
Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016) - navinsylvester
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/jobs/quit-social-media-your-career-may-depend-on-it.html
======
RandallBrown
Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media?

I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals.
(Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS
programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of
interesting things.

I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my
dad updated to what I've been doing without having to call him. (I still call
him, but we can talk about the pictures and things we've seen over the last
week or so.) I plan vacations and events with friends. Next weekend I'm going
to a bachelor party in the Adirondacks with people from around the country.

I've never been worried about my employer seeing my social media profiles. If
I wouldn't do something in public, I wouldn't post it to social media. Maybe
I'm unique in being able to restrain myself.

I always hear stories about how people are "so much happier" after they quit
Facebook. What is happening on your Facebook that's making you unhappy?

~~~
jacobkg
For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at
least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or
"North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You
Cancer".

Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this
(true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed.

This can take a heavy emotional toll on people over time and gradually make
them more unhappy

~~~
kragen
The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming's Closed Door Paradox:

    
    
        I noticed the following facts about people who work
        with the door open or the door closed. I notice that
        if you have the door to your office closed, you get
        more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more
        productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you
        don't know quite know what problems are worth working
        on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in
        importance. He who works with the door open gets all
        kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets
        clues as to what the world is and what might be
        important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect
        sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is
        symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can
        say there is a pretty good correlation between those
        who work with the doors open and those who ultimately
        do important things, although people who work with
        doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to
        work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but
        enough that they miss fame.
    

[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

In this case, as it turns out, bacon does give you cancer. The relative risk
of high "processed meat" consumption is in the neighborhood of 20%, i.e. RR of
1.2, for colorectal and lung cancers.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16991129/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16991129/)

In the US, there are about 200k deaths per year from these two cancers, out of
2.7 million total deaths. So your chances of dying of one of these two cancers
is about 7.4%, if you live in a place somewhat like the US. And that increases
to about 8.9% if you eat a lot of processed meat.

It seems to me like a 1.5% chance of dodging a death by cancer, and thus
living an extra 5–20 years, is worth a single disrupted morning.

~~~
npsimons
First and foremost, what evidence is there for Hamming's claim?

> is worth a single disrupted morning.

We're not talking about a single "disrupted" morning. We're talking about
chronic depression, which can lead to suicide.

Many people I tell that I don't keep up with current events like to claim I'm
ignorant. At which point I ask them to name the most important thing they
learned from news two weeks ago. Haven't had someone come up with anything
substantial yet.

Knowledge is valuable, it is a form of wealth, and there are many ways to get
it. I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today.
Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today.
Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least.

The "news" has been like that for a _long_ time.

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself
becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of
this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to
confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look
with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading
newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what
has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have
read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world
as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their
fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe
is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has
subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can
be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is
better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is
nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who
reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all
false."

-Thomas Jefferson, 1807

[http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_spe...](http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs29.html)

While Jefferson neglected to read newspapers, he read many books and was
arguably one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment.

~~~
l9k
I actually thought it was a recent quote until the end. 200 years later, still
true.

------
gnicholas
> _In my own professional life, for example, as I improved my standing as an
> academic and a writer, I began receiving more interesting opportunities than
> I could handle. I currently have filters on my website aimed at reducing,
> not increasing, the number of offers and introductions I receive....My
> research on successful professionals underscores that this experience is
> common: As you become more valuable to the marketplace, good things will
> find you._

This struck me as humble-braggy, and not particularly enlightening. Are there
any details on this research? It's not at all surprising that a tenured
professor at Georgetown would have lots of inbound requests, so that one data
point isn't particularly relevant for most people. What fields were these
other professionals in?

I'm completely open to the possibility that in some fields, the most
successful people are not on social media much. But laying out this blanket
advice without any detail on where it might or might not apply isn't very
helpful.

There are a lot of founders on HN, and I am interested to see the perspective
of other founders. We wear lots of hats, including as social media
marketers—which of course entails some social media presence. I'm pretty sure
my Kickstarter would have never been funded if I weren't on FB, for example!
But maybe I'm wrong, and I'm not considering the alternate promotion avenues I
would have pursued if I weren't on FB?

~~~
lkrubner
" _This struck me as humble-braggy, and not particularly enlightening._ "

But it is true. I'll save my criticism for things that are false, or utterly
banal. And people at the beginning of their career might not fully realize how
much things change when their career takes off. It's worth saying.

~~~
geofft
The thing that's false is the implication that careers will certainly /
deterministically take off. Especially in academia there are more people who
both want a certain role and are qualified for it than roles. If you happen to
stumble into the right path - maybe some particular research interest of yours
in graduate school happens to line up with someone who just retired at a good
university, and so there's an opening; maybe you pick an experiment that
happened to succeed instead of fail and so you got more publications because
people hate negative results - your career will take off without the need for
social media to provide you with opportunities and networking. On the other
hand, maybe someone from your informal network will be the step you need to
get out of a fruitless program and into something where your career will take
off.

