Dear self: we need to talk about social media
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You get so many calls from spammers and scammers, you turn off the ringer and just let things go to voice mail. Nobody answers their phone these days unless someone pre-arranges a call or messages first and then escalates it to a voice call. Phone fatigue.
So much spam and ham in e-mail that you turn off notifications and just occasionally go check your e-mail to find the 4 things of interest and delete the other 7000. Then wonder if maybe you overlooked and deleted an important one. E-mail fatigue.
You get so much junk mail, medical bills that say 'this is not a bill', mailings from places where you've selected e-statements and e-billing only yet they keep mailing - that eventually you stop bothering and it all just piles up on the counter. Until one day you go through it all, find a refund check from the IRS, and rush out to deposit it before it goes stale. Junk mail fatigue.
You go to the store to get X, but there are 47 varieties of X to choose from so you end up deciding you don't want it that bad after all and don't end up getting it. Decision fatigue.
The description of social media fatigue fits right in. With all that rapid attention switching, it gets hard to focus on anything for any length of time. Your mind starts craving a feed of constant stimulus, but it's exhausting. Attention fatigue.
The idea of Quiet with a capital Q is a good way to relax and recover from all that fatigue. My favorite is to take an actual physical book outside into nature and read for awhile, where the only distractions are birds, chipmunks, and butterflies. Unfortunately that doesn't work so well during winter when it's below freezing out, but at least there's still bathtime.
one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of mobile app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram apps.
do not enable anything that brings itself to your attention and requires an action like swipe-down from android top menu, look at notification, possibly click on it.
only view the content of whatever is in the app when you specifically choose to open it.
I find these days that I get much more value out of a private signal chat group that has about 50 people in it, all of whom have notifications for the group turned off and leave messages/post things asynchronously (almost exactly as you might see people using IRC for in 1998), than the big company run social media. At any given time there might be 4-5 active people in it since everyone is busy with careers, real life, and are spread out across almost all of the world's timezones.
This is the trick. When you engage communication on your own terms, the outcomes are better - for you, and often for the rest of the world. Facebook looks totally different when you aren't just reacting. Much easier to focus on the things you really are interested in instead of what the algorithm wants you to pay attention to.
Came to say the same thing. The only notification I have on my phone is SMS, and thankfully very few people send me SMS these days.
Yes. I feel the need to do this viscerally and always have. To be acceptable, a push notification would have to warn me of impending death or severe injury. All other push notifications are evil. You might as well be snorting meth.
Social media should be consumed once a day, when your brain is too tired to do anything else.
Also, I want to join your signal group.
Worth noting that this is about more than just social media. It's about distractions in general and being specific about how you fill your time.
Ironically, some of the most distracted people I've ever worked with had proudly sworn off "social media" long ago. Yet they were constantly buried in discussion forums (LessWrong, HN, Reddit, IRC) that weren't traditional Facebook/Instagram style social media sites. Whatever distinction you use doesn't really matter.
More generally, it's important to be deliberate with the notifications you allow into your life and the activities you use to fill idle time. Both iOS and Android have facilities to limit notifications during certain periods. Use them liberally.
Many apps, including social apps, work just fine with notifications disabled. I might check Instagram once a day and I can respond to any messages at that time. I'm not missing anything by using a poll instead of a push method for checking these.
Well, I am like that. I find social media to be too addictive/distracting so I am off that shit completely.
Older-school stuff is also addictive but to a lesser extent.
I don't constantly check email, I don't have a stream of interruptions when I'm away from the computer. Now all I have is the almost daily non-disable-able "amber alerts" that jar me out of my life, and the occasional junk call.
When I do consume sites, I try very hard to avoid letting their algorithm decide what I see. With Facebook, for example you can append ?sk=h_chr to the site name, and it will show you thinks in reverse chronological order. I use subscriptions on Youtube, and only use "Home" when I'm bored and want to veg. I curate my sources as best I can.
I try to go back to flip phones but smartphones have tons of real utility for me.
I suppose I could try to find an MP3 player that runs iOS or Android, or run Android in an emulator on my computer, and use that as my “phone” but I worry I’ll hit walls if the apps look for a SIM card and most of the world doesn’t use OSes like that, so support might drop inexplicably with a software update that doesn’t account for my use case and I’ll be out of luck at that point.
