Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring.

Also as someone who has only ever used social media as a low-level content creator (we used to be called deadbeat artists) I feel like this starts an important conversation about the new problems that develop when you stop consuming and start doing.

In my experience over the last decade there are fewer and fewer ways to find a community and any success as a creator of any kind without getting corralled into social media and furthermore getting corralled into being a daily active user / consumer as to not get shadow banned by any given app.

Doing rather than consuming feels much healthier than doom scrolling, but theres a larger dialogue that has to happen about the problems with creating in the 21st century imho.

This bit in particular really hit me. I've noticed a rising trend around the Internet (or maybe I was just blind to it before), mostly on Reddit, of people who really do seem to consider any sort of real-life social interaction a chore and an attack.

I forget the exact context, I think the conversation that stood out to me was about someone in a gas station or something, trying to make friendly conversation with another shopper next to them, along the lines of "oh that's a cool hat". And the consensus of the thread was "yeah that's awful, why would you do that, why are you subjecting them to the labor of talking to you" or such.

Guys... we're humans. It isn't a crime to make small talk. It's not a chore to open your mouth. Most of us consider (or used to consider; and I'm not even old) that enjoyable. What happened?

I am sympathetic, I have it too. Hell, ever male in my dad's family line seems to have it.

But its a problem that needs to be treated and not a character trait that needs to be respected. The WORST thing you can do for social anxiety (or any anxiety) is to avoid trigger it. You'll become a depressed shut in.

No point triggering for the sake of it.

You need to bring the socially anxious person in a very easy enviornment.

A scenario in which they can easily "win" the social setting.

Like a pre-season friendly game against a minor league team. You put 30 runs on them, and of course you'll start the season full of swagger.

It's called the "winner effect"

Social anxiety is essentially triggered by not being in control of social outcomes.

Repeated winning outcomes do lower the need to be in control and thus should reduce anxiety

Actually there is, if it's contextualized correctly. It's called Exposure Therapy [0] and it's scientifically proven to help phobias/anxiety/fears. Avoiding the anxiety-provoking situations makes things worse.

[0] https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/exp...

It might work for fear of flying or heights

But being in a social setting and trying to penetrate into the "in crowd" and being rejected would only make things worse.

You need a controlled environment to exogenously make the socially anxious person "in" so that they then have enough momentum and confidence to go out in the real world and go through an X amount of rejections on their way to thier first real win.

If they lose confidence before achieving a real win because the X amount of rejections is too high , then you gotta go back to the controlled environment.

It's basically like baseball with Major and Minor leagues.

Minor league aces are way more confident than sluggish Major league players.

In short it spurs from not being a winner.

The socially anxious person maybe knows at the intellectual level that social wins can be achieved by working the numbers game, but they are too apathetic or nihlistic or scared that their first attempt is going to be a loss which will further depress them.

When you immerse the socially anxious person in a controlled environment you make sure that his first attempt is a Win, and the second and the third and the fourth etc.

And you make them win enough times that they maybe venture into hubris, so that they have a full tank to go into the real world and face the natural X amount of rejections and losses which comes before a win.

I disagree about the win/loss theory in general though. I think it is really a dissonance about what people expect and value in in or out groups.

Someone afraid to speak up in certain groups might be quite outgoing in another. So there isn't really an absolute level of success. There are also very successful people that are anxious. Expectations towards yourself play a large role though.

Everybody curates their environment, people just do so unconsciously and without realizing it. An American movie star might dominate the room in Los Angeles...but they'd find a hard time even speaking to people in Iran, and if they are recognized people would be hostile towards them.

And there is effect of becoming oversensitive when encountering strong stressor randomly and often. I stead of getting less sensitive people can start reacting more aggressively at smaller threat.

Your train of thought here reflects classic avoidant behavior -- it's not therapeutic unless I'm in control of all the variables. Certainly you're correct depending on the type of fear being extinguished -- dropping buckets of spiders randomly on someone afraid of spiders isn't likely to help things at all, nor is dropping someone with GAD in the middle of a crowded concert -- but for the particular phobia (social anxiety) and exposure (small talk with strangers in public) we're talking about in this thread, it's definitely the low-stakes kind of exposure exposure therapy aims to provide.

That people suffer from it is no wonder when you go from one purity spiral to the next one but that is certainly something large social media companies reproduce at least involuntarily.

This is kind of an American way of thinking. Small talk with strangers is weird in many places.

If you're a woman spurning it can get ugly fast (you are not obligated to a reply from a stranger). It's not at all unusual for a woman to ignore small talk from a male stranger and instantly be met with vitriol. I've been in situations where an ignored comment like "smile honey" is instantly met with "bitch". If this is the cost of small talk, it isn't worth it.

There's also the newfound respect for mental health, some people are extremely anxious or agoraphobic, and attempting small talk with strangers in places where people are required to be (grocery, fuel, etc) seems unnecessary. Is complementing someone's hat really worth the potential anxiety? not remotely.

If you're lonely and want to meet people, don't try to do it via small talk with strangers. Join a club, take a class, volunteer. Go to places where interaction is expected, do not foist it upon strangers just trying to go about their daily lives.

If you must small talk, please do not take it personally if someone ignores you.

The filler small talk content isn't the substance, it's the launching point for those more substantive conversations.

For instance, maybe you got the hat at a concert in Wichita, and this person at the gas station grew up in Wichita. Maybe they spent their career designing hats. Maybe their deceased kid used to love hats and seeing it reminded them of their kid. You don't know what the "actually interesting" topics available are until you actually spend ten seconds talking to someone.

As with almost anything, people are free to ignore you or reject social conventions, that's totally their right. But it's also totally fine to try to start a conversation with someone.

You're right that some people, for one reason another, might not want to carry a conversation. In those cases, they can simply not carry the conversation. One of the joys of being human, though, is commiserating with fellow humans. If the location isn't one where conversation is strictly verboten (e.g. movie theaters, gym machines, library study rooms), I see no reason why people shouldn't (respectfully) see if the other is up for a conversation.

I would agree (and really wish I could) if most people would recognize disinterest and stop there, but anecdotally I'd say half the time it's met with anger or some form of pointed dissatisfaction. People have outright touched me to get my attention about some off-hand comment I ignored initially. It's frequent enough where I'm conditioned to start looking for an exit when I'm approached by someone in public.

It's incredibly unpleasant to feel obligated to continue small talk because you fear what happens if you don't. I can not support any kind of small talk under the reality of what comes along with it. It's one of those cases where some people ruin it for everyone else.

For all the whinging about anti-social nerds, I've found the people most obtuse when it comes to social niceties to be the overtalkative that don't pick up on subtle cues that the person they are haranguing just wants to be left alone and get on with whatever they were involved in before they were so rudely interrupted.

No one owes anyone attention, particularly undivided.

Eh, I can understand that, but in my mind this seems like one of the purest instances of not letting the assholes co-opt the thing I like.

Some people can't take no for an answer in loads of contexts. In my mind, the proper response is to call those people out for their misbehavior, stigmatize those bad actions, and let the vast majority of good actors and positive experiences carry on.

I just don't feel like I have the physical or mental capacity to call everyone out, though I'm incredibly grateful for those who help out if someone's clearly being bothered in public (especially men calling out other men who are just out there hitting on strangers). Bystanders have gotten me out of a couple very uncomfortable situations in the past.

While that's certainly possible, it doesn't need to be a launching point for anything.

It can just be an offhand remark, a chuckle and a reply and off you go. Not every interaction needs to have some sort of agenda or goal associated with it.

At least that's how I see it.

Instead it's a tightrope walk. You have to be appreciative but not too appreciative, you need to be disinterested but not too disinterested. Sometimes it doesn't matter and you lose anyway.

Appear too appreciative and you're hounded by someone (or worse, I've had friends that have been followed)... look too disinterested and you've earned their ire.

I will note that this is largely a problem of male strangers talking to women (it's not universal of course, I've personally witnessed these issues across all varieties of people).

>Instead it's a tightrope walk. You have to be appreciative but not too appreciative, you need to be disinterested but not too disinterested. Sometimes it doesn't matter and you lose anyway.

You don't have to do anything. A polite nod and walking away isn't bad, but not even that is required.

>Appear too appreciative and you're hounded by someone (or worse, I've had friends that have been followed)... look too disinterested and you've earned their ire.

Well, yes, there are crazies out there, and it's probably best to stay away from them. But IME, those folks are few and far between.

