote:
| A valid point. But I think that occasional (perhaps regularly
| scheduled) and mindful checks of select, thoughtful news
| sources that aren't overly focused on driving engagement with
| clickbait topics, article titles, etc allows you to stay
| sufficiently informed without succumbing to the stress-storm
| that is most news media. Think big picture, often long-form
| reporting vs. a heavy reliance on "breaking news", opinion
| pieces, and lifestyle-focused content.
|
| (Some sources I like: PBS Newshour, ProPublica, the
| Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Review of
| Books.)
| mc32 wrote:
| Problem is these days the news tends to be more narrative
| than plain news.
|
| Even things that weren't typically political or politicized
| these days they are.
| dionidium wrote:
| Here's how I solve this problem: I subscribe to the Sunday
| print edition [0] of the Boston Globe [1]. It comes on Sunday
| and I read it over coffee.
|
| There's no practical reason to be informed beyond what's in
| your city's Sunday print edition. Anything more than that is
| _entertainment_.
|
| [0] _It occurs to me that city dailies are so out of fashion
| that some of you might not understand why I recommend the
| Sunday edition. The Sunday edition is the largest edition of
| the week and repeats stories that appeared on other days. It
| also includes some features and sections that are not
| included on any other day. If you only get one day, you want
| Sunday._
|
| [1] _This could be any big-city paper (e.g. The Washington
| Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe). It doesn 't
| matter._
| j-c-hewitt wrote:
| You can delegate your concern to a political party, which is
| essentially all you are able to do as a citizen in a country
| like the US particularly if you live in a state that does not
| have a lot of referenda.
|
| If you want to learn more you can spend more time on
| researching the issues. Otherwise you could vote on a single
| issue, or just pick the party that is supposed to represent
| people like you with a similar hierarchy of values.
|
| The US also doesn't have mandatory voting, so declining to
| vote just signals that you have delegated concern over civic
| issues to other people who are willing to make that
| (sometimes significant) sacrifice of time, energy, and money.
| daveFNbuck wrote:
| The problem with the strategy you describe is that if too
| many people use it, politicians can just openly lie about
| what's happening in the world and what they're doing about
| it. A voter who has identified with a party and is no
| longer interested in learning the facts has no way to
| correct for this.
| awb wrote:
| Perhaps, but there are usually people in positions of
| power that care and for better or worse probably have
| more influence than the general electorate.
| [deleted]
| apodysophilia wrote:
| It might be a benefit. Being misinformed could be worse than
| being uninformed.
| dabbledash wrote:
| "Hold those in power accountable" could mean many different
| things, but if you're referring primarily to voting, then
| reviewing high quality sources every few weeks or once a
| month will probably give you better information then
| following the daily news cycle.
|
| I think if people in general took that approach, the effect
| on the government would be positive. Citizens consuming
| politics as entertainment and politicians approaching their
| job like YouTube celebrities are doing enormous damage.
| godelski wrote:
| > reviewing high quality sources every few weeks or once a
| month will probably give you better information then
| following the daily news cycle.
|
| I have found this to be effective. I'll read something like
| Reuters a few times a month. Events that are major that I
| need to care about sooner are talked about and I can't
| escape, so I go read up on them.
|
| The truth is that there's not enough happening every day
| that needs your attention for you to stay informed (at
| least informed enough. Because we can't all be experts on
| everything, which I think the daily cycle gives you the
| impression that you are).
| sykick wrote:
| The problem as I see it is that it is almost impossible to be
| informed enough to hold people accountable. In the U.S. at
| least the news is almost always of the form: " Person from
| party A (which you are a member of) destroys person from
| Party B". Or, "Party B seeks to destroy Issue C".
|
| There is virtually no nuance in the reporting. There's no
| dissection. For example, the situation with Syria is quite
| complicated as Turkey, U.S., Russia, Kurds, and Assad all
| have conflicting goals and desires. Yet all of the reporting
| I've seen on this conflict has been absurdly reductionist and
| used to garner support/hatred toward the party in power by
| the adherents/adversaries of said party in power.
|
| I understand the desire to have an informed populace but I
| think that is no longer possible. It is too easy to sway
| large swaths of the public. Witness the rise of anti-vaxers
| and other thoughtless beliefs. Even if I tried to be
| relatively informed it wouldn't matter because the vast
| majority of the people are not psychologically prepared to
| withstand the pressure of subtle, sustained propaganda.