-A rotational timer which you, well, rotate and it times.
-A whiteboard which serves as my todo list.
-An mp3 player.
-Regular old satnav in my car.
-Remote-controlled LED in my bedroom.
I'm also thinking of using a regular watch again after an almost 20-year hiatus.
All this just so I won't get tempted to check social media each time I'm trying to perform an unrelated task.
It's ridiculous, but these are the lengths I'm willing to go to fight this.
Don't install it on your smartphone. Its like the best diet advice in the world... don't buy the food and bring it into your home, and you can't be tempted by it.
Social media should only ever be checked from a web browser on a PC.
I use this to block Twitter, Facebook, etc.
I tried the same with the food BTW.
Not the root cause it appears.
Back in 2014 I decided to stop using Facebook for a month. Don't ask me why. This was back when Facebook was far more compelling. Then a month turned into 3 months. 3 months turned into an entire year before I decided to log back in.
But this time I wasn't compelled to keep using it. I was immediately bored, put it down, and did other things. The addiction never returned once I had take time to experience a life that doesn't require being connected in that way.
My attitude towards social media and tech were permanently changed. Most of what I do on the internet and my phone today is purposeful. I do sometimes use Reddit but only if I'm interested in a specific subject; I don't ever scroll through my home page mindlessly. For years I've put my phone into "Do Not Disturb" mode so that only phone calls from people in my contacts can ring through, and every other distraction is completely silent. I will go several hours, sometimes over a day not checking my phone for notifications. Depending on how important an email or text is (most of the time they're inane) I will reply when it's most convenient to me rather than on the spot.
Not owning a smart phone is one way to go, but I've found it possible to live with my device without it ruling my life.
- Maps
- Digital tickets / proof-of-something
- Payments / Transfers
- Taxis
- Maps
- Tickets, Vaccination pass
- Coins and Cash for Payments
- Taxis
I hoped for a moment you were kidding. Now i'm a bit sad.
A smart phone is nice to have, but it doesn't mean you have to do social media on it
That's not because of social media. It's because it's become the 7th sense for humans. I have vision, smell, hearing - but nothing that would let me see rain approaching from 100km away on radar, or tell me the position of a National Park boundary with 10m accuracy that I could not cross within my fishing live, or find a parking lot, or locate and pick up my lost wife in a foreign city, or become an arm of law enforcement by photographing an incident (especially when that incident is perpetrated by the people who our system trusts most - the law enforcers), and perhaps most importantly magnifying the power of my bullshit sensor by orders of magnitude with instant fact checking.
People did not had cameras with them all the time, actually. It was not a thing that it is now.
Navigating nature was harder without phone. It is much easier to find way back now, so I can wander mindlessly through unknown Forrest knowing phone will get me back if I get lost. You had to be way Korean aware and risk averse before.
Navigating transit systems with and without some kind of wireless data-enabled device is an absolute game-changer, especially.
Without, you're planning all trips in advance, carrying timetables, and/or memorising the schedules and routes you use routinely.
With, you can check to see what the arrival time for a specific route is, use trip planners, or simply enter starting points and destinations and let the planner select routes for you. Whether making an incidental trip cross-town or as a tourist or business traveller to an unfamiliar location and making effective use of transit, it's simply a huge capability multiplier.
As someone who's made major road trips over a span of about 35 years, the capabilities afforded by mobile devices are also huge. My first trips predated the Internet and any use of mobile phones outside an exclusive elite. My first trips with a mobile phone, and with a smart phone, were both signifiant leaps, though the second more so.
That said, I've become radically disenchanted with the technology, and prefer splitting my comms, relying on either a tablet or laptop, and these days, an e-ink tablet.
For gross navigation, I still find maps and road atlases highly useful and largely sufficient. The principle limitation is in not having detailed maps of specific locations along a route, though the detail provided in atlases and state-level maps is sufficient for most purposes. What frustrates me with mainline mapping tools and sites is that they have very limited offline capabilities ... for no real good reason. I've just re-checked F-Droid to see if there are any viable offline mapping tools, and am not finding those.
