I quit Twitter for a month and it changed my thinking about mostly everything. | Hacker News Reader

I quit Twitter for a month and it changed my thinking about mostly everything.

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176 pointsHenrikJoreteg100 comments

I logged out of Hacker News for a month recently, and also part of the time out of Twitter and Facebook. I was still allowed to read HN, just not to comment, as the latter tends to waste the most time.

What I have come to feel is that my use of the internet is mostly driven by rage - and it seems to be similar for a lot of people. On HN I waste time trying to correct people who will never in a million years be swayed by a random internet comment.

On Twitter the problem for me is not the noise - it is being able to rant at any given time. Whenever something upsets me, I can immediately tweet about it, which will amplify the emotions. The better alternative is to simply not get upset about things so much.

Being logged out really helped a lot, because sometimes the urge to correct was really strong. Obviously it is the strongest when reading the wrongest opinions, which are also held by people the least likely to change their opinion. Double waste of time.

Edit: I don't just rant on my Twitter account, but ranting is the most wasteful use of my time, hence the emphasis.

> I was still allowed to read HN, just not to comment, as the latter tends to waste the most time.

I'm going through the opposite: I read HN for years, but never commented, mostly because I found if you wait long enough someone will eventually say what you were going to say anyway. But then I realised the reason I came to HN was for the quality of the comment threads, and thought why not contribute?

I'm still undecided as to whether this was the right decision.

> if you wait long enough someone will eventually say what you were going to say anyway.

And you just said what I wanted to say. :-)

Wow. You nailed it. I was wondering just yesterday why I'm commenting so much on this site and others. I thought it was a need for social interaction due to my current isolation, but if that were the case, I'd comment a lot more on Facebook than these anonymous sites, which I don't.

It is rage. That's why I was hooked on an anonymous message board for the last 7 months (for the 3rd time). I quit last month, thankfully, but I did end up just posting more on other sites. I couldn't get away with being as direct on these sites, but it's still an outlet for negativity.

Incidentally, I find the best way to quit a site I'm hooked on is with a vacation (one in which I don't use the internet much, if at all. Try a remote island). I always come back with a new mindset; everything I was heavily into before the trip is suddenly perceived as "old." I just quit cold turkey and don't return at all, and it works. That's how I've quit every site I was hooked on in the past.

For me, it's practice. Every month or two, I'll write a comment of high enough quality that I'll turn around and re-post it elsewhere because it captures whatever point I was trying to make much better than I've ever seen it said or previously written. HN delivers the right amount of quality and pseudonymity to give me both the motivation and feedback on how I communicate ideas.

That's similar to what I tried to do, or rather what I thought I was doing for awhile. I'd consider HN a place for "early drafts" of blog posts, idea being that I'd stumble upon something thought-provoking here, be inspired to make a novel observation, and then use that as the seed for a full blog post.

In practice, I just kept writing more and more of these "early drafts" and didn't write any blog articles for nearly a year.

In practice, I just kept writing more and more of these "early drafts" and didn't write any blog articles...

-- Is this a net positive? Or Negativer?

Seems like it could go either way. HN inspiring you to write down an idea/develop it you otherwise would not have. And perhaps providing feedback/criticism (on a point-by-point-basis). Both of those are good things. OTOH, if the idea ends up only partly-developed, never fully, and you move forever on ("itch=scratched"), then perhaps it is worse, because in effect it keeps you from developing /any/ ideas fully. Did you write other blog posts (from other motivation)?

I'd suggest writing down all of your ideas in a separate file, along with the "early draft" HN comment, and then making it a point to dequeue them into full-blown blog posts on a regular basis.

Commenting is for engagement, rather than broadcasting, no matter how much lurkerbaiting you tell yourself you're doing.

On HN I waste time trying to correct people who will never in a million years be swayed by a random internet comment.

Have you not seen the xkcd cartoon "Duty Calls" before?

http://xkcd.com/386/

Painful experience after being regularly online since 1992 (!) has taught me that there is always someone wrong on the Internet. Sometimes there is even someone (but I am not referring to this thread, not at all) who has a top comment on a widely viewed thread on HN who is nonetheless wrong. I try not to worry about that too much. Surely in the "old days" before there was instantaneous international written communication available to the masses things were even worse. I have learned from quite a few of your posts (including this one to which I reply) and I have learned from a lot of people here on HN. I try not to invest too much worry or self-esteem into trying single-handedly to correct all the mistaken ideas in the world.

The thing of it is, it's just so freakin' awesome to leach knowledge from all the smart people on HN. Some comments are full of useful links; some have just one really awesome link. Other comments describe a trick, technique, or experience that is enlightening.

