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Comment by parasti | Hacker News Reader

For me, I've found that social media doesn't affect my level of happiness and/or anxiety directly. What it does do, is take up a lot of my time almost imperceptibly - leaving less time for other, more meaningful activities. It makes me feel like I'm running out of time every day, which in turn causes a feeling of anxiety.

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I think social media is like our generations tobacco, everyone uses it and it is considered fashionable and cool but eventually it will start to come to light how unhealthy and insidious all the data harvesting, time sinks and gamifying social interactions at scale can be, especially with children who have much of the spare time to dedicate to it.

I think it’s like combining the addictiveness of tobacco with the time sink of television.

Tobacco is addictive but I’m not sure if it is a time sink.

I think you can substitute time sink with lower life expectancy for tobacco.

I suppose if you take $10 as the price of a pack of cigarettes and $15/hr as the wage earned, then you could argue 2/3 of an hour of leisure time/personal life is lost per pack purchased/smoked.

The cigs were a much better price proposition before smoking was ostracised. Pennies on a dollar.

You should see the wonders of the smoke breaks some 'senior' people had in the first consulting firm I worked for. One cigarette here, one cigarette there... aaand that wraps it up for the day, here's hoping the interns did some actual work.

To add to your idea, social media shares a deep property with tobacco: people know it’s bad and keep consuming it. Part of the reason is soft social pressure: nobody wants to be the odd one out by quitting.

> nobody wants to be the odd one out by quitting.

Uhm… how do you know that?

And much like non-smokers are effected by smokers (particularly when they were the majority) non-social media users are still affected in the sense that it has completely changed and polarised our politics, social/justice issues etc.

If there were no social media, there would be no social issues. Only talk radio and 4chan, so we would all be radicalizing in the same direction.

It's much worse than tobacco. At least tobacco only kills people when they're older, whereas social media robs young people of their mental health while simultaneously threatening truth and democracy

>while simultaneously threatening ... democracy

This seems to be the latest topic from the outrage machine. Can you explain how social media is an actual threat to the democracy or democratic process to a reasonable person?

Roughly 50% of the population in the US have an absolute distrust of the media, election results, and science. But wrap something up in a meme and post in on Facebook and it's treated like Gospel.

Here's something that's extremely disturbing to me.

"Republicans have become the purveyors of misinformation, and when our two-party system is broken like that, democracy is seriously in trouble. The president acknowledged that it's time to actually start doing things and maybe taking some names and putting people in jail."

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/05/17/carl_came...

I would say jailing press for printing things the government doesn't like is way more obvious a threat to democracy than the information they publish. This is no longer a slippery slope if this guy would even consider uttering this on national TV. We would be going into pretty blatant authoritarianism.

> Can you explain how social media is an actual threat to the democracy or democratic process to a reasonable person?

The best explanation I've read of this is Tim Urban's "The Story of Us" series [1]. It builds up a model from individual behavior to societal behavior and how it's changed over the decades due to how online interactions have shifted behavior (both individual and societal).

I don't know whether it's the right or wrong model and explanation, but he lays it out very clearly.

[1]: https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html

I read that series when it first came out, so it's been a while. Forgive me if it's hazy. I completely understand the political divide and how it started in the late 80s. Limbaugh was really the frontrunner of our modern version of it. Fox took his model and applied it to TV. Many traditional news companies adopted that model for the left, and here we are. Social media is really just an extension of that.

I'm not sure how it's a threat to democracy though. I certainly don't believe it originated on social media either. People on both sides repeat some really dumb shit, but that's always been the case.

> Social media is really just an extension of that

This is true, however extensions are by their very nature different than the thing they're extending.

Social media is an extension to traditional media at a scale, speed, and attack vector (friends, family, community) which humans are much more vulnerable to

People are pretty vulnerable to the garbage that passes for news in the last 20+ years. I'm not so sure "fixing" (read censoring) social media will solve any of this, even if it was possible. The outrage machine will still exist in traditional news media, but they won't have to worry about new technologies unseating them. I'm not sure that is a good thing. Social media, to me, seems like just a comment section to current events, most of which are presented from traditional media.

FWIW, I haven't used social media since Snowden, so I don't know what it looks like today compared to 9 or so years ago.

Yeah you might want to brush up on the current state of affairs. A lot has happened in the last 9 years.