>I will note that this is largely a problem of male strangers talking to women (it's not universal of course, I've personally witnessed these issues across all varieties of people).

Yes. That's definitely a problem. And one that pisses me off a great deal. But that's not a problem with small talk, that's a problem with entitled assholes and the aforementioned crazies.

That's not about small talk though. That's about power and, sadly, that's always been, and likely always will be, a problem.

And women have had to come up with a variety of ways to deal with this. Whether it's to ignore the person and walk away or politely (or not so politely) decline to continue the interaction.

Until every human is well-adjusted and relatively sane (meaning never), that will be an issue.

You appear to be arguing that because a small group of jerks make interaction occasionally uncomfortable, no one should ever interact with anyone. That seems a little extreme to me.

Note that I'm not telling you (or anyone else) what to do or not do.

Edit: clarified my prose.

Or do you believe they are exactly the same thing?

What, exactly, do you suggest I do about it?

That's not a rhetorical question.

I have no control over the "crazies" or the "Entitled assholes."

I only have control over my actions.

So please, do tell. What is it I'm supposed to do other than treat those around me with courtesy and respect?

What the person you were replying to was trying to tell you is not that the problem are men who start the conversation with "hey pretty girl, can you sit on my face?", but rather people who start with a polite conversation, and if they feel they are met with a warm reaction think it opens the door to more.

It might be only a small percentage of guys who follow up with inappropriate actions, but when as a woman you get 20+ men a day starting to make small talk with you, you end up with a high probability of having at least some of them being weirdos.

On the other hand if the woman answers coldly to the small talk tentative, some people may take it in a bad way. The line you have to walk to not appear too warm to weirdos and not too cold to easily offended people is very thin.

If you can't understand that under these circumstances some women become anxious at the idea of men starting small talk with them, well that's too bad.

As for what you can do, maybe start with asking women you know how they feel about it. Maybe they are all fine with it. It is also very dependent of where you live. If you live in a dense city women get harassed way more often than in a suburb area, it's kind of a number problem.

You assume bad faith and evil from everyone except yourself.

You read what you wanted to read into my comment and ignored anything that contradicted your view that I'm ignorant/oblivious/probably an evil harassing rapist.

I live in the most densely populated city in the US, and was born, raised and have lived here most of my life.

I am acutely aware of the situation and the issue, but you assume you know know better than anyone else. Which is a bunch of entitled (although entitlement of a different kind than I mentioned in the comment to which you responded) bullshit from an entitled, self-righteous asshole. That'd be you, in case there was some confusion about that.

So, as I should have said (which was my initial impression, given your deliberately obtuse and clearly bad faith response to my comment), fuck off jerk.

Which is what most women I know will say to entitled assholes like you.

Edit: It occurs to me that I didn't explain myself clearly enough. As such, I will. And I'll use small words so you'll be sure to understand.

>If you can't understand that under these circumstances some women become anxious at the idea of men starting small talk with them, well that's too bad.

Who said that? Not me. In fact, I said just the opposite.

>As for what you can do, maybe start with asking women you know how they feel about it.

Who says I haven't? I'm sure I've had more conversations about stuff like this than you have. But you seem to be so wrapped up in how sensitive you are to even imagine that someone else could have been there long before you.

>Maybe they are all fine with it. It is also very dependent of where you live. If you live in a dense city women get harassed way more often than in a suburb area, it's kind of a number problem

I am quite aware. But small talk isn't harassment. That you equate them says more about you than it does about the very serious problem of harassment.

Given that you've decided that anyone who doesn't explicitly mirror your talking points, they're obviously idiots, evil or both, shows exactly how disrespectful, self-centered and entitled you are. I definitely wouldn't leave any woman alone with you.

From what you wrote it looks obvious to me that you completely missed the point I was trying to make, but I share the responsibility for that at least as much as you do, it is not easy to get points across through HN comments, especially when you have no clue who you are talking to (+ I am not an english native speaker in case that was not obvious yet).

I could try to re-explain things better, but you have shown that you are not in a state to take in anything that I say anymore, so I hope you will eventually find a friend who can explain it to you better than I did (and that you will refrain to insult them just because you feel attacked).

Don't. I understood you perfectly well.

It's not that I'm unable or unwilling to "take in" what you say. Nor am I angry or upset. I just don't suffer fools gladly[1].

>I hope you will eventually find a friend who can explain it to you better than I did

I understand the issue just fine, thanks. It's you who didn't understand me. I'll chalk that up to you not being a native English speaker.

>and that you will refrain to insult them just because you feel attacked

I didn't insult you because I felt attacked. I didn't intend to insult you at all.

Rather, I called you out for your nastiness and bad faith. Because you deserved it. And I stand by that assessment.

Your self-righteous[0] tone is unwelcome here (and in most places).

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-righteous

[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/does...

Continuing the conversation, and using it as a launching point for something substantial, is a reasonable reaction.

Stopping the conversation with a friendly dismissal, a "chuckle and a reply and off you go" as you said, is a reasonable reaction.

Reacting rudely and thinking "who are you, why are you subjecting me to the labor and chore of talking to you?" is not a reasonable reaction.

To clarify, I didn't mean that "chuckle and a reply and off you go" was the means to extricate oneself from such a situation although, as you said, it's a reasonable thing to do.

I meant that an "offhand remark, a chuckle and a reply and off you go" was the whole point of such an interaction -- not some sort of prelude to something beyond that.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't make small talk to meet other people.

If the moment allows it and I'm in the mood, I enjoy making an offhand comment about something interesting or amusing that's going on around me.

If that's not well received, I just move on. It's no big deal (at least not to me) if others aren't interested.

I will say that, at least for me, 7-8 times out of 10, the interaction is welcomed and comfortable. That said, I do try hard to be personable and polite. That usually makes a big difference.

I agree it depends on where you are, though I'm not sure about the "American" categorization.

I was in Seoul where small talk with strangers was completely weird... then I went to a different city in South Korea, Busan, where people would chat you up all over the place (waiting in line, in a street food stall, at the sauna, etc).

I later learned that Busan was a city of refugees in the Korean War where the entire country was pushed into a single city - people had to learn to live closely packed together and cooperate, and the culture stuck.

I'm an introvert and prefer to not have small talk, but as a tourist in Busan, it wasn't that bad (fun, actually) to randomly hear about a stranger's daughter's upcoming wedding, completely unprompted.

I still remember the compliments one of my jackets got me 1, 4 and 6 years ago. That probably helped making it my favorite jacket, especially since those are the only non-family compliments I got in the past 10 years.

When you like something about someone, please make their year and compliment them on it.

It's true that sometimes I just don't want to be bothered while I'm running errands, but I wouldn't consider someone making small talk, cracking a joke in the elevator, etc. to be some sort of social transgression. As an introvert, chatting or small talk isn't really a chore, and I waste enough of my own time on my own time, so what's a few words with a stranger?

That said, it should be considered perfectly acceptable to signal that you don't want to stay engaged in a conversation if it's someone trying to explain their theory on building a perpetual motion machine. That actually happened. I did not want to stay in that conversation. But even extroverts don't like dealing with crazy.

It only becomes a chore when the talking itself is the work, such as dealing with Comcast charging you for a modem you totally did return, or dealing with the hospital when they incorrectly billed your health insurance and now they're trying to make you pay for the difference.

I learned the perfect trick as a small time person of interest at tech conferences. You say “Okay thanks” and walk away.

At conferences you can even go one better and say “I’m gonna go talk to that other group” and walk away.

Signal intent, leave. Works like a charm.

I disagree with this. What people consider funny varies a lot from person to person, and a stranger trying to joke with me comes across as rude. A friendly nod, saying hello, that's fine. Approaching me and immediately assuming that we have enough in common to enjoy the same humor? Sorry, but that's creepy.

This is such a miserable perspective.

Yes, in theory, humour varies significantly amongst different groups. But if we're in the elevator together and I mistakenly press the Door Open instead of Door Close and I jokingly apologize for the delay and that we'll be taking off shortly, the idea of you being offended or "creeped out" by such a harmless joke is ridiculous to me.

I find that when I participate I also start mimicking this behavior and insulation is required.

Fortunately, nothing happened to small talk. I’m a talkative fellow and people still react cheerfully and converse with me. One can only suppose that everyone who hates this went online.