Realtime traffic and weather information is useful, though often not critical.
Access to pricing and product information when shopping is another nice-to-have, but not essential.
Excluding Google+, I've never used mainstream social media platforms full stop, let alone smartphone apps. (I do have accounts on some federated and smaller services, including of course HN, also Reddit and Ello.)
As noted, the bloom is well off the rose:
- Attention stealing is absolutely rampant, and a real issue. notifications are the first thing I disable. "Do Not Disturb" is on for 23 hours, if not 24. "Mail break" is A Thing. See Neal Stephonson's essay on being a poor correspondent.
- Privacy. I've never been comfortable with this aspect of mobile devices. That level has translated from minimal reluctant use to the maximum level of avoidance possible.
- Both Web and App experience are increasingly user-hostile. "Progress" in apps serves the platform and/or advertisers / financiers, not the users and device owners. Worse, the same characteristics are increasingly affecting and afflicting both mobile and desktop websites. As an example of the latter, recent redesigns of both Reuters and the Financial Times websites to what's effectively not a "mobile first" but a "mobile only" design, and a massive decrease in functionality and utility of both. (There are numerous other examples, these two are fresh of mind, close at hand, and affect premiere websites.)
- The Web is increasingly trash, and again, anticipating the "just don't use those bits" response, the rot affects and touches everything, and is all but impossible to avoid, both online and off. Search engines hide useful and prioritise useless sites. (Google's long done this, DuckDuckGo/Bing are rapidly matching pace.)
- Even informational resources are continuously revised and given Schlimbessurung --- an improvement that worsens --- such that trying to get useful information is increasingly tedious. (The underlying problem: information monetises very poorly.)
- Interfaces and operating systems remain poor and limited (if it fits in your pocket, it's going to be a terrible interaction). Laptops aren't easy to use when mobile, but are vastly more useful once set up.
- Device updates, security, and the like.
Things I simply don't and won't do: payments, identity, subscription services, etc., etc., etc.
An e-ink tablet with downloaded static references (maps, texts, etc.), planning in advance, WiFi connectivity for specific updates (transit), addresses most of my needs. A dumbphone for emergency comms on the road, but even this is highly optional. For any substantive use, a laptop or desktop.
Even when I'm not working, a generic notification from my phone is stressful because the thought that it could be something that I have to deal with right now doesn't go away until I check it. Because of this, I have to blacklist any application that will happily send me useless notifications, which includes basically all social media apps, which means I don't know when someone is genuinely trying to engage with me on social media unless I visit all the time. As a result, I basically don't use social media. It's unfortunate to miss things that people only plan via indirect communication because of that, but it is what it is. I definitely feel like the ubiquity of planning and communication via e.g. Facebook means that I miss out on a lot of social events and interaction, so I must ironically conclude that I am alienated from most of my peers as a result of social media.
Here is how i handle it: I just set all my devices to be silent. I set things up such that I won’t even see the notifications. Periodically as I finish something, or need to take a brake I emerge from concentration and do a scan of my queued up notifications. And just then I answer them.
I’m not a first responder. If someone is going to literally die unless they hear from me immediately they better call the emergency numbers anyway.
Friends, family, coworkers all know and respect that they will get an answer but perhaps not immediately. In return when I get around it I make sure to respond in a usefull and thoughtfull way to the best of my abilities. People seems to be fine with it, and it prevents me from drowning in a constant barrage of pings.
My pet peeve is people who leave Slack on the default settings to make a noise when messages are received and have the volume on their laptop turned up....
Because Facebook exists, it displaces other avenues for social connection that have been used previously. Facebook hurts you, even if you don’t choose to use it.
Can still define certain contacts to reach you in case of emergency and so on.
Love it - silencing the phone is the best thing ever. Starve the attention economy of attention and let all the bad actors like Facebook/Meta slowly perish.
Yes. iOS has several layers of notification control, including all the way down to the specific app. And also type of notification for each app. E.g. is it allowed to put an indicator on icon? How about pop up a banner? Now, can it make any noise?
Side note: I've always wondered how much potential is lost in the current generations because of the constant distractions (of all kinds). The type of deep and creative thinking that comes from boredom and a lack of interruptions can drive great change and ideas from a personal and societal perspective.