If this person is conditioning their anecdata on "successful professionals,"
it's totally unsurprising that they'll find that successful professionals are
successful. That doesn't help those of us who aren't lucky and need to figure
out how to push ourselves over the threshold until our career catches.

(Note that I'm not saying that this person's success was simply the result of
luck; they _also_ had to be qualified and work hard. But out of the qualified
people who work hard, not all of them can succeed.)

~~~
sdfmxiid1
I had a similar reaction. It strikes me a bit as part of the rampant
survivorship bias that happens all the time in contemporary society. As in, I
worked hard and things worked out, therefore if you work hard things will work
out, and if you didn't, you weren't doing something valuable or working hard
enough.

I don't know that I disagree with the author so much about social media
platforms like Facebook per se, but I disagree with some implicit premise
they're making.

The reason why things like blogs and social media presence are advertised so
much is precisely because "value" really means something like perceived value,
which depends on things like awareness. That is, it's not really so much
whether or not what you do has value, its whether or not people are aware of
you and perceive it as having value. So to get eyeball time, you need to put
yourself out there.

I'm also a tenured professor, and what I increasingly see is popularity
driving things, rather than value. That is, the rigor of academic work seems
less and less important than the splashiness of it. The colleagues I know
whose careers have taken off have done so precisely because they manipulate
the social aspect of it--they're politicians more than scientists or
mathematicians.

In this regard, there seems to be something disingenuous and dangerous about
the general sentiment being expressed. To me, it generally seems to be
dismissing the sociopolitical aspect of how we reward work, sweeping it under
the rug, which will only worsen our problems.

------
turc1656
_" The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used —
persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to
crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom."_

While I do not use social media (have FB but don't use it, never had Twitter,
Instagram, etc.), and have taken steps to minimizing distractions like using
the browser add-on Distraction-free Youtube (which is great, BTW), I have
realized recently that HN is one of three sites I am addicted to and use in
lieu of social media. I absolutely hit refresh on the HN main page whenever I
encounter the "slightest hint of boredom" or just something I don't want to
do. Same for the other sites.

This is troubling to me, as all three of those sites are legitimately very
useful. I read them for useful information and to keep abreast of topics
important to me and to know what's going on in the world. They also provide
insights from other perspectives I have not considered and act as a challenge
to my own opinions and beliefs. It seems obvious I am going to have to
severely limit my use during normal hours. I am aware of the noprocrast
setting but honestly, it's a setting I have full control over so that doesn't
help as I'll just override it and the other sites have no such setting anyway.
Going to have to rely on good ol' self discipline.

~~~
otachack
HN totally is one of the sources. But it's ultimately up to you, the consumer,
to limit your intake.

I ran into an article, either supplied by HN or not, that went over how we do
not allow ourselves to be bored anymore. Any downtime we encounter is attacked
with interaction with our smart phones. I think we need, as a favor to
ourselves, curb that behavior.

One thing I've done was disabled ringtones and vibrations for notifications on
my phone. For calls I used to have my Pebble alert me of them but the app has
stopped being maintained. This allows me to check my phone when I want to, not
when it tells me to.

Good luck!

------
tapeleg
Career and social life should be completely and utterly separated. The content
on your social media page should have no bearing on your ability to perform
the job at hand.

Quite honestly, an employer that even looks at your social media profile to do
a sort of casual "character check" on you, is not one that you should want to
work for in the first place.

Especially true in the realm of IT, where there just simply aren't enough
solid, responsible people to fill the need.

This article presents a nice thought, but on principle, I'm just gonna keep
doing my thing outside of work (documenting what I want on social media), and
crushing it AT work. My career should be growing based on job performance, not
that one time I accidentally got too drunk at a bar.

~~~
borplk
> an employer that even looks at your social media profile to do a sort of
> casual "character check" on you, is not one that you should want to work for
> in the first place.

Companies aren't going to ignore "free information available at your
fingertips" about the candidates they hire.

For example a problem candidate may have easily accessible "red flags" on
their social media such as racist stuff and drug use.

They could "save" themselves some costs and future problems by knowing that
ahead of time.

When companies are trying to optimise their hiring process they aren't going
to ignore free additional information about the candidates, they want every
last piece they can get their hands on so they can (at least in their mind)
make the optimal decision.

~~~
dionidium
_" Companies aren't going to ignore "free information available at your
fingertips" about the candidates they hire."_

I do. I often interview candidates in my role as a software developer at my
company. Finding them on social media would be trivial. But I don't look for
them there. I don't care.