Out of 100 people who read a comment, 99 of them move on even if they found it provocative. So the 1 that bothered to reply is the angriest of the bunch.

Yeah, I realize that I post too much on HN, but I don't feel that angry. More like a know-it-all motormouth who types fast enough to pollute a pretty big swath of the 'net in a short time. But I do think that the effort to participate online filters for motivated people, and frequently that's going to be some form of anger. "Wait a second, be right there, someone on the Internet is WRONG!" (paraphrased from an ancient comic)

We are humans, but we are also ambitious. Most people have, in their mind, a clear idea of the profile and type of person they want to be having a conversation with.

Inevitably the person making the small talk is never that type and profile of person.

So there is the double whammy of the disappointment with one's social status and a feeling of missing out on something else (or in this case someone else) which kicks in .

And with all this psychological shit going on in the mind of the person on the receiving end of the small talk....no wonder that a conversation doesn't organically ensue.

It's a very rare thing for Victoria Secret's models to be the ones start making small talk, and yet Brad Pitt or Leonardo di Caprio are on the receiving end of that.

That would happen regardless of social media, but somehow a paparazzi or a photographer is there to immortalize the moment and then the content gets on the platform which again makes money showing very rare shit to the public.

The combination of rare shit being thrown in the public's face and the unprecedented amount of free time that the public has on their hands to absorb the aforementioned rare shit causes unhappiness with the not so rare shit happening during the mundane daily life of the populace, like Joe Average complimenting your hat at the gas station.

On YouTube, there is a whole category of silly (but fun) videos that are nothing more than incredibly rare events (some funny, some scary) being caught on film. Example: Freak waves

A more thoughtful version of this would be a "supercut" which was quite popular about 10 years ago. Someone with a LOT of free time would find a particular actor/actress or view or pose in 25 to 100 different films, then curate a very short, but impressive video.

Wider: Many of the posts you have made here today are very thoughtful. Keep up the good work! :)

Hey Thanks :)

That's not uncommon in many parts of Europe, Germany for example. People in Germany are commonly rude (compared to American standards) in response to attempts at small talk (by strangers). Some cultures plainly frown upon small talk with strangers and in those cultures people find it uncomfortable at best.

Eh, I’m 50 years old and don’t really use social media (certainly not Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, twitter, etc.). I don’t even really text other people. But, I don’t agree with your sentiment. I’ve never understood people who want to have small talk with strangers. It is the opposite of enjoyable.

What is so unenjoyable about that? How can one spend 50 years on this earth and find human conversation, something we literally evolved to do, so uninviting? I just don't understand.

It is definitely chore to me. I'm however not claiming to be normal. I'm a hardcore misanthropist and overall pessimist. I have never in my 32 years of life enjoyed talking to people, and I have never been active on social media either (other than posting an extremely rare comment like this).

Communicating is the same. It’s fun in small doses. But then by the time the evening or weekend rolls around the last thing I want is to talk with more people. Which is sad, because I’d really like to have a non-work, real-world social network.

For sure talking in real life is not an attack (exempting folks with mental disabilities). But it’s something to think about. Especially as remote work makes our work relationships even more superficial.

I do prefer the polite gesture of small talk to not saying anything in some cases and can understand that people generally think so as well. And in some instances you really meet a new friend. Unlikely in business environments and yes there are some people that do too much small talk. But that isn't really an imposition.

Just an anecdote for thought.

I grew up in NYC and have lived in a variety of places around the US.

To a certain extent, your observation about NYC is valid. But only to a point.

In NYC, if you're walking down the (very crowded) streets or on the subway, since there's so little personal space, it's considered rude to just stop and start talking to someone.

That said, if there's a reason to interact, most NYers are polite, pleasant, kind and helpful.

What's more, if you're in a situation that calls for it, you can have wonderful conversations with New Yorkers. I do it all the time. I just try not to invade the limited personal space of other people.

It's not that "small talk" doesn't exist in NYC, it's just that where and when such conversations happen differs from other places.

I've lived a a bunch of different places around the US, and there are significant differences as to the etiquette surrounding interactions with strangers.

It is a bit of culture shock though. I went to college in the midwest (Cleveland) and for the first month or so was quite taken aback by all the strangers who'd say hello as I walked by. I got used to it after a while.

I think it's more about introverts vs. extroverts.

As an extrovert, I'll pretty much talk to anyone, anytime. In fact, I pretty much never shut up.

OTOH, a goodly number of those who spend a lot of time online are introverted or just misanthropic.

As such, if you ask a lot of folks who are online, you're more likely to get responses like "Why would you want to talk to someone else?" because the folks who actually like interacting with other humans in person are doing that instead.

That's more anecdotal experience and reasoning to consider.

Edit: As tomjen3 pointed out[0], it's not just introverts and misanthropes who are uncomfortable talking to people IRL. Folks with social anxiety disorder and other issues are also in the mix too. Thanks for bringing that up, tomjen3!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29151887

I think this is hugely important to remember. Many regular people don't spend much time on social media. Of the ones that do, maybe 1 in 100 (or less!) actually ever post anything. It is an extremely biased source of data.

That just doesn't happen in New York. Maybe that's due to space constraints, but it's not like I'm blocking the flow of traffic more or less when I talk to someone on a bus.

I like New York a lot, but this sort of small talk with strangers is absolutely something I miss.

>I like New York a lot, but this sort of small talk with strangers is absolutely something I miss.

It's not about blocking the flow of traffic. It's about not invading the (already small) personal space of others. I think the appropriate term is "etiquette."

As I said, there are absolutely appropriate situations in NYC to engage with others. It's just that those situations are different from those that are appropriate in other places.

As someone who was born and raised in NYC (and who lives here again), that's normal to me.

As someone who's lived in a dozen other places all over the US, those situations are different in many places.

In a walkable small town, it's normal to (at a minimum) nod in acknowledgement of those you pass by on the street. In NYC, when you pass by a couple hundred people in the space of a couple blocks, if you tried to do that you'd end up with whiplash.

In places where everyone is in their car unless they're at the place they wish to go, it's not unusual to interact with folks at those places. But you certainly wouldn't roll down your window and say hello every time you encountered another car.

No one does that, except occasional heavily drunk person.

I love NYC and New Yorkers, consider myself one. New Yorkers are deeply misunderstood and it's usually taken for rudeness when it's just the nature of living in such a big and bustling city.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly didn't feel you were disparaging anyone.

If my comment gave that impression, my apologies.

Someone asks me something at a bar? I’m a total chatterbox, but I can’t recall a time where I ever started the conversation. The problem is, people don’t usually start conversations with me. I’m 6’4, huge, and a dude. I’ve non-ironically thought about getting a shirt made saying "ask me anything" and wearing it in a public setting.

One of the most fun things I can recall doing in recent memory was going on a pub crawl in Japan in spring 2019 (feels like a lifetime ago). I was vacationing alone after a business trip, and I just decided to sign up for a foreigner-aimed outing. An "all pretenses dropped, you’re coming here to meet and chat with other people" kind of trip. I had an absolute blast. The mix of people was like 60% foreigners and 40% locals. Didn’t really meet anyone I continued further communication with after the event, but it’s a fond memory. Didn’t manage to work up the courage to do a US based one when I got home, and the pandemic started 8 months later.

It really boils down to in my mind, where do I meet people around my age? All my current friends are people I knew in college and we all do a nearly-every-night discord meetup where we talk about life and play games. It certainly doesn’t provide the same happy brain chemicals that doing literally the same thing but in person did when we were all in college, buts it’s kept me sane for the last 5 years.

College was such a different social experience. I wasn’t top of my class grades wise, but I always got top marks in computer science and computer engineering courses. I also had a healthy amount of personal projects on the side. I ended up with this reputation on campus for being able to help with any of the computing classes, and I was always a firm believer in ‘master through teaching". I considered helping other people as part of my own learning process. For anyone who seriously wanted help, you could always reach out to me. I even gave supplemental talks for particularly rough classes during our ACM weekly "coffee and code" meetings.

Needless to say, this made me fairly popular on campus. I knew a lot of people and counted many of them as friends. The group was fairly diverse, both ethnically/culturally and by gender. We ate dinner together, met up and played games, built things, etc. it was a fantastic time of life. But there was one underlying thread - I had never actually initiated a random conversation. Every person I count as a friend today had either looked over my shoulder and was curious about what I was working on, was someone who asked for help in a class, was introduced by a mutual friend, etc.