The switching cost of focus changes is a real issue in thinking in deep ways. And the cost of doing it frequently is definitely a drain and cause of atrophy in overall focus ability. Trying to rein in your ability to focus for longer periods of time is HARD. It's mentally and even physically uncomfortable.
But in an of itself doesn't create anything. Mindless content consumption doesn't even leave memories sometimes, what to say of ideas.
Before you claim it is impossible because of your work, is it really? Did you try and think of a way that was possible?
I've done many of these and they were great, including giving up the internet and computers/phones, with the exception of work. This was back when I went into the office and I limited myself to only work related tasks there. Wifi and computers were turned off and phones put away at home for a month.
It's actually somewhat difficult to break the habit and very boring. But after about the third week you start to get used to it. By the end of the month when I could go back to "normal" I realized there was very little I actually wanted back. Mostly it was a few games I wanted to play and texting with friends on a regular basis. I lost all interest in social media after it (and that's still true) and I became very annoyed by the "ding" of the phone so I turned off all notifications and set it on DND full time (and that is also still true).
Another thing that's I got out of it is I notice how much time everyone else is distracted by their phones. It's really crazy to see when you're not one of them.
I’ve been struggling with this. I either forgot where & how to socialize, or socializing is not actually back. Even though we’re back to normal, I feel as disconnected as ever. What are remote workers doing to socialize without social media these days?
Edit because who the f downvotes this? Fuck you ya dirty rat.
Also, just practice talking to random strangers, you'll find that some people who are just hanging out outdoors in parks are going through the same emotions you are.
Don't place expectations on anyone to be a committed friend, just start chats with strangers and let that be it until you feel comfortable with asking for phone numbers or coffee/tea hangouts and then work up from there. Don't expect anything from anyone, work on your personal happiness, hobbies, being available when people try to chat with you, and stability (financial, mental, and physical health) in the world. Some of the best conversations I've had in life were one-time chats with strangers, they tailor their words to us less than friends because they don't know us.
You'll be surprised how friendships just fall into view when you do that without expectations. Don't think about it, just try it.
Though Dickens might disagree with me.
You just have to actually do it.
For disclosure though, I don't work remotely, the benefits (mainly skipping a bit of cycling each day) seem minor to me compared to the downsides. And I never stopped socializing to begin with since I think corona is overblown, so I'm maintaining and adding to social groups.
I have lost a lot of friends too, of course.
No one will talk to you in pub, "locals" are with their established friend group or at home. And knocking to introduce yourself is weird, and still people won't socialize with you because you knocked. They have own plans and ow isolated lifes
That's how my super-socially awkward ass used to make friends, anyway. Nowadays I don't have the stamina to wait out the process.
(Just for clarity, I do have friends. I'm the sort who likes going out by themselves as well, though).
Although I've had people I don't know come and talk with me, and I'm friendly when they do, it's very unusual. I would bet on that happening maybe 1 in 20 nights out, and 1 in 50 times at a coffee shop. I would not say it takes hours, I'd say it takes weeks to months.
Sometimes I notice other people by themselves, usually old men, pint in hand for hours, saying and doing nothing. To me they look really sad like that and I don't feel like approaching them at all. I feel empathy but don't want to be involved. Myself, I've usually got a book or computer, or these days my phone. Maybe that makes me less approachable, but I'd rather that than doing nothing at all for a night.
However, even at times when I've gone out and just sat without any props, warming my hands by a fire or, seasonally, a nice christmas tree, nearly everyone is part of a small group of their own, and the phenomon you described where "someone will talk to you just because they notice you've been sitting there not talking to anyone" is still unusual.
Well, revealed preferences I guess. Best of luck. I enjoy chatting to my neighbours and I'd have no issue with them popping in for a cup of tea.
Well, me and my neighbours are happy to be weird in your view. You do you. I don't think you're weird btw, just less social I guess?
It's not the GP being less social - it's their neighbours as well.
They said other people don't knock, which is what make it seem like it would come over as a weird if they did it themselves.