Slashdot used to be this way for me; I'm not sure what changed, but it saddens me now that it's mostly a flamefest between the Linux old-timers and all the Apple fanboys and Windows shills. That's one of the reasons I came to HN. Funny thing is, I was just about to post an angry response in another story thread, but was on the fence about it; I used to do that a lot on slashdot. I think I'll just go and close that tab now; it doesn't really add much.

Yes, I printed that one out and stuck it to my monitor, actually :-)

I still value HN very much, and I read the comments because there is often useful information. It is just the way I interact with it that is the problem - certainly not HN that is to blame.

HN is actually almost the only web site I visit, apart from a local newspaper which I would like to quit (they are actively manipulative, as newspapers go).

This is also echoed very well in:

> "Whenever you want information on the 'net, don't ask a question; just post a wrong answer."

It's funny, I gave up Reddit for a year for the same reasons. Then I went back, and within three months it was just as bad as before. I closed my account. Now I still let myself read it but I don't comment on anything and mostly it's alright; the rage of seeing someone say something I strongly disagree with is fleeting.

I started commenting here about a year ago, and I've found it a lot better. People respect long-form comments and they are more generous with upvotes than downvotes. On Reddit, it seemed like there was always a lot of trolling, and stupid jokes are voted up a lot over meaningful content. Another plus around here is that after a couple days, people give up on their fight. There's no "mailbox" reminding you that you're having a flamewar somewhere.

I still do sometimes spend way too much time on a comment or a thread though. But it isn't yet anywhere near the kind of problem it was on Reddit. Which is particularly strange because I see most of the people here that were on Reddit and we talk about the same things. I think the community is the reason. On Reddit I was never tempted to bite my tongue. Here I do, and I think it makes me respect people here more than I ever did on Reddit--even though I know many of them are the same people.

Reddit makes rage-reading* extremely convenient and efficient with its downvote button. I realised recently that I dislike half of the posts I see on reddit, but I don't mind because I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile by downvoting them.

* Personally I don't get enraged, just annoyed.

My internet isn't driven by rage... I guess I am doing it wrong.

In his excellent book, Phantoms in the Brain, V.S. Ramachandran describes a case of Capgras Syndrome where a son could no longer recognize his parents in person, only on the phone.

His explanation (summarizing crudely here) was that the patient had suffered a head injury in a car accident and that the accident must have disrupted some kind of neural channel responsible for that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you recognize someone close to you like your parents. When the patient saw his parents, he expected that feeling but did not get it. As a result, he could only logically conclude that his parents were imposters.

What that story made me realize was the extent to which our beliefs, even our logic, is driven by subtle feelings we may not even be aware of. I have become much more attuned to those warm fuzzy feelings (I think that was actually the term Ramachandran used) in myself.

I know what you mean when you say rage drives your social media consumption, but in my case I wouldn't call it rage so much as self-righteousness. I don't rage too often and when I do I almost immediately feel embarrassed. But I find righteousness a much more seductive warm fuzzy feeling. Much of the media has optimized their business around it. (Ever wonder why some people get so worked up year after year about the War on Christmas?) Social media is very good at delivering my fix and keeping me coming back for more.

Generally what I do on HN is write most of a comment, get distracted by something, come back a few minutes later, think 'I don't care enough to finish this thought' and close the window. I find myself doing the same on Twitter fairly often, as well as Reddit, and it's proven an effective way to stop adding worthless noise to the internet. If I'm not really invested in what I'm trying to say, why would anyone else care? If I'm not passionate about writing it why would anyone want to read it?

That 'sober second thought' has saved me maybe an hour a month, if that, but I'm sure it's saved dozens of people a minute or two of mindless tripe each, and that's a pretty big win.

I have found myself typing out responses in an argumentative way more lately that result in me saying "what will this achieve? I've gotten the satisfaction of writing this message, sending it won't really do much." Then just deleting the message and moving on. It's not as satisfying at the time but I'd prefer that over starting pointless arguments.

This is true of life for many people, not just online, though online tends to bring out the worst in people, in the same way that rolled-up car windows bring out more agression in people than, say, a bicycle would.

Ultimately snipping off the points where the rage is surfacing won't solve the problem. You might think that because you don't rant on twitter it is case closed, but in reality it's probably still there, looking for a way to get out.

Online tools allow so much of our traits to escape because they are instant, easy and somewhat detached if not outright anonymous. But if the underlying rage is still there, you'll find yourself with road rage, footpath rage, the list will go on. Until you can get zen about things, it will just continue.

