There is some irony that posting the kind of feigned outrage and clever swipes that are being directed at Musk are exactly the kind of things that Twitter is for. No doubt people want to quit, but then where would they tell people about how they quit and how mad they are?
On outrage: I'd be worried about where that aggression would be directed without twitter as the whipping boy. It seems as if those that are most persistently caustic derive from twitter a sense of regaining control, and a fleeting ability to internally re-balance their lack of power they experience IRL
My long hoped (rarely or never seen) conclusion for people to reach is that these systems should be taken with a massive amount of skepticism and independent verification. Also that the same fulcrum like power to spread outrage/“othering” be used for inclusion.
To some extent that may be true, but I think there is some truth to the whole algorithmic promotion thing that makes sure Twitter keeps your attention by riling you up.
So say I'm mad about something Elon Musk did, and I go to Twitter to post about it, I'll get fed a bunch more tweets reinforcing how bad the thing was and get even more outraged, and keep scrolling. Even without a Twitter account, I find clicking on seemingly benign Twitter links on HN quickly gets me into threads of political discussion that rile me up.
Contrast that with going to e.g. HN and sharing a story or commenting on a post about something I don't like. It's definitely still possible to get into an argument that pisses you off, but at least its actual people provoking you, in a community that has a pretty low tolerance for that, so it's not going to go to far.
If you're pissed off enough, you'll find another outlet, though I think twitter is less an outlet than a place to make you even madder
Twitter is low-effort outrage. Before that space existed, people just sighed and went about their day. If it's more difficult or higher-effort to express or dip into outrage, people will bow out.
Considering just how important social media has been in the last few years, I don't see how suggesting people should quit social media is silly. The US has had a president who largely communicated with his constituents through Twitter (one-way as that communication may have been), celebrities get their careers re-ignited because Twitter rallies behind them, influencers are... a thing?, social media management is a full-on career for people!
At this stage, the world is actually quite stuck with social media and, honestly, I can really believe that something as seemingly minor as quitting Twitter can change someone's demeanor, quality of life and so on. Social media is a bloody juggernaut, sometimes it's best to move out of the way.
> The US has had a president who largely communicated with his constituents through Twitter (one-way as that communication may have been)...
I know what you're trying to say here, but I just want to note for the record that all presidents communicate primarily with their constituents in a one way fashion.
In other words, that president was unique primarily in platform, not mode.
Actually now that you mention it, I've seen a whole wave of posts on linkedin complaining about Musk. In another post I asked where people would go to do this if they quit twitter, maybe linkedin is the place. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse
I never seem to get stuck on linkedin like I used to get stuck on twitter. I go on linkedin maybe 2x / month. Less than 10 minutes each. Really, I probably wouldn't notice it at all were it not for the job notifications.
Same here. I've been off for about a month now. In twitter detox, mostly feeling a lot better. Now I'm wondering why everyone thinks they need an audience all the time? We didn't feel that way prior to the advent of social media (so what, around 2006 or so?). How did they manage to change our culture so much that now everyone thinks they're entitled to some kind of platform where followers should pay attention to what you have to say everyday? Nobody thought that way in the early 2000s and then all of the sudden they did. It's really kind of bizarre when you get off of social media and think about this. When you leave people are kind of scared for you like "oh, what will you do without social media, you'll become disconnected" but I never expected to be "connected" prior to social media, why should I be afraid of it now?
I deleted Facebook the day of the Snowden leaks and haven't looked back. LinkedIn is the only social media network I still have an account on, and I only use it when I'm on the job market.
It's been fantastic to not have to worry about all the drama for a decade now.
Hah! You beat me to it! I do agree with the overall sentiment however. I think it's important to see whether your relationship to a given social media is healthy or not. For me, my relationship to reddit, facebook, and twitter were unhealthy, so I deleted them. That's not going to be true for everyone; I definitely know people who use them in a positive, life-improving way, that's just not what was happening to me.
Sometimes I feel like as a hard core engineering type, social media doesnt appeal to my brain. Same with TV shows on netflix, movies, gossip, hollywood, fashion, common trends. None of them "stick". Coding alone in the dark does, and sometimes I recognize I need to step away and talk to people. But I keep getting drawn in to the next abstraction. Must be how it feels to use social media
Might not work for everyone, but I use it as motivation: I should make sure I schedule a catch-up with friends too, I should take advantage of good weather to go out and do something, I should go on a holiday myself.
