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Comment by Refreeze5224 | Hacker News Reader

What is the solution? You imply that it is just to quit using it, but then you mention how super-addictive social media and especially TikTok is. Which it is, by design, by very smart people who very intentionally exploit every aspect of human psychology they can, for profit. I don't blame the victims of social media, I blame the architects of it. To me it's clear that social media does more harm than good, and is only useful to generate ad revenue, which to me is also clearly more harm than good, and should all be nuked from orbit.

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The solution is simple, go interact with actual humans and make an actual bond. Hanging out with good friends feels way better than any social media I've ever used and I've been online shitposting since 1995.

Just this morning I tagged along to an activity a friend of mine has been doing a few weeks, and had some nice conversations with people I've never met before.

Humanity, in person, in the context of common interests, is fulfilling for the soul.

How do you do that? You've stated a goal, but not a mechanism to get there.

Are you asking how you hang out with friends?

I mean this in all seriousness... you talk to them. Don't wait for them to ask you, you ask them.

Or are you asking how you make friends?

That one's harder but I'll point out something important. You notice how you made friends in school? The reality of it is that you just spent time around the same people constantly. That's the biggest driver. Bigger than any shared belief, politics, or whatever. Join a club. Go to the gym. Spend time outside your home in public in the same location at approximately the same times. You'll meet people who also spend time outside their homes in the same locations at the same times. Repeat this until you gave gained friends.

Just use another platform if you can't quit cold-turkey.

But yeah, the solution is to not let them collect data about you.

Which one — YouTube shorts?

Social media is addictive, but Hacker News overplays how addictive it is.

Most of what keeps people on it isn't heroin-like dependence but convenience and habit.

Convenience of what? What goal is achieved most efficiently by using social media?

People use social media to consume news and entertainment and to curate and communicate with people and accounts using an interface that allows them to read and share multiple media types.

My mother used it to communicate with her COPD support group and chat with in-laws in Australia. I use it to follow up on work groups and authors and developers I'm interested in. Most people's usage of social media is banal and mundane, little different than watching television in the 1990s. They use social media because it provides value for them, not because they're addicted to dopamine.

i think you have a very idealised view of social media. have you been to a classroom recently?

it’s also meaningfully different in structure from tv. tv was 7-10 min of content and a couple of ads in between. and you grew annoyed by the ads. only toddlers were captivated. now most content is designed like ads were. and now they grow annoyed when outside it. and toddlers and older people are captivated.

No, but most people who use social media aren't schoolchildren. I have a niece and nephew who are school age and they seem to be doing fine. Certainly better than people here insist they must.

And I don't think believing social media provides some practical value for people beyond addiction is "very idealized."

edit: I remember a very different past than you do. People of all ages watched tv for hours at a time, everyone was captivated. Saturday morning cartoons (all of which were toy commercials) were a mandatory childhood ritual. And the ads when popular were often the memes of their time. Different in structure but not much different in influence.

We call that mental addiction.

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