That period ended 5 and a half years ago when I graduated and started working for a tech company you’ve definitely heard of. Things have been rough since then. I moved to SoCal because of the office I was working in. Only two of the people I knew from college went to SoCal, some moved out of state, the others moved to the Bay Area. I’m about to lose the people in SoCal, as they’re moving out of state to further their careers elsewhere. Now I'm weighing whether or not I should quit a job I actually like in exchange for moving closer to the people I know and a job that's an unknown.

At first it'll be cliquey but over time you'll start to initiate conversation and get to know new people. Everyone is there to get to know others.

Social Anxiety isn't the same as being an introvert. For an introvert it can still be a great experience, it is just that it drains him of energy.

An introvert would probably avoid small talk and would quickly tire of it, yes. I'm definitely not the biggest chatterbox myself. But to see the simplest form of small talk as a "chore" or "labor" - like it's some kind of hostile attack - feels far more like social anxiety than introversion. And social anxiety is not a good thing. We shouldn't be glorifying it. It leads to unhappiness, and life problems, and is considered to fall under the umbrella of mental health for a good reason.

As this thread implies, it's mostly social media, particularly the Reddit crowd, that is hell-bent on glorifying harmful social anxiety and making it out to be just as benevolent as simple introversion.

One time, I ran across a guy who was clearly struggling with a very messy divorce and struggling to get back on his feet. I sat down and just listened for the better part of an hour. I shared my own story of struggle and loss, and at the end he seemed like a large weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Sometimes, all people need is a bit of connection to get through life. Someone to acknowledge their existence in a world that otherwise doesn't care about them or their story. I'm by no means a priest or hippie, just an average dude who rides a bike and likes to say, "hi".

The USA was founded on the idea of negative rights and an opt in culture, instead today we increasingly see a shift to people demanding positive rights and putting the burden on the individual to opt out. In the future I could totally see a market to have a robot buddy follow you around and have responses ready for all the things people want to pester you with.

Can you be specific?

> it is completely abnormal for the vast majority of anything to be negative and the prevailing wisdom be just grin and bear it.

Tangentially, my life has been mostly negative until adulthood. From what I've learned of others, this is pretty common, just not commonly spoke on.

If it weren't for those big platforms, many people would be happy to check out videos on your own website. But when YouTube is as easy as it is to consume, they're over there doing that instead. Same with photography, why would anyone go look at a photographers website when they've got endless photography to see on Instagram.

For me, I feel like the answer to running a software company without online advertising is to go local, grass roots, focus on niche problems for a handful of real world in-the-flesh clients, rather than trying to be everything to thousands of people I'll never meet.

For content creators I think the same might be applicable, say for a musician to focus on their local music scene, or an artist to find local projects to contribute to or pieces of work they can do for their community. It has the upside of building your life in the real world as well, which is hopefully more tangible and fulfilling than building up your life in an ephemeral platform that may not be here tomorrow.

If there is a new player in the field, what or who is going to stop FAANGs from buying the competitors (even it violated the antitrust law)? Sure we do have Sherman Antitrust Act for this... but no one bothering to do the enforcement and the companies are not going to stop for the goodness of their hearts.

We cannot expect the small/newcomer companies to try to compete against FAANGs and hoping thing changes. The only way we can get the enforcement seriously is the Congress itself. Frankly, the Congress prefers to listen to their corporate masters over their constituents.

There's the crux of it all. We know firsthand that our addiction to companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are unhealthy, but the only thing stopping us from keeping them in check is our government. I've been saying this for a while now, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the SEC cuts deals to FAANG companies in exchange for NIST compliance or unwarranted data requests.

Lots and lots and lots of people in the "us" group find using Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon convenient (and cheap). Otherwise, there is zero friction for people to type in a different address in the browser and use Libreoffice or Pinephone or Mastodon or whatever competing alternative with open standards there is.

Josh Hawley, Bernie Sanders, Mitt Romney, and Nancy Pelosi all hate big tech. Their reasons and suggested interventions are about as far apart as you can get.

There's also an enormous amount of cross-ideology jealousy about the amount of money FAANG nerds are making.

Yahoo refused to buy Google.

The anti-trust action against them did not cost them a lot of cash directly, but it did lead to heightened scrutiny on further anti-competitive practices. And it wasn't too long after that the FAANGs came to displace Microsoft as the dominant technology companies.

Could be a coincidence, but I personally feel like there was a connection.

Imagine a world where IE6 never has to compete against Firefox because every version of Firefox is mysteriously "broken" by the latest windows update. "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" for the late 90's early 2000s. I think that its a very realistic thing to think that anti-trust played a huge part in allowing the open web to flourish as it, even with MS fighting as hard as it could to stall it out with IE stagnation.

They became victim to the same corporate diseases that plague all public companies after a while.

I don't think we'll do that, but it's what it would take. Replacing the companies won't help, except maybe very briefly.

There were a lot of proprietary "information superhighway" projects by various companies, that were all made irrelevant by the success of the web.

I wonder sometimes why there arent more grassroots non-toxic (?) social platforms for more localized communities.

For instance what is preventing there from being a community-funded simple instagram-like app for individual arts communities in non LA/NY cities given that its never been easier / cheaper to build this kind of platform?

The answer my be that it still isnt easy to build reliable / scalable apps that people actually want to use. But sometimes I wonder if theres not something more sinister going on...

Why would there be anything more sinister? It obviously takes a ton of work and money to operate a service like Instagram. And if 99.9% of people are happy using Instagram in exchange for being tracked and/or giving another entity the power banish them from the network, then the community funded app is going to have problems competing.

People forget that there was a time when mobile was considered an existential threat to Facebook. But they navigated it well.

Haha, my first thought after reading this comment was that I could've written it myself. I miss internet forums.

Also, I'm much more creative when I own the content I make. Doomscrolling is one thing, feeling like you're wasting your life by getting sucked into the dopamine/reward loop, another.

Reaching people is hard, because social is the main channel, but I'm experimenting with:

1) helping people (everyone) to reach me directly:

https://sonnet.io/posts/hi/

So far, I've met so, so many fascinating people this way and the depth of conversations I've (or just feedback) doesn't even compare to anything I could ever do on, say, Twitter.

2) content syndication This one's a bit harder as there's a certain amount of bureaucracy involved (https://mxb.dev/blog/syndicating-content-to-twitter-with-net...)

I found a perfect solution to Twitter blocking my account for whatever reason the might have:

1. go to https://www.potato.horse/shhh 2. scroll to the bottom of the page 3. roll over the Twitter button

If you're on mobile, here's the video: https://twitter.com/rafalpast/status/1457702588787433473?s=2...

Basically, recording and mass broadcast means moderate talents lose nearly everything (as far as social, or even monetary, value of their skills) and discourage people from developing those talents in the first place, because those technologies place them in competition with people who are at the top edge of human achievement in those areas—including dead ones. It's broadened how many people get to experience those top-tier talents, and how often, but practically obliterated a formerly-major component of how people related to one another, socially.

The Internet has changed this a bit. Some folks have responded to the problem by digging hard into a niche and taking their act online, because you can succeed in an really tiny niche while being only pretty-good at something, since there are so many people that a niche with nearly-zero audience can still reach a lot of people, considered over the entire globe—think filk, or steampunk-themed music, or doing furry art on commission, or something like that. But in person value among their actual social circle, and among family, remains low, because Spotify and TV and Netflix et c. exist.

Earlier today we had https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Subculture-Society , which I think ties into what you're saying here. And I think yours is a good observation. Day-to-day small scale entertainment has been reduced to zero or even negative value.

How to take lessons from that exception and bring it to other lived experiences is uncertain. Most other niches don't have the fluffy animal aspect to smooth over the difficulty of getting friends/family interested in what you're doing.

[0] https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/List_of_conventions_by_attendanc...

And yet, mediocre content abounds in the media. How should that be explained?

But one thought this thread is provoking is related to this well-intentioned but self-destructive (imho) 20th century cultural narrative that talent as a prerequisite for art creates a tyranny where certain people are allowed to express themselves with dignity while the vast majority are not.

Sometimes I like this narrative, sometimes I hate it. But regardless it undeniably had the effect of leveling the playing field while retaining the same old gilded-age toxic celebrity hierarchy, which simply seems to have had the effect of letting the wealthy and powerful silently dominate cultural / artistic production, which this thread already started to touch on a bit.

