Use social media mindfully

I quit (deleted accounts) all social media 5 years ago (before reels and short form media entered) and LinkedIn a year ago. This whole 'there is value in comments and DMs and connections for jobs' is the hook basically. I considered whether it was worth it. The answer for probably most people is 'No'.

Here is something I noticed: More present in the real world (no more head buried in the phone, neck feels better too). Less social comparisons (the worst part of social media that people don't understand). Depression and anxiety got better. Believe it or not but my quality of social interactions vastly improved after quitting social media. I also no longer take my phone out for pictures unnecessarily. There is no platform to show or compare or share. So I just take pictures for myself when I want to remember something and live the experience for just me. This is not selfish, this is just how reality is. But given that I am more present, I actually engage in the world and remember things as they are cause I am not distracted. I am mindful.

I have been an advocate for a while that social media is a really bad thing. My entire family is so addicted to all this. Mindfulness is the most important part. People are subconsciously comparing their lives to this world and it's driving their decision. Children are sitting with phones scrolling. I really find it concerning that people don't see this as a serious problem.

Get rid of it and don't think twice. The people really important and close to you will either call you or meet you for a meal. Everyone else was probably just a casual connection.

My rule for 2026 is to limit short-form media. No Twitter/X, no Bluesky, no Mastodon, no Instagram, no TikTok. If it is designed to be short-form (limited characters, quick videos) then it is not for me in 2026.

I had already avoided short-form video but I added short-form text this year.

I just don't do Facebook, any more. It's been ages since I logged in.

I never really did Twitter/Twatter, or anything else.

The closest thing I have to social media, is HN comments.

As much as others seem to hate Snapchat, I seem to avoid all the fake news because its just friends on snapchat.

Strava is pretty great too. No fake news on there.

4Chan? Well, I doubt any company wants to get caught astroturfing on 4chan, but I do think there are government psych-ops on it.

Facebook/IG/Reddit/HN? Dangerous stuff if you are trying to avoid fake news. I'll continue to consume. But I come in highly skeptical.

I can "finish" reading my Mastodon timeline because it's not designed to scroll endlessly. Then I read a book.

It is possible for a devoted individual to do this, but it is not possible to solve deep societal problems one devoted individual at a time. We still need massive regulation of addiction-based business models.

My mental health improved in meaningful ways when I dropped all social media close to a decade ago. Now I can feel the impact when someone insists I look at some shared item they sent me on Instagram or whatever. I´d rather not return to algorithm-driven services if I can avoid them.

I'm still on Facebook (and Digg for those HNers that hop on to all the tech boards - you know I see you), but it's to keep up with some family that are there. But I adopted a simple catchphrase (GET OFF THE INTERNET) and time my posts for Sunday mornings to get all them folks that were waking up and immediately scrolling. Repeat that for a few weeks, and I think its helped give people the "please disconnect" message.

I'm a huge wrestling and movie dork, so... screens. And the embedded videos on Reddit didn't help since I could watch wrestling on /r/SquaredCircle rather than support the product I like. In conversations, I've blamed The Walking Dead, as that was the first show I recall encouraging people to "hop online to chat" while the new episodes aired. Then "live tweeting" became a thing and here we are.

Friends and family are still there, but they've at least gone from the "grow your business online" or "complain about politics" to talking about the NFL, or a painting they finished, or some music piece they're working on.

I still want to disconnect more, but we don't really have a cure for "shiny rock addiction" yet.

I mostly stay away from algorithmic timelines and deactivate retweets etc on X and Bluesky. For the rest I use them for some snarky comments with a select group of people.

I've tried completely quitting, but I'm not very social irl and would get lonely eventually, so this controlled dose of interaction is what works for me.

I'd encourage the author to look into the difference between mindfulness and intention. From reading their approach, it seems like they are really encouraging people to use the platforms intentionally. From my experience, mindfulness is correlated more closely with awareness than it is intention.

I'm recently restarting an approach to social media and I'm looking at it with fresh eyes. One thing that I wish more of us would agree on would be to strongly prefer platforms that are friendly to privacy, or at least anonymity. Starting new accounts, I was surprised to find the level of intrusion required to get, for example, a new Twitter account up and running. Contrast that with a new HN account, which requires nothing but a username and password.

Occasionally going through the onboarding steps for these platforms can be a real eye-opener on how the platforms have changed.

When I left Twitter and Reddit there felt like a loss of what those sites used to be. The sites I replaced them with are off-ramps, I'm not letting myself get as engaged with them. If they go bad too, they won't feel like a loss.

It is such a relief to see someone say you do not have to delete your accounts to be healthy. I find myself opening these apps purely out of habit when I am bored or anxious. The idea of pausing to ask yourself why you are logging in is something I definitely need to try.

Shameless plug for the thing I built: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46672734 - meepr, basically not algo driven (except the hashtags are curated), no recommendations etc, if you wanna "grow" on it, you need to tell your friends like the good old days. It's just run by me, not planning on having it run by anyone else, if people like it I'll add a subscription to cover the server cost. (check out the retro theme!! :))

You can use various tools to block the feeds on those websites or redirect the front page to your notifications. This has completely cut browsing for me. I still use those websites because my work requires an audience, but itself pretty much write-only media.

I only have Facebook, mostly because of local community groups, buy/sell pages, marketplace and some group chats. I find blocking the news feed effectively allows me to use it as a tool without being subject to brainrot.

>If you’re job hunting, LinkedIn especially can help you connect with the right people.

This bothers me, feels like linkedIn is setup more in a way to take advantage of that potential bargain.

Is it possible to use cocaine mindfully?

I encourage you to compare using YouTube with videos on the right hidden. It will disturb you how easily they can trick you to click.

Intstagram and friends are far, far worse.

> With that said, social media still works for connections. DMs are good. Having actual conversations in comments is good.

No. DMs are not e2ee so you’re allowing an advertising surveillance company to leverage private conversations with friends against you and your friends. It’s also available to federal police WITHOUT A WARRANT. They can data mine it, associate it with your email and phone number, and sell it off to data brokers.

Friends don’t let friends use surveillance platforms.

Delete your instagram and facebook accounts. Today. Refuse to be the honey in the corporate trap that results in your friends and loved ones being placed under surveillance.

I have never understood social media.

For me, talking face-to-face is the only real means of socialising. I can barely even see the appeal of having a proper conversation on a chat application (they're much more more ideal for arranging meetups, sharing information quickly and keeping up with people far away).

It's incredibly annoying that we're expected to shift real world social interaction into these apps and platforms. It annoys me when somebody I meet begins talking to me more on chat apps than they do in real life.

However much more than that, I cannot understand the concept of posting personal details, media, worldviews and opinions underneath your own name on some platform, in which anywhere from dozens of friends and family, to the whole world, can see it. Even large group chats seem unappealing. What is the appeal of this for anybody besides the people that run such platforms for engagement and advertising?

Why do people want to see others they do or don't know doing this? What's the point of it?

Why does anybody want or engage in systems of digital reputation (likes, kudos, karma)? Moreso why are these values, or the number of followers/digital friends in anyway important? We all know that these things can be openly bought. It pains me to imagine all the one line comments, and upvote/downvote with timestamps being stored on a server somewhere.

The wildest part is that the companies that provide these platforms are worth more than companies that actually produce meaningful products and services. These are platforms that could only succeed by being free* and then abusing existing users.

Hacker News is the only place online I post, and I only do so in a non-social discourse. I don't know anybody I've replied to or been replied to by on here, and nor do they know me.

Telegram channels are great sources of news and perspectives.

TLDR: "I manage my alcoholism by only having two drinks a day."