So have you ever been duped into believing something stupid from reading social media?

It might be worth your time to explore outside the realm of singular, anecdotal, HN comments and dive a bit into the history and research. Good luck to you, friend!

>It might be worth your time to explore outside the realm of singular, anecdotal, HN comments and dive a bit into the history and research. Good luck to you, friend!

I don't buy the statement that social media is a threat to democracy. I think it's a political football and used hyperbolically in an attempt to normalize further censorship of people and press. I was hoping for at least one reasonable example of how social media is literally a threat to democracy to ease my mind, but I have yet to see a convincing one. I would say if anything, government censoring press and citizens is significantly more of a threat to democracy than garbage people post on social media that most people can see through.

> I don't buy the statement..

You've also stated that you aren't up to date on the latest information around the topic. I've recommend you familiarize yourself and even provided resources (Cambridge Analytica, Social Dilemma).

It seems you're incredibly invested in this conversation. Take this time and passion to learn about it.

Have a great day!

When you say reasonable person, do you mean layman? If so, watch the Social Dilemma. There was Cambridge Analytica and other countless misinformation campaign examples

I was originally going to write a whole drawn out thing, but I realized it wasn't necessary.

One interesting aspect to think about on how social media affects democracy is the aspect of education. I can't find the video right now, but I remember seeing or maybe reading a post that said how you watch all these videos on all these topics ranging from math to economics to civil engineering etc, and you build this false perception of "oh yeah I know this shit", but really you don't, you know one summary that was presented to you.

Those channels: Tom Scott, Johnny Harris, 3B1B, etc. Are all amazing in the time they spend learning their material and then producing such high quality instruction, but even if you watched an hour long video on econ you still wouldn't be an economist. A lot of us know this, but there are a lot of us that don't, and we then go to vote on bills and politicians thinking we know the implications of our actions and how it might affect the country when we really don't.

Of course this isn't just a conversation about social media and it can devolve into a conversation about the dangers of an uneducated democracy overall. But I feel that social media definitely contributes to this false sense of educated that a lot of people have, pair that with echo chambers, misinformation, and an addictive formula and you've got a troublesome future.

I'd argue it's more similar to cocaine. Tobacco is unhealthy, but the consequences were somewhat intuitive long before being proven (repeatedly cycling smoke through the lungs is intuitively unhealthy), and the real health effects aren't especially visible except over long time frames and with large samples.

By contrast, the shifts in behavior, effects, and downsides, of cocaine become apparent extremely rapidly and it's consumed in a way that makes it less obvious of the dangers. Vin Mariani [1] was a popular wine created in the mid 19th century. It's advocates included royalty, Popes, Thomas Edison, Ulysses S Grant, and countless others. It was wine mixed with cocaine. That wine itself also served as the inspiration for Coca-Cola - Coke, whose name derived from its two primary ingredients: Cocaine + Kola Nut.

Employers would give their workers cocaine to improve productivity, individuals themselves would use it (or various common products containing it) for similar ends, or just simple recreation. And we basically had a society where a large chunk of people were frequently coked out. But it was undoubtedly difficult to realize how absurd we all were because when something becomes ubiquitous, what do you have to compare it against?

And I think that's much closer to the reality we now live in where the impacts of social media are rather extremely evident on both a micro and macro scale, yet not only is the vast majority of society already hooked on it - but the people in power with the capacity to curtail its ails are themselves just as addicted to it, or alternatively exploiting it for their own personal benefit.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani

Yes, few people probably aren't affected by social media just like smoking & drinking. But from my personal experience many people really feel jealous/unhappy/lonely when they look on false reality. And, those influencer really makes everything worst.

For me it’s not the fake people showing off, it’s all the news, drama and doom. And arguably it’s all irrelevant anyway. As an Australian, if I had known nothing about Ukraine, BLM protests, Trump, Kyle Rittenhouse, etc, my life would be no bit worse or less informed. It would probably be a bit better. But if I check social media it’s just a non stop stream of crap.

That's a weird mix of contemporary events to mention together.

This is the kind of stuff that ends up filling my news feed. None of it has ever had any real effect on my life but it all seems to get equal feed real estate on reddit/twitter

Unsure about that.. I don't think Australia has been isolated from the rippling effects of price increases of grain and energy, that is one effect of the war in Ukraine. Probably not as much affected as many other countries, but I think you would still import products from countries where these effects are significant, and which have had to raise their prices due to it.