I don't even want to _know_ their politics before giving my recommendation and
I'm deeply suspicious of anybody who thinks they _would_ want to know that
information.

~~~
Karupan
Second this. I make it a point not to look them up on social media. There have
been a couple of occasions where I’ve checked their LinkedIn profile if I feel
something’s amiss, but that’s quite rare.

------
kcorbitt
This is self-promotional, but also highly relevant!

A few moths ago after reading Cal Newport's book "Deep Work", I decided to try
to improve my social media usage by writing an app that could block
HN/Twitter/Google News (the big 3 digital distractions for me) by default, and
force me to go to an extra step to temporarily unblock them when I wanted to
use them. It seems like a small thing, but that extra friction of having to
open my app, unblock, and then go on to the service in question has really cut
down my casual browsing. I feel much more productive and just... at peace with
my internet usage since I've adopted this pattern.

If you have iOS and would like to give the app a try, I'd appreciate it! It's
totally free for now. [https://timeguard.io](https://timeguard.io)

~~~
fokinsean
I had a very similar experience, but have since relapsed back into the
instagram-sphere. The only things keeping me there are group chats and
Fortnite clips/memes.

The biggest benefit was how much my attention span improved when I quit, but
now I am back using insta and the itching feeling of grabbing my phone the
moment I'm bored or stuck on something has returned.

I need to re-read Deep Work and highly recommend it to others. I'm also going
to give your app a try!

~~~
peacetreefrog
I know that itching feeling well, here's what's mostly worked for me: view
your phone as tool with a limited set of functionality. For me, that
functionality is: calls, texts, Google maps, Spotify, Audible, podcasts, and a
camera.

That's it, no email (technically have the ability to send an email if i need
to, but no notifications and no constant checking) and no random internet
browsing and twitter etc consumption. I have some blocking apps that help with
this, but the biggest thing I think is just the mindset. Twitter in line at
the grocery store is no longer what my phone is for. Not that reading tabloid
headlines is any better, but the main point is stretching out your focus
muscles, getting rid of the urge to immediately grab your phone anytime
there's a lull or hint of boredom in your life.

Overall, it's nice. Almost like being back in the 90's pre smart phone but
also with a super powerful computer that can play any song you want/give you
directions to anywhere when you need it to.

~~~
fokinsean
Yeah that's definitely a good way to look at it. I also turn off notifications
for 90% of my apps which is a life changer. Same with email/slack
notifications on my computer. I only have notifications if I get DM'd.

------
Spooky23
It advice where the answer is "it depends".

Are you a police officer? Trial attorney? Inspector General? You almost
certainly should not be on social media, or exclusively posting baby pictures
and acting within defined guidelines from your employer.

Are you a teacher? librarian? social services worker? union steward? public
sector employee not covered by collective bargaining? You should be very
cautious about sharing your views/experience on gun control, abortion, Trump,
binge drinking, drugs, etc.

Are you a salesdude, politician, business owner, etc? If your personal schtick
part of your branding efforts professionally? You should be on social media,
focused on whatever you do.

Otherwise, Facebook, Twitter or whatever is what you make of it. If you do
dumb things, there may be consequences. Most of the time it's the equivalent
of amusing yourself with friends in a semi-public place, except your buddy
Zuck is always silently listening.

~~~
upvotinglurker
> Are you a police officer? Trial attorney? Inspector General? You almost
> certainly should not be on social media, or exclusively posting baby
> pictures and acting within defined guidelines from your employer.

An agent from the local mid-size-city FBI office spoke at an "information
security for regular people" event at my university. He said he had a Facebook
profile, but pretty much all the information on it was false.

------
lazyjones
It feels like only months (OK, it's been a few years) since we were being told
that not having a social media presence may be considered suspicious.

[http://business.time.com/2012/08/08/does-not-having-a-
facebo...](http://business.time.com/2012/08/08/does-not-having-a-facebook-
page-make-you-suspicious-to-employers/)

~~~
amha
People have different opinions. There's no homogenous voice of authority that
tells people what to do and what not to do.

~~~
lazyjones
These aren't "opinion" articles. Their findings are reasoned and presented
like facts. If the NYT wrote "Quit eating chocolate, your health may depend on
it", would you perceive it as an opinion, or advice based on facts/research?

~~~
ensignro2340
As 8ytecoder said, Cal Newport has never been wishy-washy on this topic
(please correct me if I'm wrong). He's also been pretty clear in interviews
that deep work is incredibly beneficial for some professions and less so for
others. I know there are careers out there where having a social media
presence is important (PR, marketing, etc) and others where it's not necessary
and would be a hindrance to getting deep work done.

