I don't remember feeling depressed about my Internet usage before social networks existed. Just making a point to try and separate those two, as impossible as it seems these days.
It's anything with a "social" component that's the problem.
You need to split it further because I think the young uns think direct person-to-person messaging is also social media. That's fine too.
It's when they start cramming unwanted content and "influencers" down your throat that the problem appears.
This would include Hacker News, Discord, online forums, any video game...
Wrong. Neither HN nor traditional online forums push content selected to keep you "engaged". Not sure if Discord has started peddling "content" yet. If it does now I haven't noticed on my install yet.
As for video games, are you of the kind that believes all video games are competitive multiplayer? You're right about the free to play IAP fests on both desktop and mobile, wrong about, for example, single player games.
I could move that the definition of "social networking" is that it's not social. You get "content" crammed down your throat instead of interacting with people.
While the main attraction of HN has always been the comments.
I see it more as a currency which can be used in exchange for spreading unpopular/controversial/inflammatory opinions.
It's the online equivalent of whatever Dan Aykroyd has which enables him to keep getting invited to parties.
So do I, but strictly speaking that's not what it's meant for. It's supposed to be operant conditioning - you want to do whatever makes the number go up, and avoid what makes it go down. What makes it go up? Obeying the rules, aligning with the local culture and posting stories and making comments other people want to read and upvote. What makes it go down? Repetition, humor, heterodoxy and controversy. It's the same kind of endorphine based Skinner box that every other forum and social media platform uses, just not as complex.
Problem is when a machine learning algorithm is designed to find content that has highest odds of keeping you engaged forever and diminishing your dopamine reserves as it is doing so.
Hackernews can have issues, but by far not as much.
Also having text only limits the ability to create such addicting content by far.
Finally Hackernews doesn't play on your insecurities as much.
Yeah, playgrounds suck!
To be fair, a lot of the stuff my son watches seems fairly benign in terms of influence.
This is in no way limited to the internet. We're meant to roam the great unknown in groups of 20-60 or so. The problem is other humans.
I think the siren song of “everything and anything” of constant internet is its own problem
I do not see direct person-to-person messaging to be a perfect equivalent version of a in-person talk. Even adult people in professional settings can be quite bad in an email conversation, and much more so than they would have been in-person. It also seems that people who start earlier in life with online text communication seem to not really become better (compared to others) at clear online text communication later in life.
Then onto IRC where "no flaming" (arguing or trolling) was a strict rule. But 90% of it was people wanting to hookup people asking ASL was every second sentence.
But whatever modern social media is there is something different about it.