I talked some s. to a guy blaming the teachers for a school massacre and twitter suspended me. told them to where to shove their little bird. it's been a good week post-twitter.
As far as I’m concerned, you used Twitter correctly. From what I can tell by browsing, enabling people to tell other people where to shove it is the platform’s raison d’être.
I've worked in social for over a decade and even attempted a startup in the space. If we're taking the dopamine hit mention in this article seriously, then the western world has completely fried its dopamine receptors. I've observed people are craving serotonin as a result. You get that through actual community and connection. You can't get that on massive networks. You get that on small ones, but finding small ones can be hard.
If social media is a walled garden, then I believe the next wave of social media will be "social fences." Ways of creating silos within a platform so that you only interact with specific communities, much like how subreddits, discord servers, or twitch channels operate.
Even if I'm wrong about where it's going, I think everyone feels that the wave of the last decade is cresting. Catching it will be tricky, but if you manage it then you'll ride it far.
Small fish probably also don't feel so small in an aquarium vs. the ocean. I tend to agree, walled gardens and echo chambers are a natural consequence of everyone finding their tribes.
I wonder if something like a social IoT device could get traction? Ie sell people something like another router that lets them have their own profile hosted only there and accessible only through others peoples devices after a “handshake” of sorts?
I’ve heard this floated for a decade. The current product of that line of thinking is mastodon. It’s a profile you can host on your own server (or someone else’s) that has sharing functions.
I’m not sure how we go from serotonin to pacification. That seems like a leap to me based on the role serotonin plays in the body.
Regardless, I find the whole jump from product experience to neurochemical behavior a bit silly to begin with. I wouldn’t use it except this article did first.
In a way, Zuckerberg predicted your take years ago. He saw the writing on the wall regarding the many issues of having an enormous public town square and the "share everything" mindset, and opted for more pocketed communities.
If we're being honest here, the center of gravity regarding dopamine is Twitter. I spotted a fascinating effect regarding people "threatening" to leave Twitter as they're tired of all the rage. Most of course never even attempt to leave, but those that do may give Mastodon a try.
At Mastodon, they create a fresh little sub community and move over their Twitter bubble the best they can.
Now things get interesting. Crickets. As it turns out, the only thing that held the bubble together is a common enemy. There is no enemy in the new bubble that only has friends. Worse, not even the friends turn out to be friends. None give a single fuck about the other, and would be absolutely fine not ever hearing a single word from you ever again. They were just liking your opinion against another opinion to which they also disagreed. That was all.
For the true hardcore Twitter addict, their entire existence and identity is effectively wiped out when you take away the rage. Hates gave them status, and being happy is the worst thing that can happen to them.
I spend quite a bit of time forming bonds/relationships with people on the fediverse (not all of the instances are garbage full of crazed lunatics) and it took over a year of looking for the right fit, but once I did, I haven't thought of leaving that community, even through times where my account is dormant for a period (as it's easier to take breaks). I only really interact with less then 20 people and I probably have 70 followers.
This has improved my mental and emotional health ever since i met these people, they are real, and like me they don't say things or do things for attention; as you would go to quite literally any other social structure for those things. The "open" nature intertwined with these "islands" of people creates for a really cool social experience.
Easily the best I've had online since most of the forums I used to be a part of have died. If you need someone to bounce things off of, just DM them; they are real and they won't post screenshots of your interaction two years later. Obviously that's not true for every instance, and it's not true for every person, but you have a higher likelihood of finding people you can genuinely care about even if they don't live in your area, and the only thing that unites you is the general dislike for people, but the begrudging realization that we need each other.
> I've observed people are craving serotonin as a result.
This statement is very interesting and I would like it if you expanded and clarified what you're talking about here. I'm not trying to debunk you or anything and I think I get it, but it's a pretty wild thing to say without giving more details and I would really enjoy it if you expanded on this sentence.
Hey, I have been obsessed with this problem for around this for around 2 years - trying to create the “operating system” for interests. We’re still early but softlaunched 2 months ago and are at around 1 million downloads. If you want to chat, email me at nico@picnic.zone
What do you mean "what have they done lately?" I guess you could go over to lobsters if you're looking for a more heavily moderated/focused tech disussion website. But eventually they'll reach eternal september too.
> The dopamine rush that comes from other people’s likes can leave you feeling celebratory. But there is a downside. The constant exposure to other people’s lives can hurt your body image, sleep, anxiety levels and productivity.
That is the problem.
