Hacker News Reader

Comment by amikaeel | Hacker News Reader

I deleted social media around 2.5 years ago. After feeling extreme anxiety and withdrawal for about a week I realized this was the right move. I gained massive amounts of productivity, felt more awake than ever, and realized just how many HOURS I was killing browsing. It sounds like the usual rant, but I truly think that in 10-15 years there will be a huge anti social media movement after we fully realize the damage. Social media as a concept is wonderful but in reality it adds nothing meaningful to our lives.

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What if I told you Hacker News is social media?

there are a several key aspects of HN that are very different than social media networks, and that's why it's in a different category

One of my biggest gripes with the social media you and I have quit is that it has strongly encouraged flippant, black-and-white responses like the one you're responding to. Nuance, by and large, has been removed from public discourse.

Edit: Just speaking for me, HN is next. Doubt I'll stick 'round much longer.

Shit, maybe now's as good a time as any. Let's see if I can keep this response at the top of my comment history! :D

It went weirdly assumed that HN is somehow different. I don't believe in social media addiction, but addicts are known for lying to themselves and making excuses. If you're quitting social media because you don't think it's healthy, you need to look at any social media you're still on really closely.

There are several key things that make HN different:

- no followers / following (no incentive to increase engagement)

- no notifications of responses to comments (maybe there's a way to do this with RSS but at least it's not obvious)

- no ads

- no endless feed

HN is much more like an RSS feed of interesting articles, where people can leave comments -- there is some back and forth (as in this case) but not a lot; it's centered around the linked content and thoughts on that content, not on engaging with other users. It's not monetized and therefore doesn't employ all the tricks that SM uses to "drive engagement", which is often driven by outrage (which is therefore a highly desirable component of a SM).

HN may survive if upvote/downvotes are removed, but until then it will continue to be astroturfed and manipulated heavily to push narratives and subconsciously teach the startup/hacker community which opinions are favored and disfavored today.

you could argue that the home page is "manipulated" (though I don't think it's as nefarious as you suggest), but you can just as easily view all posts in chronological order instead of the home page; upvoting of articles interesting to see what other users find relevant / useful but wouldn't affect.

I browse the titles and click on what seems interesting to me, regardless of the number of upvotes.

It’s more about the comments than the front page. Most HNers don’t bother clicking links and just read top of the fold comments.

No ads? The majority of hn submissions are ads! Comments too.

> majority

be serious

You forgot a big one: content shown to you is not selected by an algorithm developed by a large group of talented psychologists and computer scientists that targets a very human reaction to emotion to maximize dopamine production, addiction and attention.

> no notifications of responses to comments

If you notice you keep hitting the "threads" link, then perhaps there is a case of addiction.

It's too boring to be social media (in a good way)

Rather like minded nerds than fear mongering, fake, AI generated, influencer, 'look at how amazing my life is', 'buy this', new age spirituality 'let go of what doesn't serve you' narcissistic brainwashing the algo machines are pushing.

I like technology. I like making things I love and others can enjoy. I like when others make something they think is cool and love and enjoy and I can enjoy them too.

That's why this place is dope. I can't press 'Share' so that's not social media to me.

Plus I can have my name be FJsdkfhKFsdffflKJSHFl and nobody cares. I can just be me.

Kindness > *

HN, famously devoid of narcissistic personalities and 'look how amazing my life is' and 'buy this' posting

I mean, where else can I go

But "Share" is just cruft around a link, don't you share HN links ??

(I don't really think that HN is not exactly social media either - since poster ego is de-emphasized so much (not as much as on 4chan of course), we don't even have avatars here ! - but HN sure is addictive ! speaking of...

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