The key is to re-center your life, focus on what you can achieve and change and release the things you can't. Many words have been written about this in many different contexts, but I prefer the Steven Covey (7 habits) definition of circle of influence, and circle of concern. If you let your circle of concern develop into a larger set than your circle of influence, then you'll be conflicted at your inability to change things, and become less effective as a result. And you'll find yourself raging at people with different political opinions, different life outlooks, people who are outside of your control.

I'm definitely not a religious person or one prone to quoting scripture, but I think there is a christian prayer which goes along the lines of 'grant me the wisdom to accept the things I cannot change, and the ability to change the things I can, and the wisdown to tell the difference'. OR something like that. I think its in the AA steps.

I would be surprised if all major religions don't have something along the same lines.

TLDR/ chill out more, and let things slide.

For what it is worth, I have changed my mind on things based on conversations among strangers, especially here on HN.

Not that I am encouraging you to start raging, or anything.

I'm a long time lurker of HN who just created an account to correct something you are wrong about.

> I waste time trying to correct people who will never in a million years be swayed by a random internet comment.

The ability of strangers to broadcast opinion at each other is one of the largest changes in communications history. Society is structured by how we communicate with each other. Without writing we wouldn't have had command economies, without a printing press, we wouldn't have democracy* and without money we wouldn't have a free-market. How we communicate with each other literally builds our society. In a thousand years they will look back at this time as one of the fundamental turning points in human history.

Perhaps your one comment doesn't make a difference. But when it is voted up and it is repeated by others, it does. It creates a social feedback mechanism for creating morals and ideas and ultimately laws. It changes who we are as a society.

Being able to correct some random strangers wrongness on the internet is one of the most important fundamental inventions in the whole of human history.

Having said that, I totally agree with the article posted. It is not a process that engenders inner peace.

* Ancient Athens used theater to the same effect.

>What I have come to feel is that my use of the internet is mostly driven by rage - and it seems to be similar for a lot of people. On HN I waste time trying to correct people who will never in a million years be swayed by a random internet comment.

Interesting. I can empathize - I wonder if there is a natural progression of Internet participation, driven by age and personality.

Stage 1: wide-eyed wonder, and naivety. Ability to be impressed by the most mundane of cat pictures.

Stage 2: a misguided effort to set the world right by correcting people on the Internet one at a time. AKA "Why are there so many idiots online". AKA XKCD's "I can't go to sleep, someone is wrong on the Internet!" strip.

Stage 3: jadedness, cynicism. Correcting people takes too much effort, so mostly snide complaints and bitter comments.

Stage 4: disengagement. What's the point anymore.

Stage 5: enlightenment. Realizing that being negative about everything isn't all that great. Accepting that Internet comments are, on average, what they are. Engaging for specific purposes only: obtain information, develop an idea, practice writing, or - heaven forbid - just to be helpful.

Stage 6: ???

Of course, it's possible most people are just permanently stuck on one stage or another.

6 = attempt to build something good on it?

6 = ????? 7 = PROFIT

> What I have come to feel is that my use of the internet is mostly driven by rage - and it seems to be similar for a lot of people. On HN I waste time trying to correct people who will never in a million years be swayed by a random internet comment.

This, a million times. I've blocked a few websites (e.g. Reddit) because I kept being drawn into pointless comments and debates.

The point of correcting random dude on the internet is to get feedback in response.

Encouraging feedback is a useful exercise.

Stop ranting on twitter and discipline yourself to only use it to build your brand. No more socio-political I can haz cheezeburger tweets. Tweet useful information within some domain, you'll be surprised at the quality of people who will introduce themselves to you because you give them value.

Ranting is a terrible disease, but bitching can be incredibly cathartic. HN is good for ranting, but Twitter and FB are superior for bitching.

Oh the irony.

I quit twitter full stop, about eight weeks ago. Don't miss it.

You're bang on re: amplification, though. People RAGE on twitter/facebook/etc because they seek validation and affirmation of their feelings, which is a natural human response. The issue is that unlike a conversation, social media echo-chambers can amplify a tiny comment into a eight week shit-slinging match involving thousands of people.

Twitter is Toxic - above and beyond Facebook. The 140 character limit forces people to be succinct to the point of bluntness, and hilarity frequently ensues.

If this helps, I for one do tend to give a lot of thought to what people are writing or replying to me - maybe way too much sometimes to the point where it can affect my mood, a lot. I don't really draw that line between "online conversation" and "real conversation", which a lot of youngens seem to do nowadays. I didn't grow up with the noise-pollution internet 2.0 for and from the masses, maybe that is why. For me it is as real a conversation as any with a person I don't personally know; if someone in real would reply to me like that, I would feel just as bad or offended or I would just as much re-research my point if I was wrong.

Otherwise what's the whole point of "social media" if all you are doing is stroking your own ego and not learning any thing?