|
| I have resigned myself to the fact that the republic is dead
| in the sense of what the ideal of a republic ought to be. I
| too avoid news and social media. I don't count this website
| to be what I call social media since there is no identifying
| information about myself on here and none of my friends knows
| about my posts on this website.
| powowowow wrote:
| > There is virtually no nuance in the reporting.
|
| If you want to read ad-supported news, then you will be
| stuck with news that is intended to have the lowest
| possible production costs, and garner the most possible
| eyeballs. This business does not support nuance, because
| nuance is expensive and less audacious.
|
| Nuanced reporting exists on essentially every topic that it
| is possible to care about, but it is often in smaller paid
| publications.
| leftyted wrote:
| I was reading Plato recently and this stood out:
|
| > When they meet together, and the world sits down at an
| assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or
| in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar,
| and they praise some things which are being said or done,
| and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting
| and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the
| place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of
| the praise or blame--at such a time will not a young man's
| heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private
| training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming
| flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the
| stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which
| the public in general have--he will do as they do, and as
| they are, such will he be?
|
| People have been complaining about what you're complaining
| about for thousands of years. What I find truly puzzling --
| given the supposed madness of crowds -- is that things are
| going so well.
| Angostura wrote:
| So read something like The Economist or the paper version
| of the NYT?
| ghostpepper wrote:
| This is the answer. Journalists cannot work for free, and
| trying to run a newspaper entirely supported by ads
| creates perverse incentives.
| sykick wrote:
| Why do you think those sources are nuanced or provide
| decent coverage of topics? Are you sure you're right?
|
| Here's one example among many that perhaps these are not
| good sources of information.
|
| https://www.mediamatters.org/new-york-times/how-iraq-war-
| sti...
| sjtindell wrote:
| The NYT I definitely now class with all the rest. In my
| opinion The Economist stands alone as the only
| publication I can trust to be nuanced and informative.
| throwaway21320 wrote:
| I agree that The New York Times can be pretty terrible (a
| lot depends on the reporters and editors of a particular
| piece), but I have to say that I also find The Economist
| to be pretty shallow and often wrong. The best part about
| The Economist is its breadth (a lot of stories from all
| over the world), but a story about a water purification
| project in Uganda (for example) isn't going to be useful
| for most Americans (and I assume Ugandans would have
| better sources to read). It's mostly infotainment.
| godelski wrote:
| May I suggest consuming news through text rather than video?
| In fact, the more boring the better.
|
| I see a big issue is that the news is frequently emotive
| based. In some cases this is helpful, when terrible stuff is
| going on. Other cases it makes mundane things seem worse. Or
| it makes things that don't affect us and/or we have no
| control over emotionally important. The latter is
| particularly harmful, imo. A lot of these make you feel like
| you are more informed than you are, because you're highly
| emotionally invested. I think video really promotes the
| emotional investment.
|
| But the boring stuff allows you to become emotionally
| invested in what __you__ care about. Then the lack of
| emotional forcing makes you feel less informed, so if you
| care you spend time finding out more. This prevents people
| from being "armchair researchers" and fighting.
| PTOB wrote:
| Where do you get the boring stuff? Please, I'm drowning
| here.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news,_
|
| That would be a similar situation to everyone following the
| advice of not becoming a musician (no music) or not becoming
| an astronaut (the international space station would have to
| shut down). Our society is based on specialization and every
| group of friends really only needs one person who knows what
| the news is talking about.
| NoInputSignal wrote:
| I think in a country like the US, where news networks can
| push a political bias (not needing to give both sides of an
| issue equal coverage), without accountability, it requires
| consumers to do their own homework on issues. I guess the
| question is, why not optimize and cut the news out of the
| middle?
| throwaway21320 wrote:
| It seems like most of the people I know who spend hours a
| week watching political news end up having no clue who to
| vote for when it comes to local elections where they have the
| most impact. I've worked the polls multiple times and have
| seen this over and over.
|
| A lot of the news is mental junk food, and the idea that they
| are doing it for a better society is usually just an excuse
| for a bad habit. Even on the topics the news covers, people
| are usually left with a cartoonish narrative that's often
| worse than being completely ignorant on the issues.