But none of that is likely to be actionable information for them.

It's like hearing that meteor is going to kill us all tomorrow and there is nothing you can do. Sure, it's going to affect you, but your life isn't going to be any better if you know.

It's just pointless anxiety.

Certainly, if you only want to hear about actionable information, you can strike out most of news all together. You can pick up a history book in 30 years to read up on what was happening in the world. Perhaps you will be happier for it, I don't know.

If you only want actionable information, why bother reading a history book?

Questioning "why know things" is a weird take on HN, which is itself a news aggregator.

This is called uninformed voter - the one that votes on what went on 100 years ago, but ignores what contemporary parties and politicians actually do.

For the record, I did skipped news entirely for few years. Yes, I did not knew about some things that may be stressful to know about. I was also dumb af when it came to voting or just generally having opinion on what is going on. This sort of person is super easy to manipulate, because missing context accumulates. So I do read them ever since, because I dont want to be that kind of voter.

Politics: it is what most impacts your life, yet you cannot change it, at all.

> Politics: it is what most impacts your life,

Doubt that. I’ve lived through some changes of the ruling party in my current country, the only changes I’ve observed were: 1) would taxes be 49.9% or 50.1%, 2) in which exact foreign country our military will be waging or supporting another useless war.

Compare that to the price of the stock of your company…

> yet you cannot change it, at all.

Oh, you can. I’ve changed the politics around me twice already: 1) I’ve participated in overthrowing the government- result was good for me, but not so good for the whole country, 2) I’ve swapped a country - that worked dramatically good, both for me and my new country. So use recipe 1 with extreme caution, but recipe 2 looks safe to recommend.

There was one president recently who didn’t start a new war (first president in 40 years) but I was told that he was “dangerous”.

True. But looking back - was that rather unusual change in politics, including no new wars started, something that “most impacted your life”?

No idea what you are trying to say or ask.

I don't know what country you're based on, but in my country there are huge differences in legislation between legislatures of right or left parties.

Regarding impact, no, you individually have not changed a single thing. A single person in a protest or a single vote simply has no impact.

Changing country is one way to take control, but I would argue that the politics itself are unaffected.

> in my country there are huge differences in legislation between legislatures of right or left parties.

Really? Somewhere in Europe? But I still doubt that these differences are something that “most impacts your life”. Let’s compare with the stock price of the company you are working in, e.g.

Yes Europe. Yea maybe that's true, and you also have almost zero impact on that, unless you're CEO or something :)

As someone out of Asia, the information the previous poster mentioned has near zero relevance to me. Barely any ripples from the events happening with the topics mentioned.

But still for some reason my feed is flooded with that news and it feels like there is a lot pressure to take a stand on topics I neither understand nor care about.

Social Media feels suffocating at times, it is like teenage peer pressure multiplied by a factor of 100.

I think this is less social media problems and more American cultural hegemony problems, especially in English-language media of all types.

Ukraine specifically is even bigger news issue in Europe. The closer to Ukraine, the bigger, unless you are Belarus or some such.

Reports on price increases on grain and energy is not the same as minute details on troop movements and artillery hits or interviews with various retired US generals and former Russian officials.

The price increases started before the invasion and have more to do with the printing of money during corona. But people forget quickly, despite social media.

Yeah you need to start over if you plan to continue using social media at all

You’re stuck in a filter bubble thats irrelevant to you

If you start over, dont follow the same people, dont import your contacts, dont give it the same phone number, even for one time passcodes, dont use the same email address

If you're in the US, you'd be highly attuned to these events and putting them together would be a striking dissonance. But really the common trait of these events is that they are widely reported by US media but aren't really consequential or actionable to an ordinary person anywhere else in the world (excluding the war in Ukraine, which is also consequential in parts of Europe).

I switched my Twitter Trends location to Falkland Islands and my feed to "Latest Tweets". I guess this technically now is a filter bubble, but I don't feel like I have the obligation to expose myself to algorithmic content and its generated outrage.

Simply mute people who post the crap. Or use more localized social media.

Part of the problem is I do get sucked in to the drama really. There is nothing really of value on twitter other than drama.