What I still don't understand is how people who use Twitter use it at all? I mean, you can't give much information in 140 chars. So I guess most people post links. Now, if they post links, more than that, shortened links, the only way to follow people is to click on every 140 char message. Which means you don't read, you click and click and you don't even know what you're supposed to get before you click. It's hard to understand for me that people actually do this regularly and why do they bother to actually "follow" the tweets?

Can anybody explain me what's that that I don't understand?

Twitter is great for five things: Links to long reads, breaking news, short-form comedy, status updates, and contacting interesting strangers. Most people start using Twitter for just one of those five things and discover the other ones later. For me, the first thing was breaking news. I started following individuals on the ground in the early days of the Arab Spring, and Twitter blew all of the traditional news sources out of the water.

A few reasons for me:

* Serendipity of content. I follow a stack of interesting folk. They tweet about interesting stuff. If I have some downtime that I want to fill with something interesting to read I can find something (NOTE: this does not mean I go to twitter every time I have a quiet time. I like quiet time. I have books and shit too ;-)

* Serendipity of people. I've met people in RL via twitter. Folk have come up to me at conferences and events and said "Hi - I follow you on twitter". I've done the reverse. It's been a great ice breaker in meeting new people. For me Facebook is something for the people I already know. Twitter is something that has let me meet new people.

* It's got me work. I talk about the stuff I'm passionate about. People see that passion and start a conversation.

* You can fit a surprising amount into 140 characters. In fact the discipline of getting useful info into 140 characters is a great one to acquire. It's a crash course in headline/lede writing.

* It's a place to talk to some of my friends. I live in a fairly rural area of the UK at the moment. A bunch of my "real" friends are not local. The ones who are not on facebook, or email, tend to be on twitter.

[Edit: Oh yes. One more. Access to smart people. For example a couple of weeks back I couldn't remember the term "Reification". Took my twitter followers about ten minutes to go from my dumb "What's that word for things that aren't things (e.g. the Economy)" to "Reification Fallacy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) which was what I was trying to remember]

Sorry, I still don't understand. I checked your profile, visited your twitter profile, found out that you're following around 2100 people. How many "tweets" is that per day? Do you really read them all? I feel I'd go insane doing so much "context switches of mind" to read 140-char messages of 2100 different people.

I also tried to see some random samples of the tweets from the people you follow. My impression: most of them have the form:

"@somebody: yeah right" "@somebodyelse: no, I don't" "mumble mumble sil.ly/asdasdew" etc.

I know, such "substantial" messages are not only twitter-specific. I believe you that you enjoy the whole experience. I just don't understand what's in there for me, from the people like you who like it I get the impression that I'm missing something and it frustrates me still that I can't "get" what that is. Thanks.

Do you really read them all?

Ha! No. Not even remotely. Neither do I read every HN comment or every HN post.

I don't drink the river. I dip in a cup occasionally.

I do read anything that's directed at me as an individual.

I have a couple of twitter lists that friends are on that I pay a little bit more attention to (twitter lists are ways of grouping people in twitter - think Google Circles with an even worse UX ;-).

I have a computationally generated twitter list of folk I've 'talked' to recently (via http://conversationlist.com/).

I have a couple of topic-specific lists I glance a weather eye over every day or so to see if anything interesting pops up.

Otherwise it's just serendipitous access when I feel the need for brain popcorn.

For example earlier this evening I came across http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Br... via a retweet from somebody I follow. Which interested me.

If I go look now at 23:42..... and by 23:43 I'm reading about Papa Mau - robot that holds the world record for distance traveled by an autonomous vehicle on land or in the sea http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681003/this-surfboard-sized-robo... via this tweet https://twitter.com/DanAsadorian/status/276360715865038849 retweeted by somebody I follow.

I do not sit on twitter 24/7 reading every tweet that rolls past. That way lies madness (for the way I use twitter anyway ;-)

140 characters is enough for a title and a link; is it really that different from "following" the HN front page?

HN has voting. Twitter is more like the New page on HN on reddit, which are horrible.

That's not quite fair: on Twitter you choose who to follow, so there's still a filter. In fact in some ways a superior filter -- I can't select which votes I want to count on HN, but I effectively can on Twitter (or could, if I used it actively).

140 chars forces you to be succinct. It can be information rich / highly summarized in a short space, which saves reading time.

I hear this a lot and while true, brevity also encourages people to be glib and repels context. I stopped checking Twitter and haven't looked back because I realized that for many if not most users (myself included), it is at best a way of wasting time and at worst an outlet for what I'll call 'nerd rage'. This is reflected in the "debates" that spring up over things like sexism -- everyone is talking, no one is listening.