It's about time for them to get away from the digital drugs companies and their products like Instagram™, Twitter™, Facebook™, TikTok™, etc feeding and manipulating their users with tons of nonsense and getting controlled on what is seen and unseen on their platforms to bring out their inner outrage towards others.
> “I got over that within a week,” she said. “I would just put my phone away. And before I knew it, I wasn’t getting the urge to scroll and see what’s happening in the world.”
Well done. If this person can do it, perhaps you also can too?
> I just wish some ppl could figure out how to send text messages again.
How about you send the message? Everyone I see complaining that they lose contact with their friends are not making any effort to stay in contact (myself included).
I quit Twitter during the COVID-mania, around early 2021 I think, after being on it pretty consistently since January 2009. I quit because I accidentally exited the bubble of popular opinion and had a real "Through the Looking Glass" moment.
In the 12 years I used Twitter I met lots of people in real-life through it, I know some some very good friends through it and it's been a consistent source and outlet for information and quirky humour.
Now the surprising (for me) thing: After quitting it from one day to another ... nothing happened. I was bracing myself for a time void that would pop up and need filling with something else (something more productive?) but that just didn't happen. It felt a bit like the stories from people who quit smoking cold turkey after 20 years and they just didn't get any withdrawal symptoms.
TL;DR - Quit Twitter, nothing happened. Would recommend.
Can anyone explain why there is a need to declare this and then talk about it? Are we at a point where it is considered similar to an alcoholic leaving the drink and following what happened next? I used to play games and now I don't. I used to watch film and now I don't. I had a facebook account once and now I don't. Isn't this mundane as fuck?
Because alcohol has been around for thousands of years, theater for thousands of years, video games for half a century and super addictive social media for less than 20.
Any time a big change happens to people's daily experience I think it's reasonable and good to have a lot of reflection on if that change is good or bad and what should be done.
I don't mind and I think when people post about it, even if the blogs are like reading someone's dream journal (boring, aspirational, confusing, etc) in aggregate I think the posts produce kind of useful metrics about what's going on in the heads of people quitting the media.
For some perspective, the type of person that is going to make a blog post about quitting social media was likely "highly online" in social media spaces and probably doesn't even fully understand the ingrained models of personal disclosure (almost no one does well as the problem is so new) that they realized was unsustainable that lead to them now quitting so they cope by making a blog post. It's ironic and more than a little bit funny.
It's like when someone is new to Alcoholics Anonymous because of legal issues, losing a job, or a partner leaving and they get to step 4 "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." and write it all down and then they instantly hit steps 8, 9, 10.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
A drunk would give you a 2AM white knuckled call you don't care about for when they ripped you off 10 years ago, but the action of those steps is the same thing as the drug. I'm not an AA guy or anything but it's a relatable model. If anyone reading is struggling with substance or social media addiction check out SmartRecovery.org for rational group recovery.
So I guess my take on the phenomena of the "I'm leaving" post is that they are the rattles of a person trying to change but the well worn paths to change (steps 4, 8, 9, and 10) are basically the user's DoC (Drug of Choice).
Sure, the posts are self indulgent and suck, but what else do you expect from someone operating with a serious dopamine imbalance?
To answer your question though, it is definitely not "mundane as fuck" to them. One's too many, ten's not enough. Yes, it is the same thing and I gather that you don't likely suffer from it in this context. I think we can all agree that you can just not read their posts
Posts like this even if their content isn't profound or even that novel, that person is working to be a better person and tried to work out their feelings by putting pen to page and yelling into the void.
Your question here is what a lot of people are thinking though and it's a valid question. I'm not trying to cast shade on you at all. Without you asking this question I wouldn't have been able to think about this stuff. Dopamine management is important to a life lived consciously. How we get off differs in a rainbow for each person. Hopefully our discussion here helps someone out in the future. It's basically impossible that it has zero effect.
Using Twitter as the focus of a post talking about quitting social media seems like such an odd choice to me.
Why? Because Twitter still strikes me as such a niche platform. It really is a bubble. I know there are people with >100M followers but most of those people just read their feed and that's it without ever writing a tweet.
it just seems way less interactive in general than say Snap is or FB/IG were. And if that's true then "quitting" a passive consumption platform just doesn't seem like a big deal than something you get invested in.
Maybe that's the point: people get caught up in this bubble and think it reflects reality.
Twitter in particular does seem to have a lot of bots. I really wonder if Twitter didn't screw themselves by allowing Elon to effectively renegotiate if Twitter can't prove the activity isn't all bots.
