How Social Media Is Ruining Your Life, And How To Fix It | Hacker News Reader

How Social Media Is Ruining Your Life, And How To Fix It

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20 pointszeedotme8 comments

> At the risk of sounding like an old-fogey, when you [ignore people in favor of your mobile], you are telling the other person that they are not interesting enough to hold your attention[...]

Good. We are telling them this because this is the truth. Some people are boring. It's time that society learned this, stopped encouraging us to be patronizing of such people, and instead started encouraging them to be more interesting.

I don't know if I'd put it like that, but I do tire of this statement as well. I agree that it's rude to hold an extended conversation in front of someone else, particularly if you two were alone and you've left the other physically present person to just twiddle their thumbs, but quickly answering a question of a friend over a cell phone during dinner is hardly something I'm going to apologize for.

I could just as easily say, "What makes you feel so self-important and selfish that you think anyone who spends time with you must shut out the rest of the world?"

I think the distinction is 'quickly'.

In your example, you're clearly still showing respect for the other person's time. In the article's example, he's clearly talking about the tarts who have prolonged trivial conversations that do -not- respect the other person's time.

Like most everything in life: there are right and wrong ways to do it.

I can see why this kind of article will annoy people, but I think there are some fair points. In particular, it is quite obvious to me that certain (by no means all) users are really over-immersed in social media, to the point where it is reasonable to start talk about addictive behaviours. I don't necessarily buy the neurological fears, but when you have people literally consumed by activities that are not truly productive, it is not unreasonable to ask them to see if they can take the odd day off.

It's like the difference between a drinker and an alcoholic; the drinker can take a week off the booze and still be fine.

As the Greeks used to say: pan metron ariston: In all things, moderation is best.

If social media is making you gullible, then why would you believe this? If you think a couple of tricks and some neat Web 2.0 tools are going to save you from becoming a social media outcast, then you are probably already a social media outcast. It drives me crazy all these people making totally unsubstantiated claims about how the internet makes people stupid. I suppose because we grew up with TV we're stupider than our parents. Does anyone really believe that?

Since citing some popular books and Times articles apparently means I've got a point, I'd like to refer you to this fascinating article by... a real doctor:

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/05/on_the_information_a.h...

I have to agree with most of the facts. For nothing but the fact that "I too am starting to suffering from those."

Quote: "If you’re over, say, thirtyish, you grew up in a world where a good chunk of what you read was true."

What kind of moron writes this crap?

I agree that is a pretty silly statement, but your rebuttal doesn't add a lot.

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