That someone could take the above paragraph and argue that had I used fewer words I would have "saved [them] time" is baffling to me. Then again I still associate the quality of tweets with the kind of stuff we used to (and still do) leave as our IM client status. Things that reflect the kind of day you're having or why you're not at the computer; now you take your computer with you so you can read about and set your status before, during, and after everything.

I find twitter more interesting when it was consumed with flipboard.

I use it as a super wire service, I follow thousands of news organizations organized by lists, it's pretty cool for news junkies and journalists. I never tweet anything though, I don't see the point.

It sounds like it was a good idea for this person to disconnect from Twitter if reading and processing tweets was taking up that much space in his head. It sounds like it was pretty unhealthy for him and that he was somewhat obsessed with being involved in some way with what people were tweeting.

That's not been my experience of Twitter, but then I only follow 32 accounts (most of which are companies) and I've never felt like I missed out by not reading their tweets.

I was nervous to leave Facebook but when I did I found leaving Facebook easy and fun -- http://joshuaspodek.com/leaving-facebook-easy-and-fun. I had read others say the biggest surprise about leaving was that you don't miss it. Using it is addictive but not using it doesn't leave any holes in your life.

Leaving Twitter sounds easy and fun too.

When I first started with Friendster I thought it was fun. Facebook seemed fun too. Until the company got creepy and I realized centralized social media companies are locked in an arms race to get as much of your personal data as they could with as little accountability as they can get away with.

So I left to avoid doing business with creepy companies.

But I found life was better without them. Mine anyway.

I hold out hope for Diaspora as non-centralized so you own your data, but I'm not sure how much social media helps my life.

Funny that leaving doesn't leave holes in your life. I don't have Facebook or Twitter or IM or any kind of social media. The last thing I had was ICQ back in 2004 or so. But I do feel like I have a hole in my life.

I miss being able to easily keep in touch with old friends. People you rarely see anymore in real life. I think social media is perfect for that. I have often contemplated getting a Facebook account for that.

The problem is, if I am on Facebook than all my usual friends and family will want to add me ad well. People I often see and who's updates I don't want to read at all because I actually talk to them in real life on a regular basis. But I am afraid they're going to get offended if I decline their invites. That's what's stopping me from getting an account.

Well, that an the constant stream of security and privacy WTFs that always make me happy I don't have an account.

Just so you know, you can be friends with a person but 'unsubscribe' from him/her so that the person's posts and updates no longer show up in your newsfeed. I've started unsubscribing from people en masse recently and it's really gone a long way towards making facebook more pleasant to use, though of course it still has its problems when it comes to privacy, commercialism, distraction, etc.

Everyone I know who's left facebook - EVERYONE I know who's left facebook - has come crawling back. In most cases it's because they're tired of being left in the dark about events. So as to whether or not it leaves "holes in your life", I guess that depends how you feel about sitting alone at home while your friends are out skiing, watching movies, or catching a show.

Yep, I've left Facebook several times and Event listings (and the list of who is attending) are always what drags me back.

But that's just a network effect - if those listings were elsewhere, I wouldn't need to return. Someone really needs to make an events app where identity is tied to Twitter / AppDotNet / Email instead. And while you're at it, connect to my Last.FM & Rdio so you can suggest/predict events for me based on my musical taste as well as my interests & friends network.

Well, in your new event app, you'll want to allow people to log in with their Facebook as well, to take advantage of the existing network effect. If you came up with a compelling feature or two, and could get Facebook people to prefer it for their event, it seems you would have a decent chance of traction. Monetization is left as an exercise for the reader.

Working on it. Drop me an email if you'd like to chat.

Honestly, I'm sure good friends can spare three minutes for a phone call.

If it's a group, and not just you and two buddies, people forget. They forget you aren't on Facebook, they can't find your number, they just forget to call.

Fair enough. I prefer it to be just me and two or three of my friends, so I haven't hit that issue. I find it just becomes less personal after that (although your experience may vary, of course)

It might not be Facebook itself, but the overwhelming firehose of constant updates from your friends and family, combined with the knowledge that you CANNOT (should not?) use it for venting frustration or anger at the times when you most want to -- because the people you are likely wanting to vent about are your friends or family. ;-) (Well, that and the tinfoil-hat aspect of not wanting to post anything For Posterity that isn't completely sanitized.)

I quit tweeting for a few weeks and I noticed zero difference.

I was actually kind of disappointed given how much everyone talks about how we're "addicted" to social media.

So you're saying it didn't change your thinking about mostly everything?

How odd. It must be difficult for you to write catchy blog headlines.

I was born catchy

Social experiences lend us to distribute the computing of our problems to those other humans around us. We naturally store problems we can't solve, then reach out for additional processing power when others are near. It's an expression of love, in that we can probably leave with positive net calories after the problem is solved.

