Anecdotally I can almost get behind spending extreme amounts of time on HN/online in general being linked to worsening of mental health in some people (like me). I have periods of months of obsessive HN activity (feeling anxiety about missing a day) and during the same time all sorts of other problems and bad habits surface, from obsessive social media checking to completely unrelated stuff. Having one now.

But even for people like me I wouldn't say being online causes those problems, more likely some third factor makes them be super online and also shows up as other issues, though it may be a feedback loop (removing the option of being constantly online could do good for me)

I’ve felt similarly in the past.

Ironically, what helped me was to focus on Twitter. Specifically producing quality tweets. I was able to build an audience at my own pace, and it led to quite a lot of opportunities.

So in the same way one particular place isn’t always good to be, one solution is to spend time in a variety of spaces. I like irc/twitter/HN/tiktok, though I still lurk Reddit occasionally.

People do tend to hang out in particular haunts. Like specific forums. Probably once they have established some social connections/invested time.

I haven't got WhatsApp, and the thought of it brings me out in hives. Would be difficult to step back from the web. SMS once had a huge draw, and that was an incredible time sink with less immediacy.

I am from the era where you had to pay a premium for a shallow web. And it was just as addictive for me. I would line the browser up, connect to the Internet, browse fast, and frantically save. Then read later: for hours. Not to mention usenet. The best thing about that was that at least it made me ruminate and refine a response that I would fire and publish the following morning and retrieve a bulk load of messages in as short a time as possible.

For me it always felt like if I'm spending extended time browsing HN, Twitter, Facebook etc. this is usually a sign that I'm in a worse mental state than usual. There's likely a feedback loop there indeed, but when I feel better I just naturally don't spend so much time there; I don't feel the need and get busy with more productive things.

I like to talk, and I like to talk online. I think there is an amount of it which is good.

I don't know what that amount is.

What I can say is that each time I have successfully restricted my access to these places, it was followed by period of intense withdrawal, and after that was over, a notable amount of extra energy to do other things, to my very obvious benefit.

I'm skeptical that anyone has a non-addictive relationship with these places, and i was speculating that you are not an obvious non-example, despite your claims at having turned out fine.

I don't, for the record, think that the solution is as simple as denying your children access to social media while you still have control over them, but it also isn't obvious that letting them engage with it freely counts as a good form of innoculation.