I have one piece of potentially unpopular advice: Do not quite social media just because fellow HN users convinced you to. Think it through. There is a vocal contingent of people here who can tell you all about how bad it is, and they are convincing.
Dumbest thing I've done in a while was delete my FB account because I felt like the arguments here were compelling. Turns out that I had regular interactions with a number of people through FB that weren't really feasible any other way, and reconnecting is a hassle when you nuke your entire friend list. It may seem like these are low-value connections, and many people here will suggest that they are, but you should carefully consider for yourself whether you want to nuke that bridge.
Importantly -- it was not, and is not ruling my life, so deleting it caused no great epiphany or transformation in my life. At least, not a positive one. I visit FB once every day or other day for a few minutes, and I value the interactions. I blocked all the unpleasant stuff, and only use FB to connect with people I like. Be careful about deleting that.
Want to know the hard truth? If I really wanted to improve my life, productivity, etc, by removing any particular social media -- it would be Hacker News. This place is a very attractive time suck.
Agreed, I just unfollowed absolutely everyone except very close people, and a group I'm involved in. This way my feed doesn't have much to scroll through, so it isn't addictive to look at.
> . It may seem like these are low-value connections, and many people here will suggest that they are, but you should carefully consider for yourself whether you want to nuke that bridge.
I've had people here literally try to gaslight me about this as if they know more about my relationships than I do. They don't realize that certain apps are the entire internet for very large portions of entire countries... or that other methods would just have way too much friction to keep in contact with all the exchange students I know around the world... Explaining this, they then try to tell me my relationships just aren't that important to me or as deep as I think :)
I haven't seen anyone here claim that "relationships" on social media are not important. What many do say is that the daily addictive "interactions" through social media, like FB, don't mean much in terms of strengthening or weakening a relationship. I don't have an FB or Whatsapp or Google account even though they dominate my country. Yet, when I call people or SMS / text them, nearly all respond on the same medium because that's the quality of relationship I have built with them. Social media relationships mostly ends up feeling voyeuristic and even like a chore at some point.
> I haven't seen anyone here claim that "relationships" on social media are not important.
Because you didn't see it then I didn't see it? I'm sure you don't read every single comment every day. This has been said to me twice now. I've seen plenty of other people get in the same arguments.
> What many do say is that the daily addictive "interactions" through social media, like FB, don't mean much in terms of strengthening or weakening a relationship.
I'm telling you it does mean much in terms of strengthening or weakening my relationships.
> I don't have an FB or Whatsapp or Google account even though they dominate my country.
You know people that are willing to do that. I know people who aren't or can't.
Like you, I too was clarifying what I have read here on HN so that others don't misunderstand that what you read is the only view on HN when it comes to SM. Now, I do support that perspective - not using FB or WhatsApp has only proved to be a minor irritant for me simply because I work on my relationships the old fashioned - I keep in touch regularly through calls / SMS / email / in person, enquire about their well-being, share my feelings and experiences, and offer support when needed. This happened because I changed as I grew older - I started prioritising improving quality over quantity of relationship, and I found social media to be hindrance for this. Moreover, the privacy benefits of not using social media hugely outweigh any value that social media platforms offers.
> You know people that are willing to do that. I know people who aren't or can't.
Sure, I have faced similar issues - for e.g. when I ask someone to share some photos, and they learn that I don't have whatsapp, they do groan and grumble when I ask them to either email me or upload and share it. Some don't and that maybe disappointing for some moment, but you move on. If it's a big deal, you persist. Social media platforms may be the dominant way to communicate in today's world, but it is not the only way. And if you focus on improving the quality of your existing relationships, people will want to communicate with you. That works for me because I put in the slightly extra effort for that.
> I found social media to be hindrance for this. Moreover, the privacy benefits of not using social media hugely outweigh any value that social media platforms offers.
I found the opposite. You're still not listening and just droning on with your patronizing bullshit like everyone else.
> That works for me because I put in the slightly extra effort for that.
No, you just think highly of yourself by imagining you know other situations.
I don't get why you are so upset over someone offering a different perspective to yours? We are both sharing our experiences, and neither of us needs to apologise to anyone for the choices we make. If you see my comments as patronizing, it is only because you are taking it personally. Instead, if you read it again, you will notice it actually supports your argument - that if you don't use social media, you have to put in more effort. I am willing to do that. You and others don't for your own cultural and personal reasons.