In a sense, you're renting out your head for distributed computing without charging anything. You're like Folding@Home for your friends' lives.

I guess the trick is to be careful about what you compute.

Helping your friend compute that infinite loop doesn't help anyone.

It's kind of scary how many stupid self perpetuating behaviors there are. Stuff like angry driving (where aggressive maneuvers make other drivers angry, and so on).

What if what you're computing is the fact that it's an infinite loop, and that's why this friend finds you so valuable?

We all subsidize each other in different ways with different currencies.

The best part of this is of course the piece of generic template at the bottom. :)

If you want to read about what I've learned about the software business, leadership, and team-building, follow me on Twitter.

I never started Twitter, so I guess I'm already good.

Seriously, this is good general advice. We should all try to take breaks from our digital addictions (you know you have them). I highly recommend camping. Total disconnection and reconnection to nature all at once!

I don't know if quitting twitter would change me much, as I usually just use it for tweeting and not following news. But quitting FB for a couple of weeks almost had a profound change. Wen you are forced to just stand and think while you're waiting for takeout, instead of making the quick check of the newsfeed, or sending time thinking about how to wittily caption a photo...you end up thinking about different things...I started to just sketch and draw more with all the spare uninterrupted minutes I had.

I've never quit Twitter for more than a week, but I don't hesitate to unfollow people when I decide I am tired of their tweets, and I don't engage in silly behaviors like following back indiscriminately. I do similar pruning of the RSS feeds I read.

For example, I decided to go on a "politics detox" the week before the Republican primary and unfollowed all but one political reporter and unsubbed from all but one political blog. I didn't miss the content at all, and I daresay I was a happier person for it.

Anyway, my point is, you don't necessarily have to quit the whole platform, sometimes all you need to do is manage your use of it. Know yourself and know your limits, then adjust accordingly. It seems to me like a lot of people just accept the firehose of input into their lives without considering the impact it will have on them. I always wonder how people who follow hundreds of other accounts keep up with it (well, I guess they're using something like TweetDeck to focus on the accounts they care about most). Interestingly, the number of accounts I follow on Twitter tends to hover around Dunbar's Number.

This. During the primaries I unfollowed several obnoxious tweeters (all left, since I can't find anyone on the right in the tech sector), and did the same for Facebook.

My rule of thumb is, if we interact or you're in my phone book, we stay connected. If not, or you simply generate noise that doesn't help me utilize the platform for my specific needs, then you're removed/filtered.

When Facebook isn't used as a public ledger of who you're friends with, there's freedom to use it for productive purposes rather than e-stalking.

Really? This is really that much of a problem for people? I'm a developer/techie person/nerd same as everyone else here and I just could never understand the whole Facebook/Twitter thing. If I do use it it's basically to talk to myself and just as a tool for self-expression (which is why I created http://writeapp.me for myself). I never much did or enjoyed talking with others on Facebook and could never quite make any connections with Twitter folks (Twitter just moves way too fast for me). Why is it that once you're done communicating with whoever you can't just leave it? I'm honestly asking. To me, this sort of thing is as mysterious and foreign as video game addiction. I just don't get it and I feel kind of odd that I don't which is weird. It's almost like you're not normal unless you can't stop using social media.

There is a quote in this clip http://youtu.be/gQ3HEVelBFY?t=4m7s which goes: "we have to shift from long sequential thinking, to short parallel thinking". I think that because computers have permeated our lifes so much, they are enabling a new pattern of dynamic adjustment to the world around us. The article didn't persuade me this new pattern is unworkable – I believe focus is still attainable, it just requires a more complex kind of management.

Edit: nevermind, I think my comment is almost completely offtopic.

Wow, this article really hit home.

Earlier this year, I remember myself commenting to someone (partially because of his age, I guess) that I was pretty surprised that he didn't have Facebook.

A few months later, I found that I was slowly blocking everyone's (read: "friends") posts from showing up on the home page, and only using Facebook as basically a feed to keep up with products and businesses. I made the profile as private as I could (unfortunately the bulk Greasemonkey scrips I found for this were buggy, so i did most of it by hand...).

It was a pain, because of Facebook's stupid phone authentication thing, but I managed to set up basically a fake account for linkage and following companies. In this way, I haven't stopped using Facebook. But I don't use it how it's "intended" to be used, and I can sign up for whatever bogus app I want without worrying about my privacy being leaked. It has been fantastic, and I haven't looked back, nor do I want to.

