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Comment by rvshchwl | Hacker News Reader

I cut out Social Media earlier this year, and it's been one of the best decisions I've made. Part of why I started was remembering that we didn't have doom-scrolling apps before smartphones. The change has been tremendous since I've been trying to go back to more "intentional" media. When I find myself distracted and wanting to pick up my phone, I realize there isn't really anything on it for me to do and am forced to just put it away. So I've started getting into the habit of keeping a book on me wherever I go. I've read 4 books this year!

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That realization - that you realize there's really nothing [worthwhile] for you to do - after getting over that initial break from your phone, is a magical threshold that I wish I'd crossed a lot sooner. The time and energy it frees up is so powerful, no matter what else you choose to do with it. Reading 4 books is incredible on its own but in this day and age it (and any other deliberate, non-scrolling activity) has incredible effects on your attention and emotional-balance, which I'm sure you've noticed.

Our minds seem to be more like LLMs than we probably like to imagine.

In some areas of life, technology and society have forced us to be more aware, of more things, more of the time. Our 'context' is filled with more things to consider, and attention is the window in. Sleep, schedule, and planning, helps to reset us and use context wisely.

Modern life forces a lot of context in, but we still have a lot of control over the rest of our daily 'attention windows' (like cutting out the excessive attention-grabbing media). It's kind of a rigid way to think, but there seems to be something there. We do have a saying afterall: 'what's on your mind?'

I appreciated the article: it was a good reminder to manage time wisely.

Ecclesiastes would be an appropriate read.

I'll object to "no doomscrolling" a little bit. My first case of doomscrolling was on my PC, in high-school, in early years of Facebook. It happened not with social feeds, but with news. I had this stupid idea that I need to follow news to "stay informed", and it took me I think a good year before I noticed I'm constantly sad, depressed, angry at, or afraid for the world. When I noticed, I cut news out completely. Mood massively improved, and two decades later, I still don't regret a thing. Plus, I realized some time later that reading news doesn't make you more informed, but more disinformed.

I came to a similar realisation as you and came up with 3 questions I ask when looking at any news article:

- Does this affect me in any way?

- Was this my fault?

- Can I do anything to change this?

I can't see why I should care about any event that doesn't meet a single one of these criteria, yet when I look at the front page of any news site barely any story passes this test

> Can I do anything to change this?

spreading awareness is a thing. A lot of people don't know what our politicians are doing to us which gives them even more freedom to do even worse, self-serving things.

> When I noticed, I cut news out completely. Mood massively improved, and two decades later, I still don't regret a thing.

You seem extremely active on HN, so this story sounds pretty exaggerated.

HN is not a general news site. I am also, as you noted, "extremely active". Having conversations in HN comment threads is the diametrical opposite to scrolling through and reading world news and local news every morning and evening.

Why do you think reading news makes you more disinformed? Because it makes you aware of what you don't know enough?

The sum total of things going on in the world is far more than any one human being can process. The function of the news media (either human or algorithmic) is to cherry-pick the stories that are presented to users. Because they are cherry-picked, they necessarily present a distorted picture of reality. In the days of the big-3 monopoly of broadcast TV, they were usually cherry-picked to support national unity and common American culture; as the news media got more competitive, they started cherry-picking ones that would hold viewer attention ("if it bleeds, it leads"), and then as we switched to Internet news and algorithmic feeds they are algorithmically chosen to maximize engagement.

Because:

- in bulk, it creates distorted view of reality, by overemphasizing dramatic events;

- individually, approximately half the headlines are bald-faced lies, and the other half merely click bait

- articles usually correct the lies in headlines, but in every case I could independently verify, the text was presenting heavily distorted view of the events

Some of that can be canceled out by following multiple independent sources, but frankly, doing that is IMO one of the biggest ways to waste your life I can think of. Not worth the effort. Meme sites have similar ROI, and are much more fun.