> I haven't seen anyone here claim that "relationships" on social media are not important.
That has not been my experience. Plenty of times I hear people here on HN suggest that if you only communicate with someone over FB, it is by definition a low value relationship that you could safely lose. If you really are friends, you will have higher quality communication.
Hacker News isn't a social media site. It's a user-submitted news site that has a comment section, not a place to build connections with other users. Any networking that happens on this site have to take place using means beyond the site.
Also, why would you delete your Facebook account without having another way to contact the people on there that you do care about interacting with? You should at least have email addresses, phone numbers, real addresses, or whatever else in a personal contact list.
I've come to the same conclusion, especially with HN being a timesuck. Not a bad timesuck, but it very much does contribute to a dopamine feedback addiction loop for me. I'm glad it's here, than, Facebook, but yes.
There's also a part of society that does require Facebook and other Meta properties, unfortunately. While I deleted all friends and purged my facebook of real material - I use it for marketplace listings and groups which give it considerable value and insight.
I would argue that breaking the loops and addiction is a solid first step, disable notifications and delete the native apps - and apply/increase friction to use the platform e.g. for facebook access it only via the mobile interface.
> reconnecting is a hassle when you nuke your entire friend list
Why? Deleting your account doesn't mean deleting your friend list backup. I've deleted my FB account many (6?) years ago, I am not missing it at all, but I still have screenshots of my friend list, if I felt urge to connect with these people it would be matter of few minutes to send them requests (it's not very extensive list, maybe 50 people).
Same reason why I didn't DELETE my LinkedIn account, but it's FROZEN with montly reminder from Linkedin.
I'm always surprised how impulsive and lacking self control are some of the HN users, I'd expect better from tech community.
Almost all of my favorite follows on Twitter have moved into private group chats. What they post publicly is filtered and a mere glimpse of the group chats.
Outside of HN, I've dumped all the normal social media apps. I deleted facebook, twitter, instagram, multiple communication mediums. Now I'm on messenger for close contacts and discord for everything else, I barely check email at this point because it's also full of junk.
Is it fair to hope that we could demark profit media from the broader definition of social media? I always sign up for each new social media "big thing" for a few months to check it out and be aware, then delist. Family members have accused me of being a social media user/addict too because I read HN. I try to explain that (to me), there's a very real difference between "virtual places that are social" and "virtual gatherings that have a profit motive behind them."
This article makes it sound like it’s so easy to do. I have struggled for the last decade. So either people are lying or I’m the only one struggling from years of teenage conditioning and trying to go cold turkey as a millennial adult.
I’m writing a book on this topic. All the benefits are there, but can we talk about all the dark patterns too? It’s not as simple as just deactivating an account or never logging in again. It’s persuasive technology and built into our daily habits.
The FOMO is definitely still there, especially if your family or colleagues only use a specific platform. There’s many opportunities and doors that open by being part of these things, but my rule is in moderation.
I drifted off commercial social, so I'm no longer a coveted MAU. I do check in occasionally to connect with friends. That being said, I drifted into a few mastodon instances that focus on particular interests I have.
I ditched Twitter as soon as Elon announced he was buying them. I deleted my FB account years ago. I tried instagram but it didn’t last long, closed that as well. Never had TikTok account, Reddit, Snap etc …
Socials are overrated. You simply don’t need them.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to entirely block Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and google news for a week. I has previously set screen time limits on Twitter, which I had become downright addicted to, but I found myself frequently overriding it.
After a week of quitting, I found myself really not wanting to go back. I decided to keep the apps removed from my phone and blocked on my main browser, with a special Firefox profile dedicated to social media. In that profile, I downloaded an extension that limits me to 3-5 minutes per day per site. Most of the time I don’t even use it. Having it as a separate profile lets me not worry as much about having the site blocking extension have access to all the sites I browse.
If you’ve struggled with this sort of thing, maybe give this approach a try. If I’m being honest, I was probably on Twitter for an hour and a half a day previously. Now it’s just minutes.
How are you blocking those sites? Like you, I keep overriding every local “strategy” I try. I've blocked _some_ websites through the hosts file, but I sometimes need Twitter for non time wasting reasons.
In my main browser, I took an unconventional strategy: disabled javascript on them. For the time limiting blocker in firefox, I just use an extension called "LeechBlock".