What stood out in the article is what he said about being oversensitive. I think social networking is a deathtrap for those who have problems like that - myself being one of them. There are some webcomic artists that I follow who I've seen go down a pretty dangerous path getting overly involved in Twitter - petty comments and stuff made against them, things like that. I see a lot of people spiraling in self destructive behavior using social networks as a medium, and it is so healthy and wonderful for people with those tendencies to stop using them.

Another side effect is that it really showed me who my true friends were. I figured that if people "couldn't" communicate with me if I left Facebook (apparently texting or emailing is too "old school"), they weren't worth having as friends. It's really funny that most people I talk to say, "Oh well, you know, I wouldn't be on it, but there are these people that I, like, can't contact any other way." Because apparently these people just have one big Facebook app, with no phone or email attached. Right.

My web presence now is basically nothing, and it's a huge sigh of relief. My only complaint is that Facebook has its claws stuck into everything, and making a new account was a real pain. I just marked my old Twitter account private, but will probably have to migrate to a new account at some point in order to use @ replies to clarify things (businesses etc. that I'm following, no personal things). There really needs to be a better way to do this.

I'm in a state not far off from this myself. I spent several years as a regular , daily member of a few odd chatrooms, before I one day came to the conclusion "That's enough of this" and in effect committed infocide within that network. I found them through idle curiousity, I stayed while I felt connected, times changed the people and push came to shove; I left. Unfortunately, this left a hole that I used to fill with some of that (rather disconnected) social interaction, in spite of the continually degraded quality of such. Some time later I now find myself ignoring a prickly itch to hop back on the networks "just to see what's up", instead vacantly seeking through newsfeeds and abandoning the odd attempt to comment partway through. Not sure why I'm submitting this one, I suppose it to be mildly cathartic, but reading this article has granted an interesting perspective on my own situation, so I suppose sharing that is reason enough. Either way, this is quite enough socializing on the internet for this lurker tonight.

Maybe off topic, but also "life changing": RSS

If I am not planning on using one or two hours, I read most social sites (subreddits, HN, blogs, ...) using an RSS (it's not dead!) reader. Web sites are built with some features that make the reader spend more time on a site. I think this is a fact people will get sooner or later.

Being on a program that let's you skim efficiently through articles makes you an efficient news consumer. Moreover, I can save articles for later, without using my already too-much packed bookmark section on my browser.

As for twitter, I have never used it too much for social purposes. It helps me reach more people that might be interested in my product (so, yes, another one of these shouting voices there).

Not that my story would be relevant, or had the number of followers the author has, but going back to using an RSS reader has improved how I use my free time reading news.

I don't feel this at all, but do I think it's easy to cultivate your way into a corner with opt-in social media, especially if you come at it from an "industry" angle where you're following a lot of people stuck in the same echo chamber with little diversity in their messaging.

In fact I deliberately counter that by diluting my stream with lots of people of minor interest, or people writing in languages I don't know, so that the timeline is big and noisy and nobody's voice comes off as being particularly loud(if they are outrageously spammy I do tend to drop them though). Over 1000 followed now.

Yes, there's a subset that I care more about, but I don't try to lock it down. The point is that it goes both ways; I will use Twitter to say relatively less interesting/valuable things if I perceive it as a smaller thing than it is.

I learned a few years ago social media can be like any addiction and moderation is always the best philosophy.

I had every social media property you could imagine. Then, I realized a large portion of my day was spent following, commenting and chasing the latest fad. I decided to completely unplug for about six months.

I still have facebook and twitter. Facebook for my high school buddies and Twitter just for posting my random thoughts. I only check them once a day and post maybe a few times a week. It helps to keep a low dosage approach so when you need to step away, you can do it without thinking you're missing something.

I've always liked the idea of having to post something worthwhile at HN. It takes out a lot of the cruft you have to sift through and makes it easier to actually enjoy the conversations and insights I get here.

I generally dont like the "persuasive essay" type of blog as is presented here. However there are some valid points. I think the key takeaway from this is not so much about quitting Twitter as it is taking a break from the distractions that take away from your family/work/actual life. I remember having an epiphany of sorts when thinking about how my kids would remember me after they get older.

I dont want them to remember a man who was more interested in the rectangle in my hand than I was in them. I want them to remember me being fully engaged with them, and being there for them. Twitter/FB/HN arent a problem unless you let them interfere with your life. If you need to take a month off to get that sort of perspective, great. If not then everything in moderation.

Easy to say moderation. But may as well counsel an alcoholic or junkie 'moderation!'

As an older guy who's seen it all happen, I see zombies walking down the hall, street, mall with their electronic sedatives/stimulants and I see no difference from any stoner.

I counsel - drop electronic instant-communications devices entirely from your life - not for a month - for life. What you get is your humanity back.