| entropea wrote:
| I haven't watched Seattle local news in years and feel like
| absolutely nothing has changed at all, and I feel just as
| informed.
|
| I'm slowly getting rid of national news as well, as many
| sources aren't there to inform, but now provide primarily
| gossip-y and dramatized opinions. I really don't care about
| your opinion as a journalist unless I'm specifically reading
| the opinion section. This is just the result of the
| monopolization of media and the profit motive behind it.
|
| >And yet my life is the same as everyone elses. Not knowing
| what is going on, living in a country with a high standard of
| living and personal safety, doesn't affect me at all.
|
| I often remind myself of this a lot. If I look out the window,
| nothing is happening, kids are playing in the yard, the sky is
| blue, things still go on. People tell me all of these terrible
| things going on, and while they probably are going on and I do
| care about a beneficial moral & ethical outcome, it just really
| has no effect on me. I know that's a privileged view and most
| in the world really don't have it this good, but the world goes
| on...
| mnm1 wrote:
| Yeah, I totally agree. I quit this past May except for the
| occasional half hour to hour news/comedy show every week or
| less. In over half a year, I haven't missed anything important.
| If something is truly important, it'll filter through and I
| will look it up specifically. If not, even if it is center
| stage and historical news, it's really irrelevant. It speaks
| wonders to the helplessness and hopelessness in this country,
| however. There is little any one of us can do to change
| anything. So I stopped trying and hoping and I am less
| depressed, less angry, and more into my own life and doing
| things that I enjoy. I'm still just as helpless as before. No
| change there. Also, one doesn't need to go cold turkey. Reading
| the news once a week or even once a month would be plenty. Few
| news stories move fast enough that they require daily or even
| weekly attention. None affect my life, really.
| minikites wrote:
| >And yet my life is the same as everyone elses. Not knowing
| what is going on, living in a country with a high standard of
| living and personal safety, doesn't affect me at all.
|
| The fact that it doesn't affect you means you're in an
| incredibly privileged position in your country, your life is
| not the same as everyone else's.
| luckylion wrote:
| How would somebody less privileged be negatively affected by
| not knowing about _the news_? Mind you, it 's not about being
| affected by what's _in_ the news, of course you 're affected
| when the government decides on a new policy ... but how does
| knowing about it on the same day or in the same hour mitigate
| that?
| SolaceQuantum wrote:
| _" of course you 're affected when the government decides
| on a new policy ... but how does knowing about it on the
| same day or in the same hour mitigate that?"_
|
| It saves people a nasty surprise when the policies they
| relied upon fall out from under them, or to try and head
| off future issues by calling up their representatives. For
| example, I was able to call up my representative regarding
| changes in immigration policy. Because other people aren't
| paying attention and don't call their representatives, I
| actually have an outsized voice and influence on the
| matter!
| luckylion wrote:
| Policies don't disappear the very next day, though. It's
| not that somebody that relies on some policy will be left
| stranded at the bus stop because he didn't watch the news
| that day that the program has been canceled.
|
| RE becoming politically active: it's good to be informed,
| I totally agree. But that's not something you get from
| the news. I can't imagine you watching CNN and saying
| "whaaaaaat? I'm going to call my representative right
| now". You'll usually have that filtered by whatever
| organization/initiative you delegate that to. They will
| relay the important stuff to you and ask you to become
| active. That's very different from watching the news
| imho.
| minikites wrote:
| How does consuming the news on a delayed basis address the
| issue of being distressed by the news?
| luckylion wrote:
| Most things aren't consumed on a delayed basis, because
| they turn out to be irrelevant. News is a fast-paced
| thing, like a soap opera. I've never seen anyone binge
| watch a year of soap opera, and it's similar for the
| news.
|
| Use a filter by reading a monthly or quarterly
| publication. You will get the information (that's still
| considered print-worthy after the next news cycle), but
| not the hectic, emotional manipulation and outrage.
| izzydata wrote:
| Having the privilege to live in complete ignorant bliss is nice
| I guess.
|
| What could go wrong?