One thing I've noticed is social media is becoming more close-knit. This is an observation from my younger relatives. They only submit content into their profiles which only their close friends could see. Another thing is their preference to use messaging platforms to relay information instead of utilizing posts.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] threadfor a long time the thought was that most suicides would find a way, so specific countermeasures weren’t useful; turns out, it’s not true.
So say I'm mad about something Elon Musk did, and I go to Twitter to post about it, I'll get fed a bunch more tweets reinforcing how bad the thing was and get even more outraged, and keep scrolling. Even without a Twitter account, I find clicking on seemingly benign Twitter links on HN quickly gets me into threads of political discussion that rile me up.
Contrast that with going to e.g. HN and sharing a story or commenting on a post about something I don't like. It's definitely still possible to get into an argument that pisses you off, but at least its actual people provoking you, in a community that has a pretty low tolerance for that, so it's not going to go to far.
If you're pissed off enough, you'll find another outlet, though I think twitter is less an outlet than a place to make you even madder
But I'm definitely going to bite my tongue calling these articles silly as long as it has a chance of "unplugging" people from the toxicity.
At this stage, the world is actually quite stuck with social media and, honestly, I can really believe that something as seemingly minor as quitting Twitter can change someone's demeanor, quality of life and so on. Social media is a bloody juggernaut, sometimes it's best to move out of the way.
I know what you're trying to say here, but I just want to note for the record that all presidents communicate primarily with their constituents in a one way fashion.
In other words, that president was unique primarily in platform, not mode.
No, it says a lot about those people.
Most likely the sentiment is about app. A Web site doesn’t send notifications to drag you back in.
Switching from app to a web site exclusively on desktop would probably go a long way for many.
Nothing happening there is important in any way. Who cares if Musk buys Twitter.
It's been fantastic to not have to worry about all the drama for a decade now.
"Los de afuera son de palo"
- Obdulio Varela -
If social media is a walled garden, then I believe the next wave of social media will be "social fences." Ways of creating silos within a platform so that you only interact with specific communities, much like how subreddits, discord servers, or twitch channels operate.
Even if I'm wrong about where it's going, I think everyone feels that the wave of the last decade is cresting. Catching it will be tricky, but if you manage it then you'll ride it far.
Same for Musk -- bet those nannies do a lot of eyerolling, though.
You think people are craving to be passified? That would be contrary to any social media, or interaction on the web entirely.
Regardless, I find the whole jump from product experience to neurochemical behavior a bit silly to begin with. I wouldn’t use it except this article did first.
If we're being honest here, the center of gravity regarding dopamine is Twitter. I spotted a fascinating effect regarding people "threatening" to leave Twitter as they're tired of all the rage. Most of course never even attempt to leave, but those that do may give Mastodon a try.
At Mastodon, they create a fresh little sub community and move over their Twitter bubble the best they can.
Now things get interesting. Crickets. As it turns out, the only thing that held the bubble together is a common enemy. There is no enemy in the new bubble that only has friends. Worse, not even the friends turn out to be friends. None give a single fuck about the other, and would be absolutely fine not ever hearing a single word from you ever again. They were just liking your opinion against another opinion to which they also disagreed. That was all.
For the true hardcore Twitter addict, their entire existence and identity is effectively wiped out when you take away the rage. Hates gave them status, and being happy is the worst thing that can happen to them.
This has improved my mental and emotional health ever since i met these people, they are real, and like me they don't say things or do things for attention; as you would go to quite literally any other social structure for those things. The "open" nature intertwined with these "islands" of people creates for a really cool social experience.
Easily the best I've had online since most of the forums I used to be a part of have died. If you need someone to bounce things off of, just DM them; they are real and they won't post screenshots of your interaction two years later. Obviously that's not true for every instance, and it's not true for every person, but you have a higher likelihood of finding people you can genuinely care about even if they don't live in your area, and the only thing that unites you is the general dislike for people, but the begrudging realization that we need each other.
This statement is very interesting and I would like it if you expanded and clarified what you're talking about here. I'm not trying to debunk you or anything and I think I get it, but it's a pretty wild thing to say without giving more details and I would really enjoy it if you expanded on this sentence.
That is the problem.
It's about time for them to get away from the digital drugs companies and their products like Instagram™, Twitter™, Facebook™, TikTok™, etc feeding and manipulating their users with tons of nonsense and getting controlled on what is seen and unseen on their platforms to bring out their inner outrage towards others.
> “I got over that within a week,” she said. “I would just put my phone away. And before I knew it, I wasn’t getting the urge to scroll and see what’s happening in the world.”