Social media had one benefit: to connect with like-minded people during the madness of the covid era. Ironically, the madness was fed by social media, in part because it allowed groups of like-minded people to connect. Note: this comment holds true no matter which side you considered mad and which side you considered reasonable.

HN is social media :)

Yes but old-style social media, not the ones where youn dooscroll cat videos. Here we’re obviously talking about those.

I don't see any technical difference? On HN, you scroll through an algorithmically generated list of submissions, vote them up and down, and post and vote on comments. This is pretty similar to FB. Just replace "cat videos" with "pelicans on bikes".

I think HN is good, BTW.

Well, one very important difference is that on HN everyone is served the same algorithm.

And one other even more important difference is that Y Combinator does not make money from HN and so have very different incentives than Facebook.

Basically I agree with your second point. I'd been hung up on the notion that people were maligning specific technical choices (and indeed there are sub-threads where this argument is being advanced), but that's not the case here. Y Combinator's goal with HN is to make money indirectly, by discreetly, almost implicitly advertising itself as an outfit at the centre of things of interest to the "higher end" of the tech field, who might then (a) absorb awareness of it by osmosis and later (b) think of it first when planning their next startup. As such its goals are much more closely aligned with what that crowd enjoys, than with maximising engagement and thus eyeballs on ads.

Everyone being served the same algorithmic results is a genuine technical difference (I believe; do we actually know that HN doesn't customise the front page for logged-in users?). I think it's quite a fine distinction, though -- both sites are trying to hold the user's attention, one just omits to use an available level of customisation. I have no moral objection to either approach.

I think it's half culture, half being text-based. HN is heavily self-correcting when it comes to low quality content, trolls, spammers, clickbait titles.

It feels very healthy how I can choose what to engage with, and what to ignore.

That's just your bias talking, though. Of course different people are going to have different opinions, but Facebook users feel the same way about Facebook, TikTok users feel the same way about TikTok. Anyone who didn't feel that way wouldn't use it.

I don't entirely understand the point you're making, but I disagree with the last part. People not only have different needs from the media they consume, they also aren't equally rational with how they decide what to consume.

that's just simply not true.

talking about doomscrolling and how it would be better not to do it is one of the favourite pastimes of the doomscroller. loads of fb users hate it but struggle to believe they could do without it.

It's interactive. As in, we write and talk, often about articles posted. That's completely completely different than passively absorbing content spoon fed by Silicon Valley algorithms and sweetened with graphics, attractive people and sudden music and sounds.

Yes. This pedantic gotcha that misses the point is amazing proof of that.

Thanks for demonstrating.

What's the point though? I'd like to think scrolling HN is healthier than Facebook. But is it better than curated subreddits, or Instagram/TikTok showing you stuff about your friends and hobbies?

I don't think it's pedantic to have a bit of self awareness, although engaging in the discussion instead of writing a pithy one liner would be better.

I cut Facebook a while ago when I realized they wouldn't let me at what I want it for.

I'm glad Facebook told me about my classmate Eddie's death. We would never be friends but we knew each other and my life was better for having him in a class years ago. My only other chance is hope that it is discussed at a class reunion in a few years.

However Facebook wants to give me the 'you won't believe who is harming our children' overblown scare because that is what sells. I need to cut that garbage out of my life (others have discussed why in detail). Realistically Facebook has about five minutes of useful stuff per day, which doesn't make them money. However now I'm out so they get less.

Facebook actually became my preferred social site for a month or two recently - I had a relatively fresh account and managed to direct the algorithm towards mostly serving me interesting archeology, local groups, and some cute pet videos.

Then one day out of the blue it decided to serve me straight up white nationalist content out of the blue. It only happened for a day but the fact that it happened at all is horrifying when you think about that occurring on a global scale.

Now I only open maybe once a week for a minute to check messenger and I hope soon to be able to delete the app of my phone for good. I really worry about what we've unleashed on the world letting these billionaires capture our digital commons.

There are better forums than facebook for things like archeology, local groups, and pet videos. However everybody does them on Facebook these days and so we are stuck...