| whatshisface wrote:
| If something goes seriously wrong I will hear it via word of
| mouth. I would also notice something change in stock prices,
| gas prices, and many other vital signs of the hyper-connected
| global economy that I interact with every day. I guess if
| everyone I ever talk to follows me in quitting the news, I
| will consider checking it occasionally.
| izzydata wrote:
| Not wrong for you. Wrong for the world. There exists other
| people.
| banads wrote:
| What degree of practical responsibility does a person in
| Brazil have for something bad happening to someone in
| Sierra Leone?
|
| Abstaining from frequent infotainment aka "news" does not
| equate to being ignorant of important things happening in
| the world, nor does it equate to abdicating
| responsibility for all the things you can practically
| influence.
| MFLoon wrote:
| This assertions along the lines of "it's a privilege to be
| able to be politically disengaged" is just an empty slogan
| weaponizing empathy to guilt whoever it's directed at towards
| supporting your political leaning.
|
| It's also a privilege to be able to be politically engaged.
| Both ways of being are completely protected and legal (in
| America at least). And both privileges are available to all -
| even the disadvantaged groups that the slogan implies must be
| politically engaged for their own survival. It would probably
| serve their self interest to be more engaged, sure, but in
| reality they still have the choice. The ethical standard of
| mandatory political engagement that you're appealing to is
| not universally recognized or enforced. And if you think of
| places/times where that ethic of mandatory political life is
| or was enforced, do you really want to be like that?
| [deleted]
| Cytobit wrote:
| Is HN not social media?
| vaylian wrote:
| That's debatable. Where is the social element? If you stretch
| the definition of social media long enough you could also
| call the usenet, mailing lists or Wikipedia social media.
|
| HN isn't really about human connections or personal
| interactions. We might discuss them, but HN isn't designed or
| usually used for creating them.
| christiansakai wrote:
| In some ways, I actually like bad news. It reminds me of my
| fragility, immortality, and weaknesses. It reminds me to be
| thankful of what I have, and maybe one day too join the losing
| battle of making the world a better place. And for the context
| of my faith, it reminds me there is a better place I'm hoping
| to be.
| luckylion wrote:
| > Not knowing what is going on, living in a country with a high
| standard of living and personal safety, doesn't affect me at
| all.
|
| Even if you lived in a country with a low standard of living
| and less personal safety ... would knowing about the world
| events really change anything? Important local things usually
| don't make the national or world news, yet you tend to learn
| them unless you're completely isolated.
|
| And the world events that would change things for anyone
| anywhere, like being on on the brink of nuclear war ... would
| you knowing about it have any effect on it?
| beefield wrote:
| News is actually worse for me than social media. That's what I
| feel addicted to. I'd like to get into a state where I read my
| news from a quality weekly newspaper (like The Economist for
| global news and maybe another for domestic ones.) An spend the
| rest of my current time used to browse endless unimportant news
| to reading books, doing sports etc. But given that there are
| lots of actually intersting things I would like to work with
| and study with my computer, I have not found a way not to slip
| into the news chamber instead of going for a run/opening a
| book/ when I need a break from the stuff I do with my computer.
| yingw787 wrote:
| I read a great book, "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and
| Dave Evans, that said "A problem you can't change isn't a
| problem, it's a truth and you have to accept it". I think that
| mental reframing helps process effectively immutable events.
| wheels wrote:
| I did this for a while, with a couple modifications:
|
| I tried to replace the topics I was reading about in the news
| with books on those same topics. You'll get far more about,
| say, the Israel-Palestine conflict from reading one 300 page
| book than you will from reading 300 1 page news articles.
|
| On top of that I'd pick up about one news magazine or newspaper
| a month or so, just to stay on top of what the current issues
| actually were. I did this for a couple of years.
|
| That, however, was at a period of relative stability in western
| politics. The truth is that right now I'm too interested in the
| stories that are currently unfolding to only read about them
| once they've become history.
| tanilama wrote:
| Can verify.
|
| Human are weird animals. We get anxiety looking at others doing
| good. Maybe we are just really really mean.
|
| Though most of the doing good is just on the surface
| giarc wrote:
| I quit about a month or two ago. I'm not sure if I am happier or
| not, mostly because everyone around me is still on it (including
| my wife). So perhaps there is a bit of FOMO going on. I think I
| would be happier if everyone I knew quit.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-02-13 23:00 UTC)