Ie, the now fairly ubiquitous experience of walking into an art museum, seeing a blank canvas propped on the floor next to a neon light. Thinking "Anyone could make that so whys this person rich and famous for it?" Shrugging, leaving and not going back to an art museum for another decade.

I enjoy that kind of art in the right context but it clearly has a destructive effect on peoples natural ability to care about art and have a healthy creative practice themselves.

Even if it's mediocre, it can still be art IMHO.

Rather, I think it's just that Sturgeon's Law[0] applies to most things.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

There is so much fun to be had in the space between 0% and 100%, and some don't even get started until they're confident they're already at 95% in the comfort of their own home.

A description which could apply to all of art, ever?

The in human ones tend to socialize around being social in permanence - always meetup at every start party, volunteer, join the board - help it survive - it's hard to do with our terrible work life balance we have today - stay up all night to look at stars and go to work and volunteer? ouch...

But the online communities? All it is is bragging rights - nothing is ever good enough, fun enough unless you dedicate yourself to being "That asshole" - and it boggles my mind that astrophotography has that concept at all... Those assholes are often depressed jerks with more money to burn than anyone else can burn and the "community" loves it up.

It ends up being all about the insta... all about the reddit points... all about the discord infamy

10 years ago, it was all about "how to buy this web cam and modify it for astrophotography to get fun shots"... today its "dump 50 grand to buy this or your spending money on meme gear lol gtfo you dumbass"

how did we get here?

The irony of raging on twitter is hardly anyone replied because twitter is all about playing to the algo and it feels like everyone on twitter who has a following just uses it to complain about burnout, depression, ADHD and other illnesses that to me - seem to be a symptom of the "twitter community" - which isn't as bad as Facebook, but is still largely biased to suffering

That's a really important point. Joining an online community has become much lower effort than joining an in-person one. Just finding a time and place for everyone to meet is more of a chore than even running a small site online. Depending on the type of community you might also need to deal with recruiting speakers, storing/maintaining shared equipment, etc. My family belongs to a ski club, and it's a commitment in both time and money. It's not a full time job or anything, but it's on the same level as a typical four-credit college course. If not for the fact that the underlying shared interest is physical in nature, the online alternative would seem very compelling.

The downside of online is that the conflicts and competition for "internet points" often colors the conversation or even drowns it out. People start to show up who actually don't care as much about the shared interest as they do about having another arena in which to fight. Without the real-world mechanisms that tend to curb the most outrageous behavior, and often with substitutes that encourage it, the need for explicit moderation becomes greater ... but brings its own share of problems. In my thirty years or so of online experience, moderation and moderators have exacerbated conflict and degradation more often than they've helped. Just read the news and you'll see it happening today on all of the big sites.

The solution, IMO, is to pay attention to the actual science of how people coexist, and apply its lessons. What are the empirical effects of upvotes and downvotes and other reactions? Of showing or not showing view counts? Of hierarchical vs. flat conversations? Of content restrictions or moderator behaviors? Unfortunately, that kind of examination will never happen where "soft" sciences are disrespected, which is every place where these decisions actually need to be made. Everyone just flies by the seat of their pants, and most of them fly into mountainsides.

The people that are good at it and help the community seem to go through massive burnout too, love some of the youtubers but there are times they disappear to get away from it all.

I was not expecting it to be competitive.. was not expecting to find you only made friends if you spent a lot of time and money on something.. it's kind of "suffer with us and you may be accepted"...

they use racist frogs and memes for everything... can't tell what is real and what isn't... most people seem anti-social - makes sense, i am too - but not to the degree as some..

it was just a lousy community compared to in real life astronomy clubs where no one cared if you came with a plastic telescope.

If i was 30 years younger, there were some discords with kids that were fun... i got a laugh out of them - but fun in the sense of lol i can't believe you just said that to him not fun as in "this will be enjoyment"

yeah, that paragraph was probably the best one.

all in all i find this text really painful to read.

main issues:

- a lot of sentences feel superfluous, like time-wasting boilerplate

- poor grammar, punctuation and paragraph structure disrupt the reading flow

- there is little logical structure or flow of arguments

- there is far too much repetition

I call it the paradox of discussions on the internet. When it comes to some topic (eg language learning) everything has already been said somewhere by someone very clever. So in the grand scheme of life the value of my contribution to a conversation is 0. Now, if instead of wasting my (and everyone's) time in a pointless discussion I write an in depth blog post or make some creation of some sort that expresses my thought in a deep way and share it then I become a spammer. Whereas a one liner written by a newb or a comment that is posted everyday with a slightly different wording is a 'contribution'.

I spent a good chunk of my career in platform engineering. I generally worked on internal hosting platforms, but there's enough correlation between those and large online platforms. These platforms must knock out competition, this delivers some benefits to the end user but as an intended byproduct it eliminates choice. If you are anything but someone who wants a boilerplate to build on, say you want to do something custom or special, that will always be out of the question -- because deviation introduces risk of various types.

It's a tradeoff, and for now it's a sufficiently good tradeoff for the public until they become aware of what they bought.

Some platforms are clearly more toxic than others, though I'm increasingly of the opinion that they are all pretty toxic, just different flavors of "world outlooks" to choose from.

I feel that those that actively participate (commenting, posting, responding, reacting) are more affected and more caught in the feedback loop. Those that more or less passively read these platforms, rarely interact, and largely work to keep "perspective" seem to have less of a tough time on it and allow it to impact their outlooks and moods less.

Those that tend to interact more seem to get caught in a sort of feedback loop. measured/Nuanced/Moderate or considerate takes are generally frowned upon on most of the major platforms these days. Outrage and simplistic viewpoints reign supreme, and most will bury the rest, forcing even those with moderate stances to either "consider a side" when continuing or just outright not partake. And all of these seem to be, relatively speaking, vocal minorities.

There are plenty of people that consume stuff and just dont have anything useful to say, or just dont have the energy to say it and defend it etc. Of course this seems to depend on the platform as well, for example I would never post this take on reddit....

With that said, I go agree generally, that these are toxic and create unbalanced viewpoints and world views. As Dave Chappelle said, "twitter isnt real", and to an effect that true. Twitter, reddit, youtube, facebook, dont necessarily pan out to the larger population's opinion as a whole, at least where its measured (such as in politics and polling)

But I guess I'm just missing the gene that makes me compare myself to what I see online. Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of envy and jealousy throughout the course of my life. But I don't find that looking at my friends' vacations makes me less happy with my life, I enjoy living vicariously when they go on vacation, and sharing my own when I do the same. I don't compare myself to models. I don't need a picture of some greek god to tell me I'd like to lose those 20lbs again. I've often joked that I'll probably be anxious about ending up broke and destitute right up until the day I retire. (I'm doing well in my career and financial life, it will just always be a worry of mine). But I actively avoid the kind of content where the only goal is to bragpost, and I find it quite easy, because that kind of personality doesn't appeal to me.

Is it because I follow my friends on Facebook and Instagram, rather than "influencers"? I don't really care about Lambo some middle eastern prince just bought this week, or what purses some model owns. Maybe this is why I prefer Facebook to Twitter. I don't like the default-broadcast model of Twitter, I think that's what makes it toxic. On the other hand, the default-private model of Facebook that lets me just enjoy my friends' content also creates stronger echo chambers, I suppose.

I feel the same way.

Facebook is a great way to keep up with what friends are doing. When I adopted a kitten, it was the perfect place to show pictures to all my friends.

The problem is, "keeping up with your friends" turns into living vicariously through them. This type of social media is just a highlight reel of your friends, and some people have a hard time internalizing that.

Personally, I'm in a great position in my life, so I don't really live through other people's posts.

I don't use Instagram at all. On Twitter, I follow a bunch of people in the InfoSec world and a couple politicians, and I don't read replies to the political posts, half of which are probably bots anyways[0].

I keep my Facebook friends list relatively slim. I deleted and blocked my racist uncle. Everyone one of my friends, I can tell you exactly how I know them. I don't accept random requests. I don't follow political pages. I'm in a few groups, but they're well-moderated.

[0] I wish I could use a regex as a block list. "[A-Za-z]{4,}[0-9]{4,}" would probably block 90% of bots.

I agree, and I also think it matters what you read. If you're constantly reading political punditry, vapid clickbait stuff that constantly reminds you that there's somebody richer and more beautiful than you, etc., consumption alone is detrimental.

