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Comment by headmelted | Hacker News Reader

Or.. and hear me out here..

Just close your account completely?

We’ve seen a great many of the people that built these systems come forward to explain that not only do they regret their role but that the harm being caused is worse than most people believe.

I’ve also not seen or heard anyone (even people that currently work there) argue that these networks are in any way a net positive for society or the vast majority of participants. This should be a red flag to you as a user.

Maybe we could do something similar to what goes on cigarette packs.

BROWSING STAGED AND MANIPULATED PHOTOS ON SOCIAL MEDIA MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR MENTAL HEALTH.

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I get a lot of positive experiences an connections out of both Instagram and Facebook. I use them solely for hobby purposes though.

I’m part or the largest Danish Blood Bowl 2 league and it’s all organised through Facebook. So is almost all our table top tournaments, and it’s really an wonderful community, even when you branch out into the warhammer general community in Denmark. I use Instagram solely for painting miniatures, finding inspiration, sharing experiences and connecting with other people to learn from or teach them tips and tricks.

This is all very anecdotal of course, but I think SoMe is just what you use it for. I share your worry, but I wonder if we’d get rid of the pressurised competitive society without the platforms, or they just made that part of modern western society very easy to share.

I do wonder why people post pictures of themselves, or why people look at them. I get that there are a lot of beautiful people on platforms like Instagram, but there are so many that you sort of expect them to drown each other out. I don’t get it at least, but for hobby and creative purposes, I do think these platforms are kind of great.

I can respect this, but then is it the case that SoMe is adding value to the community, or that you've just found a positive community that happens to use that service to communicate?

What I mean by that is, if your community was in touch via some other platform would it still be the same positive community? (My guess is, yes it would - but maybe there's some specific value from these tools that I don't see).

As a counterpoint I use Instagram maybe 2 hours a week total and get some minor value at little cost. I dont really see a benefit in closing my account.

Like anything, if you know how to moderate your experience and balance your time and energy, you can derive something positive getting it. Speaking from personal experience, my Twitter experience got much much better once I got diligent about adding muted words for anything political or the outrage du jour.

The problem is that not everybody does, or want to do that. Teenagers, for example, are highly influenceable (sp?) but their peers, so they get controlled by social media rather than the other way around. Same with people following celebrities/influencers. It's easy to build a collective consciousness that people compare themselves too, to their loss.

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