Twitter is great if you are interested in breaking news on specific topics. Most people aren’t though.

Twitter is terrible for discussions, so there I agree with Joe Rogan: “never look at the comments”.

When I was a kid and new to FB, someone told me to check the comments on the meme pages. They used to be funny and I thought that I had been missing out. So I made a habit of checking comments of all the posts.

Now it is a cesspool of trolls everywhere.

Now checking comments used to generate so many negative emotions in me that I have told myself the same - "never look at the comments". I feel happier now.

"Never read the comments" is much older than Joe Rogan.

I used to think this was silly advice but every day I only agree with it more and more.

Something about online comments (twitter in particular) gives off the vibe that they're more reactions than well thought out comments.

Tabloid magazines that only talk about the rich and celebrities have always been super popular which also makes people depressed. I think this is nothing new with social media.

A printed magazine doesn't have the doomscrolling ability of social media apps. The same effect, but a magnitude smaller dosage.

Ugh. I’m not even on Facebook or active on Twitter and I have the same. I need to read the newspaper. Then I need to know the Economist’s and The Guardian’s and the NY Times’ view on the daily news as well. Plus I need to keep up to date on the COVID situation and the war in Ukraine. Oh and I’m also behind on Better Call Saul. And I need to watch 1917 and Dune. And I want to read at least 10 pages in a novel every day. And my RSS feeds.

Oh, and I have a full time job and I need to exercise and I want to be in bed by 23:00.

I’m always in a hurry…

As for your news issues, I'd honestly go with the approach of never reading information about breaking stories. Most often breaking stories aren't breaking and they rarely have the full picture.

By delaying your news consumption a few days (or even a week) you'll have a much better picture of the news with the benefit of never needing to "keep up."

Also my personal opinion, very often the news isn't relevant. The decade defining stories don't happen every day and there's very few stories that require your immediate attention, versus say your weekly attention.

That's why I'm a big fan of Delayed Gratification (someone posted this on HN a few months back):

https://www.slow-journalism.com/

Journalism that is deliberately slow and very informative (IMO).

I've discovered that internet arguments use up a decent chunk of my daily mental capacity, which would've been otherwise spent on work.

I figured I would fight fire with fire and last week got into a few particularly ridiculous flamewars on different platforms and... it worked.

Do you/does anyone think this is something you would use?

I'm working on My Productive Homepage, a custom dynamic homepage you can set and customize the exact topics and goals that you care about. It will recommend unseen info/updates on only those things and display info in summary form (with links to sources).

No distracting or trending news unless they are highly relevant to the topics/goals you explicitly choose. We intend to maximize user productivity, rather than engagement.

I believe it can help people stay focused on what really matters to them while getting updates and stimulated, and discover useful info for work or serious hobbies.

(And in work mode, it'd be a homepage you can open without guilt while at work. ;))

What important features would you like to get on such a custom, dynamic homepage?

Comments about the project in general would also be appreciated, eg on how helpful or unhelpful you think the project will be to you or people you know.

> No distracting or trending news unless they are highly relevant

No “unless”, please. No news should be present. No events should be discussed until they are a week old, at least.

Sounds like a good option to add! We might allow the user to filter out recent news if they wish.

Should discussions be optional (ie available but can be turned off) or simply not available on this site?

Yes, I have seen the same pattern with myself. Tiktok makes me happy in moderation. But when it starts to displace too much of my life and I get less social interaction, exercise, etc, then I start to have some depressive symptoms. This would be more of an indirect cause.

I think there are also a lot of people for whom social media is a direct cause of anxiety, especially young women.

I mainly use it to fill the time to be honest, spare moments here and there in between work and video games lol. That and taking my mind off things at work, which probably says a lot about my job satisfaction. But I'm starting a new job in a few weeks so we'll see how it goes, if it fits my activity on HN and co will drop significantly.

> I've found that social media doesn't affect my level of happiness and/or anxiety directly.

American privilege? Each time a war flares up in my home country I am going into a pretty deep depression. And the only cure is to switch off the Telegram. Which is frankly rather hard to do, but possible. A third week going strong…

Eastern Europe.

Once you get in, you cannot get out easily. The algorithm works, you keep getting "better" and "better" content that you just keep want to watch it.

100%

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