Yes. I am passionate about a sport. I manly follow that sports' athletes on Instagram. I take a look daily while on the toilet or idle and get tired of it after some minutes. The same goes for Reddit, I just follow a couple of niche subs and enjoy using both platforms. No politics and no "serious" topics.

Well, I think one of the real dangers of social media, and its algorithms, is a similar danger to society that gambling represents.

Gambling payouts are precisely timed to dopamine chemistry in the typical human brain. They have tuned it to that level of fundamental biochemical reaction. That's something that is refined/tuned over decades of focused development.

Let's look at sugar sugar everywhere. Foodstuff companies are doing the SAME THING. Decades of refining the precise amount of sugar (which is absolutely addictive) they can slide into foods to expand people's excessive consumption. Decades of precise biochemical studies, A/B studies, etc.

Marketing has for decades tried to refine certain social psychology with varying degrees of effectiveness to prompt irrational consumption of whatever they are pushing. They've been effective, but I'm can't say that the marketing industry has ever found a "silver bullet" of biochemistry.

But I do think that social media has formulated a social psychology addiction silver bullet. And I think this one may be more pernicious than sugar or gambling or opium. This one can be used for propaganda, not just reliable production of subservient consumer/addicts.

Especially when the drug dealer (Meta et al) is so good at getting and keeping you hooked.

Sorry, but even though we know social media has its downsides, it also has advantages: keeping in touch with friends, socializing, a way to stay up to date with your community, new recipe ideas, exercise ideas, time management ideas, maybe even the occasional envy that someone's success triggers more ambition in you to succeed etc.

It's a tool, like any other, and if used properly it can enhance your life.

Don't want to dunk too hard on this article, because the points made in it are valid. But they can be achieved while you're still active on social media.

For example, if used properly, you can get exposed to a lot of novel ideas in 2-minute bite sized clips. You can get motivated to hit any of the points mentioned in the blog.

Saying that, of course the article was written to be a very one-sided view on the topic. Given that, it's obviously going to be shared on social media and garner even more attention / clicks / eyeballs. It's not ... irony per-se, but something close to it.

I use Facebook for finding and registering to IRL events, and Instagram / Tiktok / Twitter almost exclusively for consuming tech, programming, and gaming content. With exes of mine, they seemed to mainly be scrolling through either comedy content or content related to their interests.

I'm sure it's very possible to engage with social media in unhealthy ways, but for the issue of modern life feeling isolated or empty, I wonder if social media has become an easy scapegoat for deeper societal problems. (some possibilities: work that doesn't feel meaningful or rewarding, insufficient leisure time, car-centricity / hostile urban planning)

It's sure interesting to notice a crowd who, no doubt, mocked the "violent video games caused Columbine" go full throttle after social media.

Correct in theory, but we universally agree that illicit drugs can be damaging to your life. -- even in some cases taking them not seriously enough can cause addiction and serious issues stemming from that.

We just need to figure out if Facebook/Twitter/Youtube are paracetamol, codeine, vicodin, cocaine or heroin.

>> we universally agree that illicit drugs can be damaging to your life

We absolutely do not.

In what way are these advantages over not using social media?

They're all things you can do — provably — without social media. In fact, the problem we've identified that leads us to questioning our use of it is that social media is actually a less effective way to stay in touch with friends and socialize.

People who hold this opinion, when asked to define what counts as social media, will invariably draw the line based on "what do I like/dislike." Facebook, Snapchat: social media. HN, WhatsApp: not social media.

That argument does not make sense. For "thousands years", you lived in small one room cabin with kids, grandparents and maybe even sibling there. You socialized, because there was no way to be alone.

Good luck finding people now willing to live with you that way.

No one will trade letters with you either. They expect you to communicate and socialize at places normal for contemporary society.

I find that even if you go out of your way to sanitize and make SM useful to your needs. You can't do away with the unhealthy incentives around it and possible potential dopamine addiction.

I can confidently say that I have benefited significantly by way of increasing my knowledge in my interest area and gained a good variety of perspective.

I do agree that there’s always a temptation to go for “likes” and get pulled into some heated debate. But after a while it becomes easier.

Alcohol is useful for helping me sleep but it’s not healthy to use alcohol to help get sleep and there are other, less harmful, ways to achieve the same end.

Reddit, arguably, is more toxic than my version of Facebook - but it is strangers being toxic, and zero FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) which is prevalent on Facebook and Instagram.

I personally view the old IRC (Efnet!), BBS, chat rooms, ICQ as the earliest form of social media. And just as addictive - I couldn't wait to get home from school and jump into a chat room. I checked it as often as I did Facebook later on.

For example, "I'm so stressed out by all these new frameworks" is a frequent comment on HN. That's FOMO, that's keeping-up-with-the-Jones's, that's a negative reaction to social media.

I just think it's night and day different from the firehose that are modern social media.

I also deleted my accounts with all of my other social media sites. I think HN is the only social media site I still have an account with.

There's a lot of alarming behaviors there that are considered normal. There's also real-world stalking, doxing, and violence that happens on Reddit. I've seen people get followed across alt accounts by folks who have a bone to pick with them. Some of the stuff I've seen happen, and have experienced, on that platform is frightening.

I do a lot of things that are unhealthy, in moderation. Certain TV shows I watch are toxic to some extent, but I still watch them.

That said, these communities don't represent Reddit as a whole. Looking at r/all, and in theory seeing the most trafficked pages on Reddit, gives an entirely different view than my niche group of subreddits. I think the biggest reason for this is that the thing that get promoted on r/all are the most engaging post of the most engaging subreddits. Sometimes that's something apolitical like a post from r/eyebleach, where people generally agree that cute things are nice. Other posts are things like this one [0] which are meant to inflame you regardless of your side in the matter. If the post's score is anything to go by, this one post gets more engagement then some of the subreddits I visit do in a month.

When someone says Reddit is toxic I usually assume they mean r/all. The platform itself isn't inherently toxic, but it's desire to funnel everyone into the same threads is.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/qpcaeh/just_your_...

Which is fine! But I often see comments on here (typically under any article about Facebook) where the poster says they’ve deleted all social media and their life is much better for it, etc etc. No you haven’t because you’re still on here. No problem with that as long as you’re getting value from the time you spend here, but it should perhaps give you pause when prescribing what others do with their time: others may decide some other form of social media is a worthy use of their time and their choice is not necessarily more or less valid than yours.

And sometimes I am faced with the same negative effects as I was on larger platforms. For example posts or comments about salary or revenue will make me worry about my own financial future. Or technical posts will scratch on my self esteem when a lot of expertise is involved.

I think what makes HN feel different to its community is the fact that it is well moderated niche community that can look like heaven at first.

It’s social media in the same way my monthly pathetic run is professional sports.

Strong difference. The same way Minecraft is not social media, but it definitely can be used as social media.

Kind of annoying seeing people calling anything with an input box as "social media".

Had to remind people of the same thing on a popular blog with a (hyper)active comment section recently. Social media is like cooking: everyone thinks their own tastes better than anyone else's. (Yes, I know the other analogy. Gross.) Or maybe it's like driving: everyone thinks they're above average. Too many people relentlessly bash social media they don't like, while ignoring any flaws in the social media they're using to do it. Maybe it would be more productive to look at how they're different, and how to accentuate or replicate the good parts.

Nope. Not even close.

Video games aren't social media either. These places can be used as a form of social media, but that requires quite a bit of work and a lot of profile browsing, setting up, etc.

In no form are they social media by default though.

Alas there is no such position because the status quo is essentially... evil. Deceit, greed, exploitation is baked in so deeply in the dominant business models it is impossible to square with what one might term "common morality". There is no other legal industry that is predicated on so much ignorance and impotence of its peculiar class of "users-consumers-products". Tacitly the actual argument is: "the world sucks and you can do nothing about it. Wear those goggles and joint our happy metaverse or live as a poor and socially awkward pariah".

Countless people have sketched what "good tech" looks like. It is as distant today (Aaron Swartz memory day) as it was in 2013. But I will never accept that this distorted reality is somehow our natural or deserved state.

I prefer to think of current tech much like genetic diversity on a highly accelerated scale. The evolution of what survives has little intelligent design.

What works; works. What starves or causes damage to attract gov't regulation; dies or mutates.