Well done. If this person can do it, perhaps you also can too?
I’m not going back there, as I certainly don’t see it as the future of the web and not worth investing energy into.
I just wish some ppl could figure out how to send text messages again.
Just adding this as a counterpoint, that it can be uncomfortable for longer than a week as it says in the article.
I’ve likely missed out on loads of invites.
How about you send the message? Everyone I see complaining that they lose contact with their friends are not making any effort to stay in contact (myself included).
In the 12 years I used Twitter I met lots of people in real-life through it, I know some some very good friends through it and it's been a consistent source and outlet for information and quirky humour.
Now the surprising (for me) thing: After quitting it from one day to another ... nothing happened. I was bracing myself for a time void that would pop up and need filling with something else (something more productive?) but that just didn't happen. It felt a bit like the stories from people who quit smoking cold turkey after 20 years and they just didn't get any withdrawal symptoms.
TL;DR - Quit Twitter, nothing happened. Would recommend.
Any time a big change happens to people's daily experience I think it's reasonable and good to have a lot of reflection on if that change is good or bad and what should be done.
For some perspective, the type of person that is going to make a blog post about quitting social media was likely "highly online" in social media spaces and probably doesn't even fully understand the ingrained models of personal disclosure (almost no one does well as the problem is so new) that they realized was unsustainable that lead to them now quitting so they cope by making a blog post. It's ironic and more than a little bit funny.
It's like when someone is new to Alcoholics Anonymous because of legal issues, losing a job, or a partner leaving and they get to step 4 "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." and write it all down and then they instantly hit steps 8, 9, 10.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
A drunk would give you a 2AM white knuckled call you don't care about for when they ripped you off 10 years ago, but the action of those steps is the same thing as the drug. I'm not an AA guy or anything but it's a relatable model. If anyone reading is struggling with substance or social media addiction check out SmartRecovery.org for rational group recovery.
So I guess my take on the phenomena of the "I'm leaving" post is that they are the rattles of a person trying to change but the well worn paths to change (steps 4, 8, 9, and 10) are basically the user's DoC (Drug of Choice).
Sure, the posts are self indulgent and suck, but what else do you expect from someone operating with a serious dopamine imbalance?
To answer your question though, it is definitely not "mundane as fuck" to them. One's too many, ten's not enough. Yes, it is the same thing and I gather that you don't likely suffer from it in this context. I think we can all agree that you can just not read their posts
Posts like this even if their content isn't profound or even that novel, that person is working to be a better person and tried to work out their feelings by putting pen to page and yelling into the void.
Your question here is what a lot of people are thinking though and it's a valid question. I'm not trying to cast shade on you at all. Without you asking this question I wouldn't have been able to think about this stuff. Dopamine management is important to a life lived consciously. How we get off differs in a rainbow for each person. Hopefully our discussion here helps someone out in the future. It's basically impossible that it has zero effect.
Cheers.
Why? Because Twitter still strikes me as such a niche platform. It really is a bubble. I know there are people with >100M followers but most of those people just read their feed and that's it without ever writing a tweet.
it just seems way less interactive in general than say Snap is or FB/IG were. And if that's true then "quitting" a passive consumption platform just doesn't seem like a big deal than something you get invested in.
Maybe that's the point: people get caught up in this bubble and think it reflects reality.
Twitter in particular does seem to have a lot of bots. I really wonder if Twitter didn't screw themselves by allowing Elon to effectively renegotiate if Twitter can't prove the activity isn't all bots.
Dumbest thing I've done in a while was delete my FB account because I felt like the arguments here were compelling. Turns out that I had regular interactions with a number of people through FB that weren't really feasible any other way, and reconnecting is a hassle when you nuke your entire friend list. It may seem like these are low-value connections, and many people here will suggest that they are, but you should carefully consider for yourself whether you want to nuke that bridge.
Importantly -- it was not, and is not ruling my life, so deleting it caused no great epiphany or transformation in my life. At least, not a positive one. I visit FB once every day or other day for a few minutes, and I value the interactions. I blocked all the unpleasant stuff, and only use FB to connect with people I like. Be careful about deleting that.
Want to know the hard truth? If I really wanted to improve my life, productivity, etc, by removing any particular social media -- it would be Hacker News. This place is a very attractive time suck.