I gave up on facebook when it decided I wanted to see borderline child porn (the girl was wearing a diaper and positioned as if about to nurse from the topless mom - it might not meet the definition of child porn but it obviously trying to sit just above that line). When reported I was told the group is fine by Facebook's standards. But it isn't fine by mine.

A couple of years ago, I went the indie route (ex big tech). Prior to that I was absolutely allergic to social media and never really used them except maybe LinkedIn.

Sadly as an indie (or frankly anyone these days?) if you don’t have a social media following, you simply don’t exist. Distribution is one of - if not the most - important things to have, so farming social media is unavoidable. The worst part is that you can’t just post and go, these apps (and respective algorithms) expect you to use them regularly for your content to be shown to people.

Automating all of that is also super tricky since there are a billion bots out there. And the alternative being pay-to-win with expensive advertising.

I did the same thing this year, and I agree it's been one of the best decisions I've made. I'm happier, and my mind feels calmer, with less noise. I've started reading a lot, and even writing (I started a blog, and one of my first posts was about exactly this, if you want you can check it out [1])

I've also tried to stay away from the news. I have a very long list of uBlock Origin filters [2] to hide certain words and topics on Reddit (even if its politically tangent, it gets blocked), and it works amazingly well. I hate that I have to go to such lengths to avoid the worst of the internet, but I love the freedom of mind I've gained, like really it feels liberating instead of boring.

One last thing: I've started to notice that the corporate claws are no longer in my head. On the train, I see something like 50–70% of people scrolling through algorithmically curated feeds, and I think about how much influence Zuck and company have over what so many people see and think, with almost no effort. The thing is, I feel like the "old man yells at cloud" meme, like I am the crazy person doing crazy things, but I feel better this way, so I will keep doing it.

[1]: https://blog.benjaopazoc.cl/2026/09/social-media-is-ridiculo...

[2]: https://github.com/benja-opazo/ublock-politics

I have followed that up with removing all algorithmical feeds from my life (I recommend News Feed Eradicator extension for that) and then setting phone to Focused mode from 9am till 2pm. It's been life changing.

I thought people at work would be mad, but everybody adjusted instantly.

Next up I'd like to pre-plan blocks of focused work - an idea I got from the Deep Work book.

What are those 4 books?

1. Continuous discovery habits by Teresa Torres

2. Life at the speed of play by Mark Pincus

3. The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman

4. Autobiography of a Yogi by Pramahansa Yogananda

You're on social media right now, Hacker News is social media.

There's a big difference between a forum where every visitor sees the same front page (more or less) and something like Facebook where every visitor sees a list of things curated just for them.

If you are only exposed to points of view that you already agree with, over time it's easy to forget that some people have other points of view (which are actually not always completely ridiculous, despite what you may have heard). Note that rage bait does not count as a divergent point of view; it's almost always a cherry-picked caricature, not anything close to a good faith representation.

This might not sound like such a big deal, but do that for billions of individuals and you have the perfect recipe for the political polarization we are currently enjoying.

It's less of a difference than you might suspect. The personalized curation is in which forum you choose to visit. HN is quite niche by numbers; it's a lot smaller than say bodybuilding.com or even AR15.com. That you choose to go to news.ycombinator.com is your personalization, and also skews your view on the world. Most of the world is interested in very different stuff.

Isn't that the whole point? That I have chosen to visit that and personalize? Otherwise, you could say all personalization skews the worldview, and you'd be technically right (the worst kind of right).

When you're talking political polarization on a societal level, it's a distinction without a difference. The distinction is that when you personalize by site, it's an explicit coarse-grained choice by the individual. When you personalize by algorithm, it's an implicit fine-grained choice by the individual, which is then aggregated and turned into an explicit stream of content by the algorithm. In both cases, you are adapting the content someone sees by what they want to see.

