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Comment by cronix | Hacker News Reader

I'm getting kind of tired of the narrative that "x is evil/bad/harmful, but I'm too weak (we won't admit addiction) to not use x. Everyone I know uses x. Government needs to regulate x (so I don't have to change my ways)."

I deleted my account over a year ago now, because I do view them as evil and do cause overall societal harm. It's not life ending. You'll adjust and then wonder why you didn't do it sooner. I made the choice for myself. The only people you'll lose touch with were superficial relationships to begin with. Do you honestly care what that dude you went to gradeschool with but haven't seen for 30 years does? Real relationships don't depend on x platform. All they require is you, and the other person.

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I'd take that further. When I felt lonely sometimes, I'd boot up social media and see what people are up to. Now, without social media, when I feel lonely I'll text friends. Unsurprisingly, it's more healthy. And when I reach out more, they reach out more. And instead of getting a button click invitation, people will text or call with an invitation and we'll actually talk a bit too. Turns out them telling me a thing and me telling them I like it is more fulfilling than facebook telling me they did a thing, and me clicking a like button.

such an under-rated comment!!

Slight nitpick.

The argument isn't, "so I don't have to change my behaviors."

The argument is, OTHER people are too weak to change their behaviors, so we need to have the government regulate THEIR behavior. (The greater good.)

It's bad enough to be lazy and want someone else to fix your problems. It's almost worse to decide you know what other people's problems are, and decide what needs to happen for them. (Or phrased differently... What needs to happen to them.)

No - since this is a social network this isn't all about personal responsibility. People hate-use facebook because everyone hate-uses facebook. There is no sane alternative because everyone needs to hate-use the same platform to be on it with everyone else.

I think it is plausible that a different kind of social media could be created that does not involve hate (at least not in the same quantities), that some people would find to be preferable to the current toxic ones everyone is one. It wouldn't happen overnight, but if no one ever builds anything, we may be stuck on these forever, or until we tear society part.

What is insane about making a phone call or sending an email? FB is not the only way to communicate.

Good for you, and, I quit too. But the reason I joined is that I miss out on a lot of in-person interactions, because friends of mine use fb to invite folks to events. What you're describing as a "superficial relationship" was actually "membership of a few small groups." Interacting with those people was a positive in my life, and I miss them. It's not just okay, but actually healthy, to have relationships that aren't lifelong and deep.

I bemoan the loss of "church community" despite never having been a churchgoer. It's nice to show up, blend in, make time with a few familiar faces, and leave. Non-intense social interactions are good. People who only have intense social interactions tend to have bad social anxiety, because their brain isn't accustomed to anything between zero and 100. The good part about fb is that it can be used to facilitate that. I'd happily have a profile on the Facebook Events platform, if it existed as a separate product. But since it necessarily comes with all the other baggage, it's healthier for me to miss out.

These are trillion dollar operations that hire teams of behavioral scientists to design user experiences that "increase engagement" by exploiting psychology in all the same ways exploitative industries like the gambling and advertising industries do. It might even be worse as interactive computer services are not regulated in the same ways that gambling, advertising, or alcohol companies are regulated.

This is like complaining that people who can't stop smoking cigarettes are just whining unless they quit themselves. Billion dollar industries spent decades formulating cigarettes to be as maximally addictive as they could possibly make them, and cigarettes are the #1 cause of preventable mortality, and kill about 500,000 people in the US each year. Despite those obvious, clear and unavoidable consequences, millions of people still struggle to stop smoking.

Isn't "x is evil/bad/harmful. Government needs to regulate x." basically the entire purpose of society?

I enjoy living in a society, and not having to worry about if every food I eat might poison me, or every bridge I walk over might fall down. If we decide, as a society, it would be better to ban Facebook, why shouldn't we?

If we decide as a society that certain races are evil/bad/harmful and should have fewer rights, would that make it okay?

Just because a lot of people agree on something doesn't make it right or good. I'm not sure where you get the idea that society is just a platform for banning unpopular things. A lot of modern civics was designed specifically to counter that actually, things like constitutional laws, representative democracy, high courts, political parties; they all serve to counterbalance and moderate the pure majority opinion on how to run society.

You know, I also enjoy living in a society and not having to worry if any media I want to use or any business I ran might be banned because someone somewhere didn't like it.

People can't choose their race, and one's race doesn't impact other people negatively. People can and do choose to engage in exploitative business practices for profit, despite any negative externalities those practices have on other people.

We, as a society, have tomes of legislation and case law that regulate business practices and their negative impacts on individuals or society as whole.

> one's race doesn't impact other people negatively

Racists would say otherwise. If racists were a majority of society, would you agree that we as a society are right to govern that way?

You know, we also have tomes of legislation about what we don't regulate. In most Western societies, speech has pretty big tomes on that.

Banning things is a bit short-sighted and misses the point. IMHO, Its better to think about types of long-term incentive structures that we can create so that more companies will be incentivized to do the right thing - or at least behave in a way that we agree as a society.

The issue is primarily that some folks have moved all of their online connections onto facebook - they've put all of their eggs in that basket. If you want to keep up with them at all you need to at least have the bearest presence on the platform.

This is less about that dude from highschool and more about your cousin.

> If you want to keep up with them at all you need to at least have the bearest presence on the platform.

So, if you texted "Hey cousin, it's been awhile, how's it going?" you wouldn't get a reply?

To what number? The one they have now or the one they switch to without telling anyone in a few months?

This sounds like a you and your cousin problem. It seems pretty strange that it would be suggested that the government step in to regulate a third party because you and your cousin can't manage to stay in touch.

People don't change numbers that often. Unless your cousin is a drug dealer in which case you were only on their burner phone, meaning you must have just been a customer to them, and not even an important one.

People don't change numbers very often. Most people never do.

I think this is a class and age thing. A lot of less wealthy and young people use prepaid wireless carriers because of cost, and end up just getting new phone numbers when they buy a new shitty phone or switch to a plan that's a better deal for them.

It costs money to port numbers between carriers, and it's a pain to set up when you can just pop in a SIM card and start making calls/texts right away with your new number.

You want to keep in touch with the cousin who won't bother with you if you leave facebook?

The problem is that you can't stop other people from using X and their choices affect you.

I agree, most people are just weak, full stop.

I dunno

On one hand I get it because having a global centralized media source running bleeding edge optimization algorithms against humans is highly unprecedented till recently.

But at the same time I don't like the trend in recent years to completely "minimize individual responsibility"

It makes sense why these narratives are popular too.

It means I don't have to admit my lack of discipline.

"The only people you'll lose touch with were superficial relationships to begin with"

That's extraordinarily presumptuous to assume you understand the contours of a billion strangers human connections.

> Real relationships don't depend on x platform. All they require is you, and the other person.

Hear Hear!

> Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

Then don't use it!

Completely agree. If you don't like a service, stop using it.

In fact I don't know anyone in my close or more distant friend circles who haven't abbandonned facebook in one way or another. I am puzzled by facebook still being the centre of attention (for this, control of news, influence on elections, influence on vaccination).

and Instagram?

I find this "I don't know anyone who uses FB anymore" line to often be disingenuous when it's uttered by someone in their 20s or early 30s.

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