I've had people here literally try to gaslight me about this as if they know more about my relationships than I do. They don't realize that certain apps are the entire internet for very large portions of entire countries... or that other methods would just have way too much friction to keep in contact with all the exchange students I know around the world... Explaining this, they then try to tell me my relationships just aren't that important to me or as deep as I think :)
> I haven't seen anyone here claim that "relationships" on social media are not important.
Because you didn't see it then I didn't see it? I'm sure you don't read every single comment every day. This has been said to me twice now. I've seen plenty of other people get in the same arguments.
> What many do say is that the daily addictive "interactions" through social media, like FB, don't mean much in terms of strengthening or weakening a relationship.
I'm telling you it does mean much in terms of strengthening or weakening my relationships.
> I don't have an FB or Whatsapp or Google account even though they dominate my country.
You know people that are willing to do that. I know people who aren't or can't.
Like you, I too was clarifying what I have read here on HN so that others don't misunderstand that what you read is the only view on HN when it comes to SM. Now, I do support that perspective - not using FB or WhatsApp has only proved to be a minor irritant for me simply because I work on my relationships the old fashioned - I keep in touch regularly through calls / SMS / email / in person, enquire about their well-being, share my feelings and experiences, and offer support when needed. This happened because I changed as I grew older - I started prioritising improving quality over quantity of relationship, and I found social media to be hindrance for this. Moreover, the privacy benefits of not using social media hugely outweigh any value that social media platforms offers.
> You know people that are willing to do that. I know people who aren't or can't.
Sure, I have faced similar issues - for e.g. when I ask someone to share some photos, and they learn that I don't have whatsapp, they do groan and grumble when I ask them to either email me or upload and share it. Some don't and that maybe disappointing for some moment, but you move on. If it's a big deal, you persist. Social media platforms may be the dominant way to communicate in today's world, but it is not the only way. And if you focus on improving the quality of your existing relationships, people will want to communicate with you. That works for me because I put in the slightly extra effort for that.
I found the opposite. You're still not listening and just droning on with your patronizing bullshit like everyone else.
> That works for me because I put in the slightly extra effort for that.
No, you just think highly of yourself by imagining you know other situations.
That has not been my experience. Plenty of times I hear people here on HN suggest that if you only communicate with someone over FB, it is by definition a low value relationship that you could safely lose. If you really are friends, you will have higher quality communication.
Also, why would you delete your Facebook account without having another way to contact the people on there that you do care about interacting with? You should at least have email addresses, phone numbers, real addresses, or whatever else in a personal contact list.
As I said, it was dumb. I did not fully consider the implications, which is why I caution others here to not make the same mistake.
There's also a part of society that does require Facebook and other Meta properties, unfortunately. While I deleted all friends and purged my facebook of real material - I use it for marketplace listings and groups which give it considerable value and insight.
I would argue that breaking the loops and addiction is a solid first step, disable notifications and delete the native apps - and apply/increase friction to use the platform e.g. for facebook access it only via the mobile interface.
I think the larger lesson here is "don't take advice from random strangers on the internet".
Why? Deleting your account doesn't mean deleting your friend list backup. I've deleted my FB account many (6?) years ago, I am not missing it at all, but I still have screenshots of my friend list, if I felt urge to connect with these people it would be matter of few minutes to send them requests (it's not very extensive list, maybe 50 people).
Same reason why I didn't DELETE my LinkedIn account, but it's FROZEN with montly reminder from Linkedin.
I'm always surprised how impulsive and lacking self control are some of the HN users, I'd expect better from tech community.
I’m writing a book on this topic. All the benefits are there, but can we talk about all the dark patterns too? It’s not as simple as just deactivating an account or never logging in again. It’s persuasive technology and built into our daily habits.
The FOMO is definitely still there, especially if your family or colleagues only use a specific platform. There’s many opportunities and doors that open by being part of these things, but my rule is in moderation.
Socials are overrated. You simply don’t need them.
After a week of quitting, I found myself really not wanting to go back. I decided to keep the apps removed from my phone and blocked on my main browser, with a special Firefox profile dedicated to social media. In that profile, I downloaded an extension that limits me to 3-5 minutes per day per site. Most of the time I don’t even use it. Having it as a separate profile lets me not worry as much about having the site blocking extension have access to all the sites I browse.
If you’ve struggled with this sort of thing, maybe give this approach a try. If I’m being honest, I was probably on Twitter for an hour and a half a day previously. Now it’s just minutes.
The teenagers I know do not post in any "public square" style social networks at all. They avoid Facebook and Twitter entirely.
Twitter is mostly for people in their 30s and 40s.