What we are seeing is the chaos before an equilibrium is formed. We see the complex interaction of governments, corporations, cryptos, social media, AI, and humans - and as stable power structures form that can survive the tumult endure, so they evolve and become more "fit" than other elements in the ecosystem.

Think of it like a jungle, not a religious quest.

It is possible that countervailing forces will eventually show up. But I am not holding my breath. The new pattern is now entirely systemic. There are some loose ends here and there as people must "adjust their expectations" around e.g., financial and medical privacy, but you'd be surprised what innovative types of smoke and mirrors you can cook up when you are swimming in a fresh multi-billion wave every per quarter.

The first arrival of the Web and waves of network effects and excitement fueled the big platforms of today, but after all that hype those smaller islands-communities are becoming more pronounced among the general disillusionment (domestic cozy and all that). And, luckily, the smaller a community or subculture, the easier it is for it to switch to a self-hosted or more honest alternative.

Undoubtedly, ad-driven platforms will try to retain those islands by providing features or side-products communities might find convenient. However, as independent alternatives become mature and reliable, I hope the savvier and more conscious communities will[0] be resisting feeding the Big Social’s troll-driven data-mining oligopoly (or whichever next shady fad) and stay out, except for an odd visit to publish something intended for a wider audience or watch the dumpster fire burn out of morbid curiosity.

I think raising and maintaining awareness of the grossness of shady business models and their consequences, as well as vetting and suggesting alternatives, is best we can do.

[0] Most likely many already do, but naturally I wouldn’t hear about it unless I’m part of one. (Notably, as a result of this migration, many communities might become more closed, which is a bit sad to consider—and yes, Big Social is very much not without blame here again.)

The end result of which is that some people, having been burned, who once would have defended a better internet than the one we have now, are perfectly fine with watching it burn.

The reality of it that 99% of social media is politics (arguing), hot-takes, and memes. And all of it has negative intellectual value.

In write-only social media, I will post occasional updates and photos, but as an absolute rule I do not scroll the newsfeed. I have all notifications turned off, so if someone replies or "likes" my posts, I don't know about it unless I remember to go back to check on it, which I usually don't.

This doesn't have to mean turning your social media presence into a one way street: if I'm thinking of someone, I will often to to their profile and see what they've been up to lately. But I certainly don't need daily updates of their cat or favorite political memes to get through my day.

I know there are those who are going to say that using social media like this is pretty selfish. It might be. And if it is, I'm more than okay with that. I would much rather be selfish than waste my all of my free time as a scrolling zombie.

Ideally, I'd like to have an app for Instagram which has ONLY posts from people I follow (and messaging). No suggested posts, no ads, no reels. I don't think even things like Instagram++ can do this though, unfortunately.

I love this part, I noticed times when I'm heavily into social media and online dating I have significant career stagnation. I'm no longer building projects to help myself learn.

Now that I'm social media free, I have much more time to make music, and to work on my side projects. I also tend to meet extremely high quality people just going about my day. Life is less stressful this way.

I know this won't be everyone's experience, but this is what's worked for me.

My own minimal use of social media has allowed me to keep up with old friends, to share unusual online experiences, and to learn about many things like detailed product evaluations, specialized cutlery, and several forms of dance that I had never before even imagined.

There are many dangers with social media, but also great value. Anyone recommending to turn it all off because of the damage that may be done is probably missing out on a lot and propagating that blind spot with their well intended advice.

So, one of the things you learn pretty early in recovery is that there is no “normal” when it comes to addiction.

However, there are _patterns_ of denial and implicit social construction around risky behaviors that most people only believe matter for “alcoholics” and other obvious “losers”.

Something can be both toxic (booze, cigarettes, online fake conspiracy echo chambers) and relatively benign in small amounts. That doesn’t mean that foregoing them is bad in absolute terms.

OTOH recognizing that toxicity instead of ignoring it can help to avoid the “only happens to other, weaker people” trap. Said trap lets many people slide much further into self-destructive behavior than they could otherwise with a bit more self-awareness and compassion.

I completely deleted all of my pretty well followed and active social accounts (Facebook, instagram, and snap). Not deactivate, delete. At first there is a large emotional penalty I felt by “disconnecting” from people, however it’s been well over two years and my life is pound for pound better. I do miss interacting with some friends at times but honestly if they’re real friends, I call or text.

Social took away a lot of my attention and disconnected me from reality. I’m not saying do what I do, but for me it was a game changer.

When I cut out social media, reddit, youtube and imgur, I was essentially left with nothing to do when inbetween hobbies and work, but you quickly start finding ways to spend your downtime with more fulfilling passtimes.

Both steps are hard, and I would argue the "you" can expand to include your family/close circle of friends/community as well.

Yes, all these benefits will come to you from opting out of social media. You'll grow, learn and appreciate your own life more, and at the same time feel more and more isolated from the world around you.

You'll find you want to dig in deeper and connect with people in a more meaningful way - but there's nobody on the other end of that line. The people you try to forge connections with are empty shells: "These days, no one wants you – your physical company. People are aiming towards your attention and your credit card." Friends are accessories and only worth the prestige or social clout they afford you. My own ex-wife got angry at me when I initially quit social media, because in her mind if something wasn't out there for everyone to witness then it didn't really exist. I wasn't allowed to have a private relationship with my own spouse.

The most frustrating thing about this is the realization that you can't change this.

You can write articles like this, you can share it with your loved ones and friends, and they'll nod and agree that social media is bad and that they value real relationships, then close the tab and hit up Facebook again. The toxicity of social media is really something that comes from a realization in yourself that the life you're leading isn't fun, isn't enjoyable and isn't fulfilling. It's not something you can really show someone.

You'll grow to love yourself and be constantly disappointed in others. The healthy thing to do is to let these relationships decay into whatever they're going to be rather than fight the tide and try to connect to people who don't want to connect. My own friend circle has shrunk about 90% since I quit social media, and it's not just because everyone else is on social media. Everyone has a phone. The problem is people don't care.

It's lonely out there.

Sorry to be blunt, but I think if one leaves social media and sees their friend circle shrink, I've got bad (or maybe good) news for them: Those people weren't really your friends.

Part of the problem is with how we define "friends" now. A friend used to be someone who you could ask for advice on a very personal issue, borrow a tool from, someone who could watch your kids while you were gone, someone who will visit you if you're sick and dying. Today, "friend" has morphed into this nebulous thing: one of five thousand usernames of people (or bots) in a Social Media database, who simply chose to click a "follow" button. The corruption of the meaning of the word "friend" was the biggest casualty of social media. It's now this abstraction that may or may not have anything to do with friendship. A Social Media Friend doesn't even necessarily like you, and you don't even necessarily like them.

How many of those abstract friend-like entities in that Facebook list would give you an actual old-school phone call or snail-mail if you were dying of cancer? Those are your real friends. The rest of those people are merely entries in a database that we increasingly confuse for a social circle.

The other thing is that people organize tool borrowing and mutual help on social media now. Even close knit groups who helps each other a lot do it there. When you leave social media, you also left group. Just like in old times not showing up anymore in that common tavern meant leaving the group.

It is an awesome thing to lower (or eliminate entirely) your social media usage. To begin "doing", creating, and being in the present moment with yourself. It's liberating, and after the odd "brain itch" feeling wears off from not using social media anymore, I truly did recognize a state of contentedness that I'd long not felt.

But then you go to visit your family and friends. They begin talking about that viral video they shared on Facebook. About the funny TikTok challenges that they are all doing. About the latest internet fad that they got interested in over the last week.

And suddenly, you are an outsider. No one cares about that poem you wrote last week. Or if they do, they don't discuss the content of the poem or its meaning -- they tell you to start an Instagram page and start building an audience. They tell you to start that Youtube channel so you can maybe monetize that creative spark inside you.

It's very isolating.

I know there are many people out there who aren't on social media and share the same thoughts/experiences as me, but unfortunately, those people are not most the people I'm close with. Or even aware of.

Instead, most people are exactly like most people: living online.

I think we should distinguish between social media that uses algorithms to promote content and serve ads from those sites that don't. HN is definitely promoting something (they advertise one product: getting the best startups to do YC). But, AFAIK, HN does not algorithmically push content to me based on what I have indicated I care about.

That's the dangerous precedent FB set. They are crafting a world for you, and you are unaware of it. And, even FB employees probably don't know, they just know that they get their bonuses so they can finally buy a house in the bay area when they tweak that algorithm and the advertiser success rates hit the metric for the quarter.