The sort of national unity that we took for granted between 1945-1995 (and to some extent from 1920-1945) was explicitly manufactured by mass media. Here technology presented the same content to all people, because it was cheaper to do it that way. Before the invention of consumer radios in 1920, we had a similar political polarization as we do today, if not even moreso. Also the Federal government was significantly weaker, lacking even powers like direct taxation, let alone the mass surveillance it has now.

>When you personalize by algorithm, it's an implicit fine-grained choice by the individual

I'd argue it's not so much a choice by the individual in that the individual often isn't consciously aware and may actually choose to use the same thing without the algorithm that pushes them towards things such as bubbles if that were even a clearly presented option.

On one hand, you do have a point, if perhaps a somewhat technical one. OTOH, have you seen what passes for political discourse on FB?

Calling it a dumpster fire would be an insult to dumpsters.

I've seen much bigger dumpster fires on Hacker News threads than what my friends put on Facebook, which is 99% just personal updates and pictures.

Sounds like a personal problem if your friends are going around causing dumpster fires.

Yeah, forums were social media too, but I dont remember people having such a negative reaction to forums as they do now to what replaced them, largely.

Forums have their share of negativity too. HN included.

There was always this curve where a forum would be fun because it was a small group of likeminded individuals. And as it got larger, more trolls came in, more newbies with different interests, and others that might not have shared the same cultural mentality that started that forum. And the forum would begin to shed its original members who draw the crowd. Then what’s left is people who have less interest in the community spirit. And that forum starts to shrink again as more people become disinterested and more infighting happens.

Good moderation can help but nonetheless I’ve seen this happen across dozens of forums. In IRC channels, newsgroups and so on too. So it’s not even a phenomena specific to HTTP message boards. Some communities even have a terms for it like “the eternal September”.

To be clear, this is a separate problem to the addictive design of modern platforms. That’s a whole other level negativity. But people seem to forget that the internet could be a cesspit even before Zuckerberg poisoned the well.

Forums were best before up/downvoting/likes/reactions and before sort-by-most-popular became a thing. When they were simply a discussion in historical order (possibly threaded) by topic. HN is halfway down the engagement slope with its voting mechanism, its inability to track which comments you already read, and its locking of discussions after a day or two. The last two points prevent long-form asynchronous discussions. The first prevents a shared and stable discussion order, and diverts attention capacity to giving/receiving up/downvotes and to one’s karma level.

You know what they mean though. Don't be so dense. This feed is not algorithmically built to maximize engagement, and it has no eye-catching and bait-facilitating photos. Meaningfully different.

>Don't be so dense.

I'm not the one bragging on social media how I don't use social media. I'm not the dense one here.

Some people will quibble with the definition, but I agree with the spirit of this. I have pruned all my web traffic down to a few sites, and Hacker News and Reddit are the two that remain where I feel that pull for my attention. Hacker News is better than, say, TikTok, but I still find myself reaching for it to distract me from other things in my life. It is "easy". Like 24 hour news, the FOMO is still strong (you can always refresh and find some novelty), and reading a bunch of internet comments is a guaranteed cheap fix for dopamine (or whatever).

When I have experimented with banning these sites, I have felt a positive boost in my mental wellbeing, where I go back to being bored, which is great and leads to me doing more focused activities like reading more. I just don't know how to solve the "head in the sand" issue. This site has legitimately helped me in my career for example. I think I will land on a middle ground somewhere will be the ultimate answer, like catching up once per week or something.

Have you tried only using it through RSS feeds? https://hnrss.github.io/

Likewise with Reddit you can append .rss to get a feed

Nah, it's just a news aggregator and discussion forum. I'm not here putting my life on display for everyone, and there isn't even a way for me to do that, so it's not social media. Not only do I not have a non-anonymous presence on this site, but there's not even info to link me to one, so it's still not social media... and not even close.

Good point. Procrastination is a big part of the issue for a lot of people. I'm a hopeless procrastinator. Some people are better at this than others.

Focusing your attention on things that matter is a good skill to have. Even if you only succeed part of your time, it's better than nothing.

an infinite feed with a recommendation algorithm is the root of all evil

Gottem! Checkmate.

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