That chimes with my experience. In ~25 years of living in many different places, I don't think I've ever had my door knocked on by neighbours for an introduction or friendly chat. Only by people I already know, and that's rare too. (I don't live near anyone that I know).
So I wouldn't knock on a neighbour's door. I'd feel uncomfortable, intruding on other people's private lives.
It's not like I'm not social. I like people and would probably enjoy knowing my neighbours better. (Though not during this pandemic - I haven't mingled indoors anywhere since March 2020).
But it seems like every little group of people (most are houseshares) keeps to themselves.
Well, that's enough HN for today. Merry Christmas.
It takes a narrow viewpoint to think those are the same.
More value would be derived from discussing climate change with a Martian.
We could hash it out over a pint at the pub, but you don't mingle indoors see, so...
Sorry, but I think this is a bit comical, I don't have the patience for such farce.
Not mingling indoors does not preclude pubs, socialising or hanging out with people in person.
I see from your comment history that you really enjoyed the commutes, going to an office job with others in the s/w industry. I'm like you in that regard: I was excited to start a job commuting into London on a daily train, because I really enjoy that part, the travel, the people, the vibe of the crowds. It's an excellent time to break out a book. I'd spent too long doing WFH and wanted a job in an office.
But things changed. You don't know my circumstances, but suffice to say my family faced a realistically high chance of death or disability if they got Covid due to particular pre-existing conditions. So of course I'd be a selfish arsehole if I carried on a commute in those circumstances.
How on earth did you get from "does not preclude pubs, socialising, or hanging out with people" to "you've self excluded"? Bizarre.
This seemed somewhat common growing up in the suburbs, but I think has literally never happened in my adult life in a city.
It's more common for us to meet in the street e.g. say hi whilst someone is at their front door.
To be fair I don't live in a megablock, they're not that common in London, most people I know live in converted townhouses which only have a few flats in them.
e.g. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/9e/b9/019eb97dd77c0dc3191e...
usually they're smaller than this.
I take part in a few hobby based meetups and run events based around those things. Some of the people I have met through these are pretty tight now, we had a Christmas dinner a couple of weeks ago.
The last time I moved home I threw a house warming and invited the neighbours around. Knocked on the door with a bottle of wine. The ones that came along I still know and some are now close friends.
I could go through the other examples but really I guess it just comes down to whether you think I'm full of shit or not. :)
But I noticed, none of those interactions ever turned into further interactions outside, let alone friendships or things like christmas dinners.
I've also co-run a community centre (a hackerspace) for years, and been one of the more prominent members that everyone meets at some point, which I'd say is a pretty social thing to do. Those too also didn't turn into friendships outside, but perhaps the element of formality in the relationships didn't help with that.
I think your approach to housewarming is a great idea. Even if knocking on neighbours doors feels like an oddity these days, and nobody else seems to be doing it, as a brand new neighbour that's a great time to do so, inviting people to a party that's low effort for them.
Turns out people at meetups often have very full lives already, and many are there for the business networking opportunities, not to develop an outside-of-work social life.
So there were LinkedIn connections made, and some transactional relationships. I did occasionally meet some people later one-on-one. (I shouldn't have said they didn't lead to further interactions; I'd forgotten these few). Good and interesting people. But they're not what I'd call friendships. Perhaps the seeds of one, if they went on for years.
To be fair, I wasn't looking for more social life either. I merely observe that friendships did not flow naturally from going to meetups, the way you seem to be suggesting happens readily.
On the other hand, a chat with someone random at a library in the same time frame did lead to friendship. As have many other life events.
What I'm suggesting here is that meetups are a great way to find people interested in similar things, but at least in my experience, I don't recommend them as a way to find friends if that's what you're looking for.
You're right, you definitely need to put a lot of effort in, inviting people, navigating problems, finding good people, etc.
And yeah, some social occasions are better than others.
The main point I'm making really is that you need to get out there and do stuff. If you don't even try then you have a 100% chance of failure.
Which is why I find some of the comments below rather odd.
The potential downside to asking your neighbour out for a pint is almost zero, the upside is unlimited. I mean, they could be an axe murderer or rapist, but actually we don't live in a movie and they're probably not, lol.
OOC roughly whereabouts do you live?