My Facebook timeline is basically someone posting holiday photos every few months and annual birthday wishes. Everything is happening in personal WhatsApp groups with friends these days and it seems like my family/work/friend circle isn't on any 'newsfeed' type media at all.

And mind you it's not just introverted coders. A while ago when these posts came out about Facebook pivoting to private communication away from its traditional format that made perfect sense to me. To me social media these days is too boring to spend hours on.

As far as the individual is concerned, large studies on the effects of quitting are pretty much meaningless. It depends entirely on your context and relationship with it, and how much your social life hinges on events primarily organised on FB/Messenger et al. I quit about 5 years ago, and missed out on a ton of casual, ad-hoc events. And yes, they were "real", if mostly circumstantial - but still important - friends.

For me, these are the things which I think aren't so context-dependent when it comes to these good/bad/unhealthy discussions:

Issue A is the addiction pattern - "the scrollies" - being unable to tear your thumb (and eyes) away.

Issue B is losing your own take and knowing what your own take requires - I now do my best not to read other people's words in my usual reading voice, although it's not easy. Particularly with toxic/pseudonymous sites, you're often eating where someone else is shitting. You take on opinions without knowledge and viewpoints without experience.

Getting off social media doesn't do shit. Fixing why you are vulnerable to the issues we all know about does. Sometimes you need to get off SM to fix it. Sometimes you don't. Let's not turn this into some kind of religious rite of transition.

Most close friends found zero problems connecting with me. That’s cause they call, text or we just meet. It’s almost like I started to live in the ‘real’ life rather than a made up one. It felt weird and underwhelming at times but it is horrifying how much we can get sucked into social media without even knowing most of the times. The withdrawal symptoms can be real too.

Seriously just go and click the delete button right now after seeing this post. Don’t think just do it.

I've also absolutely forgotten to invite friends to events because they weren't on social media. Sorry if that makes you think I'm a shitty friend, but if you're inviting, say, 20 people to something, it's pretty damn easy to miss someone you care about.

It's a basic matter of self-respect. Do you want to choose how you control your attention? Or do you want to give up that control (and respect) by letting facebook et. al. choose for you?

Exactly. The way I look at it is this:

   I want to be around folks who want to be around 
   me.  And not all of those, either.

   If you can't be bothered to stay in touch, then 
   you obviously don't want to be around me.

   I'm perfectly willing to make the effort.  It's 
   really not that hard.

Who, exactly, would that "someone" be? If they don't know me, what would possess them to decide "oh gosh, I just adore Nobody9999. I wish I had some way to get in touch with him/her/they/xe. That sucks!"

>I think the idea of trying to make people "prove" they're your real friends and cutting the people who don't reach the threshold out of your life is a way of making your life a lonelier one.

You completely misunderstand my point. I will assume good faith (but given what I said and your reply, that stretches credulity, but I will try) here and explain:

I don't make anyone do anything.

I also don't beg people to spend time/energy on me. Relationships (of all kinds, familial, professional, platonic or romantic) are a two-way street.

If someone is only willing to interact with me through a particular medium, and if I don't they want nothing to do with me, how important am I to that person?

And that, like all relationships, goes both ways.

Someone I only interact with online ain't my friend. At best they're an acquaintance. If there's something more there we both will make the effort to maintain our relationship.

Anyone who's had any sort of personal relationship knows that they take work to maintain. That's a two-way street.

Some rando on the 'net ain't my friend. Or at least not until we both make the effort to change that.

Honestly, I'm not really sure why this needs explaining.

Edit: Corrected spelling (of my own name, no less) error.

> someone would like to get in contact with you but doesn't necessarily have your phone number

I see this differently: nobody is entitled to my time, or to contact me. If you don't have the means to contact me, that's because I don't want you to contact me. If I want you to be able to reach me, I will make it simple for you. Be that an email, phone number, or what-have-you. That someone random can't reach me on a whim is not a bug, it's a feature. If someone expects me to facilitate that for them, then they have a sense of entitlement to other's time. That's a them problem, not a me problem.

This is a great distinction that I think a lot of people would be happier if they followed. Just because someone wants your time does not mean you have to, or even should, provide it to them. Wanting to spend time with you is a basic prerequisite, but is not the only criterion.

I think there's another piece to that as well. Some people require more external validation than others.

Those who do will seek out that validation. And a great place to get that without a lot of effort is on social media.

That's not to say those who require less external validation don't use social media. Rather, I imagine that they use it differently.

I don't have data to back any of that up, just 50+ years of living and interacting with other folks both in person and online. As such. YMMV.

I provide people who I want to be in contact with the means to do so easily. Be that over email, phone, text message, or even physical meetups. If sending me a text, or sending me an email, is too high of a barrier for communication for someone, that's not my problem and likely indicates that the friendship was not particularly valuable in the first place. That's not a "test", that's simply how things are.

If I don't want you to be able to contact me, you won't be able to. I'm not obligated to make myself available to anyone who may wish to contact me. I'm not sure why this needs to be explained.

"The main benefit of taking a break from social media is that you stop living in a fictional world and finally start dealing with your own reality."

There is lots of quantifiable information showing that social media is bad for you. This seems much harder to quantify, but seems like the elephant in the room.

Great piece.

> There is lots of quantifiable information showing that social media is bad for you. This seems much harder to quantify, but seems like the elephant in the room.

This is perfectly reasonable, but I am personally very skeptical.

Also from the article:

>> “As painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?”

Plato's Allegory of the Cave precedes social media by a substantial margin:

>> Plato's “Allegory of the Cave” appears in Book 7 of his masterwork, “The Republic.” Plato wrote “The Republic,” a sustained disquisition on a utopian society, sometime between 380 and 360 B.C., during a period of Greek history known as the Classical Age.

What if the elephant in the room that is social media is actually more like a red herring, a diversion from the actual elephant in the room: human consciousness?

There are recurring themes and patterns that can be found in the comments every time this sort of article (and other sorts) pop up, the most common ones I always pick up on:

- many/most individuals speaking as if they understand The Problem, and know The Solution

- the most common solution people propose is legislation (aka: Democracy)

- there tends to be a very small set of....general thinking styles on display - it's a very slippery concept to nail down, I think of it as the complexity that falls under the general header of culture

My question is: what if everyone is wrong[1], and that is the reason that these problems never go away? What if the problem is something other than what it seems to be, and humanity never discovers it because they never thought to look for it, perhaps because they were fooled/distracted by the illusory The Problem that appeared before them (...from where - nobody asks.....as if it is has root access and is completely off the radar)?

[1] A theme or pattern that one will rarely encounter on social media: individuals wondering if their theory (ideology, whatever) is actually correct. The lack of curiosity in modern times would be shocking, if we had the counter-intuitive ability to see things that are not there.

Now that you mention sharing with your kids, it brings to mind another idea that pops up now and then when thinking about such ideas: it seems to me that once people start to get older and more knowledgeable, it's like they lose the ability to even conceptualize ideas like this, let alone take them seriously. It seems like with age and experience, it's as if people get "locked in" to reality, eventually perceiving it as a kind of immutable, bounded system that is forced upon us, as opposed to an open, mysterious environment full of hidden tricks and tools that we can us to shape the environment to our will.

If there is some truth to this, my armchair theory is that it is in part due to physical changes in the brain, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning

Anyways, I think humanity would be well advised to put some effort into seriously listening to the perspective that younger minds can bring to this old problem, maybe your kids could come up with some novel ideas to contribute if they set their minds to it.

I can tell you that since getting out TikTok has been one of the biggest benefits to my mental health.

We don't need to disconnect entirely, we just need a healthier limit on our use.

Now, if someone could please tell me how to break my HN addiction?! (for real)

It has a function for that in your profile. I can't find the original for my quote, it appears to have rotted. Still accurate though.

> Noprocrast is turned off by default. If you turn it on by setting it to "yes," you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours

It's not impossible, or even that difficult to leave (or not join) in the first place. You won't have convulsions/palpitations/stuff you get when you try to quit the genuinely addictive stuff. For sure it's a lot more convenient if you want to chat with people or see what they're up to, but life is not impossible without it. In fact passively quitting has made my life a lot easier; my time isn't wasted watching ads.

I wish people didn't put social media on such a villain-pedestal it doesn't deserve. I think that's one of the problems why people don't quit: avoiding personal responsibility into something that's said to be difficult.