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Comment by warp_factor | Hacker News Reader

While I also wouldn't put Netflix on a pedestal, I think it is in a very different category than Facebook:

Netflix, you indeed lose your time but you don't have that feeling that everyone else is having a wonderful time while you are losing yours on the couch. Netflix (as TV) provides some healthy entertainment.

Facebook on the other hand provides entertainment by broadcasting how perfect other people's life are. And this is exactly what pushes people to depression and suicide. Ask people you know and most of them will admit that after their daily visit on Facebook they feel a bit burned-out. This effect is also magnified because you now always keep in mind that you should post a "perfect picture" on Instagram to please your followers.

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This seems like a stretch to me and certainly diminishes the value of your opening original comment "... that end up spending so much time on your platform doing nothing instead of contributing in things that would benefit society".

Personally, I've just as well felt a bit burned-out by watching very popular TV shows on Netflix portraying the amazing lives of some people as I have with Facebook, and I would never say Netflix has caused negative value to my life, just as I wouldn't say that with Facebook, which in my personal experience has been one of the very best products of this decade.

Certainly agree to disagree.

I can see your point and definitely agree to disagree.

I think the perverse effect of Facebook are not fully well understood yet. But I'm fairly confident we will look back at this as something terrible. Facebook and Instagram also indirectly created the selfie generation, more self-centered than ever with the goal of getting more and more likes. I don't see that happening with TV.

And then there is the whole fee-speech//mass propaganda tool// privacy debate that I'm not even getting into.

> Netflix (as TV) provides some healthy entertainment.

It's far from obvious that TV is healthy. This article has some discussion of one potential downside and a rebuttal: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-tv-rot-your-...

With simple logic: If TV is not Healthy, then Facebook is definitely worse as it mixes TV and broadcasts specifically the fake perfect life of people you know.

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