I don't really want to reveal much more hence the throwaway. But honestly I think, you get what you put in. If you want something, assume other people want that thing too, and go from there.
Re. the rest though, maybe it's a "you get what you put in" thing to an extent, I think somewhat that's just how outgoing someone is (which I don't think is the same as how much they value/need connection). But I think a lot of this is very cultural too.
Reading Hacker News has changed my life.I don't always agree with Paul Graham but in my opinion Hacker News is his greatest creation. It changed my outlook as an engineer and I went from being a no name engineer at an ordinary company to a senior engineer at a FANG. Someone I met on Facebook helped me on my journey. I found room mates on Facebook and they're now my friends. Certain obscure subreddits have given me fresh new perspectives and changed how I look at the world. I've been in Twitter DMs with really interesting people. Instagram is a way for a lot of creatives to find an audience whether its photography or art. The feedback mechanisms and publicity have led to some people getting insanely good. I'm still trying to understand TikTok but perhaps I'm getting too old to rewire my brain for it.
I do realize how this is all a little too much for my brain that evolved to forage berries and roam jungles. Our brains were not designed to handle the volume and speed. A lot of it is undoubtedly useful but social interactions often have an adversarial element to them. In real life the slower speed and repeated interactions allows us to stay on top of it. Keeping up with all of this imposes a cognitive load.
I have started meditating and trying not to respond in anger or indignation to everything I see online. What meditation gives us is the idea of "enough". Everything that we've ever known and more people than have ever lived are a tap or swipe away. We are miniscule in comparison and should try and adjust our expectations for what we hope to accomplish.
I use social media knowing my limitations. A tiny brain trying to stay afloat in a sea of information and cyber predators. I'll never comprehend more than a fraction of my filter bubble or keep up with the discourse as it ricochets around the world 10 times before I see it.
The next generation will be able to use the highly plastic brains of their childhood to mould themselves to survive and even thrive in this brave new world. I am not going to try and stop them from mastering this new reality. I would educate them about the pitfalls and the need for moderation.
I am not going to stop using social media. My life would be poorer for it. The problem is not social media. The problem is that technology has outrun our brains.
There is no algorithm that will be able to show the "correct" data (#) to any subset of people, whoever defines correct.
So tommy simple mind we need automated help, and so need all data producers to make data available under common protocols.
My pipe dreams are harder now there are no pipes anymore
(#) this is a side fallacy of "management" - the idea that somehow senior management can wait for people to come to them with problems and they can decide on policy. You can't decide unless you are deep in the data. You cannot decide
it's why we need experts and to trust decentralised decision making because we can trust the incentives.
It's also why you should never trust any industry that has a weird business model (filmmaking, hedge funds, airlines) because we cannot correctly see the incentives from the outside. It's why regulators should have a one paragraph description of how the industry they regulate makes its money, posted at the top of all its stationary and web sites etc. It is I think the regulatory holy grail because it will freak everyone out.
My main frustration is with the need for social media to drive dependency, addiction, and engagement.
I am weary of content and UI controls that increasingly are overly monopolizing my time just to get to a point that is often totally a waste of time, and/or not funny.
If social media algorithms were actually accurate in determining what I really like to watch, instead of just being dedicated towards steering me towards consumerism (that I'm not going to engage in anyway) my feelings would be different about it not being a useful friend anymore.
I just use it in small doses when I'm bored or waiting for a project to render or build now and as places to collect/share my shower thoughts and funny things I find.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...
I think it's fascinating when people say that meditation doesn't work for them but then discover the benefits of meditative states all on their own. That's what Quiet is anyway.
24/7-be-ready on your phone with 35 TikTok videos followed by WhatsApp messages and then 3 emails from your boss after 8pm.
You have to overcome this shit to even just reach the starting point of people who tried meditation a few decades ago.
The way that the author figured out on her own is a great way to learn how to meditate. If you can't do meditation, then don't. Try reading a book. Turning off your phone. Going for a walk. Just like how if you can't do a pullup, do light dumbbell curls or use the assisted weight machine. Do the easier thing first and then you'll build up strength. I suspect that if she were to try meditation today, then she would be ready. It's not so hard. We were all born with the Quiet.
Consciousness of Wasting Attention.