In every social network or social area online I follow, I see people saying these things regularly, along the lines of: "I can't take it here anymore". While I understand and respect it, I think it comes from what importance you put on these services in your life. You control your own mental filter - use it. No point getting upset by what random people on the internet said, and to completely stop using a service seems like an exaggerated response, as these services DO provide value.

I've quit Twitter 'forever':

It dawned on me one day that my real friends are far more interesting and polite.

I was tired of reading people's complaints and general drivel.

I was tired of taking time to respond to people and getting no interaction.

I was tired of making jokes that fell flat. Sometimes with responses like "I don't even know what that means". I think the key being that people don't know you, or your personality, and can't see your face, so they don't get your humour. They simply aren't your friends.

In summary, it is a frustrating tedious time sink.

> It’s important to note that, for me, there wasn’t some trigger event. In a snap decision, I just had this feeling that came to me the second I walked in the door one evening—it was kind of a voice saying, “yep, done for now.”

I did this exact thing with reddit recently. I'd been on reddit almost since the first day it existed, and I was kind of addicted. Woke up one morning and went "you know, I could just delete my account." Before I gave myself time to think about it, it was done.

Brilliant, another blog post where somebody tells us how amazing the world is once you stop using social networks and start interacting with people "real world" in "real ways". Here's a news flash for you, dude, people have been doing that since the dawn of time. The idea that you should just talk with people face to face is nothing new and you're not doing anything remarkable.

Generally I'd just ignore a post like this, but they seem to be increasing in frequency.

Thanks for writing such a valuable contribution. I've learned a lot.

I've had a twitter account for many years, but I never check it more than once in a given week. I'm sure there have been 6 month spans where I didn't use it at all.

This post has a lot in common with the previous one about focusing on one thing. There is a lot of noise in the world, and I'm happiest when I can turn it all off.

His conclusion is the reason I generally work evenings and weekends. When I need to work during the day, I can shut off the email, the IM, the social apps, the HN, the Reddit, but they're still buzzing away. When I take a break and open any of them, I suddenly have 1000 new things to become distracted with.

At night, all these things simmer down. I couldn't distract myself with the outside world even if I wanted to.

One of the issues I find with Twitter is the increasing amount to which it (like all channels) is used for commercial messages and notifications; when spammy @-replies and stream tweets started outweighing those from genuine people I wanted to interact with, my usage coincidentally dropped. Email's just as bad, no matter how much I unsubscribe my inbox still feels far more full of robots than humans.

What's the consequence of quitting twitter for a month? Making a blog post that's 88.5 tweets long (12,387ch/140).

LOL. Good one.

Is this overload feeling a side-effect or a design feature? Companies like Twitter and Facebook want you to spend more time on their websites, but is there a way to design a system that supports more healthful or effective social interaction and media consumption?

"I felt completely at peace about it as I deleted all my social media apps off my phone, laptop, and iPad."

I had that same feeling when I stopped watching TV and then later, when I switched to GNU/Linux. Both felt like very much like stepping off a treadmill for me.

Over the last two or three months I have forgotten to read who I am following in Twitter, and its great. I sometimes post because it triggers other services for me but I recommend giving up twitter for a month to see how it feels.

twitter is just another venue for information consumption that previously was more generally the web/blogs etc for me. So cutting it off is not about cutting off access to tweets etc but cutting off the flow of information and access to global goings-on that I am verrry accustomed to now. Sure it might free you up to do other things, but for many of us now it's just part of life - the constant flow of information and being in it. And I'm of the part of the Millennial generation that only got internet in later years -- just think where the youth of today would stand on this

here's a tip for you: because twitter will delete your account if you deactivate it for more than a month, you can use a strong password generator to lock yourself out of the account to try taking a break.

Well, it's so interesting that Twitter is so mind changing - maybe I should start using it after all?

But in fact, no, thanks, Facebook is quite enough for now, I guess.

Just about any change can have this effect as long as you perceive the change to be significant.

Everything in moderation.

the problem is some things are very hard to moderate, so they are better off being cut entirely.

Even moderation.

isn't this basically what Jaron Lanier was getting at in You Are Not a Gadget?

I've left twitter a long time ago, even following ONLY 14 PEOPLE, I can't keep with it, it's a torture to try to keep up with the stream.. Even given that it has always been 14-30 people and it being a 'saner' stream, a simple "skim" on it leads to at least 1h-2h of reading/lurking(tons of links, articles, sorting stuff to read later)

main offender: Steve Klabnik, he posts interesting stuff that I'd like to check on, and that's the reason I didn't unfollow him, but it's way too much still

Twitter just feels like really, really noisy room...

I closed my Twitter account a few months ago and my thinking and doing has never been clearer. Not to mention, the complete disappearance of anxiety often brought on by social media websites.

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