------
iovrthoughtthis
Last week I watched a homeless man:

    
    
      - Get a phone
      - Start a twitter account
      - Start mico-blogging
      - Get offered a job
      - Get the job
      - Become no longer homeless
    

[https://mobile.twitter.com/CharlieBinbags](https://mobile.twitter.com/CharlieBinbags)

~~~
alex_young
Thank you for sharing that. Inspiring story. Social media clearly has positive
and negative properties just like any other form of communication. I'm glad
it's helping here.

------
kevinml
I didn't sign up for Twitter because I thought it would open up professional
opportunities for me. Not sure who this is aimed at to be honest.

OP thinks social media is bad for you and doesn't need it for professional
reasons so he doesn't use it. So why should I take his advice on what I should
or shouldn't do on social media?

His argument boils down to there are more productive uses of your time. Brb,
gotta delete Netflix too! Sorry to my family as well, since I need to move to
a shack in the woods to be free of distractions for my important work.

If OP is worried about the "seductive" nature of promoting yourself on social
media maybe he shouldn't write humblebrag articles to post in NYT.

------
peterlk
A fundamental rule that is eroding the allure of social media:

Information consumption != happiness

I have recently engaged in a somewhat forced[0] experiment. I have given up
nearly all social media, and apps that send me push notifications of any kind,
and replaced my news diet with e-books. Now, rather than reading the daily
political gossip or worse, I listen to an audio book or read an e-book about
something that interests me. I feel like my brain has much more space, and I
am much less stressed.

[0] I broke my phone, and couldn't get the one I wanted, so I got a temporary
phone that gives me a grand total of 4GB of user-available storage. I've
installed very few apps.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
Good to hear it's going well, Bryan!

------
nimbius
as a millennial its almost impossible to apply for a job that doesnt quietly
scan through social media trying to find you. My last job sent a linkedin
request from the HR director, but after my first week he lamented that I
"didnt seem very social" on the internet.

My current job went so far as to browse the TLD for my email address for clues
to any seditious or non-conforming behaviors.

~~~
tjr225
> after my first week he lamented that I "didnt seem very social" on the
> internet.

Ew...

------
mindcrash
The problem with Social Media (and a few other platforms aswell) is that they
were explicitly designed with addiction in mind. There's even literally a book
about this subject called "Hooked" with subtitle "How to create habit forming
products", but you can and should translate the "habit forming" in the
subtitle into "addictive".

Everybody has neurotransmitters in their body, and these neurotransmitters
have the ability to change brain chemistry. One of those neurotransmitters is
dopamine, which makes you feel good when you have accomplished something.
Basically it's natural crack. So what do these platforms do? They abuse the
knowledge of this kind of biology within the experience design of their
platforms to create something I call "dopamine loops", which basically means
you crave more, and more, and more dopamine (and thus keep interacting with
the service). And before you know it the last few hours you should have spent
on work or other important things like keeping an eye on the traffic around
you or having actual real life social interactions with the people around you,
are rather spent on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and whatnot.

So it would rephrase the headline a bit. Not only your career may depend on
it, but your entire life may actually depend on it.

------
sergefaguet
how about quit all news media including the New York Times?

NYT = same exact incentives as Facebook. plus constant exaggeration of threats
and pushing irrelevant stuff outside of your control.

i honestly don't give a fuck what Kim Jong Un / Putin / Trump do because i
can't change anything about them.

which makes the NYT an addictive waste of time very much like social media.

~~~
mkirklions
Ive moved on for the most part.

I check reddit and ycombinator.

Instagram was good, but its a lot of repeats after you spend enough time on
it.

------
pdog
_> I've never had a social media account._

This is strictly true, but it's not as if Cal Newport doesn't have a web
presence. He has a website registered for his name[1] and runs a popular blog
called _Study Hacks_ [2].

If you're marketing yourself, you should register your name online. It's one
of the simplest and most effective ways to strengthen and, more importantly,
control your personal brand[3].

[1]: [http://calnewport.com/](http://calnewport.com/)

[2]: [http://calnewport.com/blog/](http://calnewport.com/blog/)

[3]: [https://www.financialsamurai.com/strengthen-your-brand-by-
re...](https://www.financialsamurai.com/strengthen-your-brand-by-registering-
your-name-online/)

------
prolikewhoa
I live in the PNW and am in the tech industry. I haven't had a need for social
media in any job application I've filled out, and not a single interview or
recruiter mentioned anything about social media.

Social media is entirely unecessary unless you consider Indeed social media or
work in a social media role.

~~~
onion2k
_I live in the PNW and am in the tech industry. I haven 't had a need for
social media in any job application I've filled out, and not a single
interview or recruiter mentioned anything about social media._

You live in a region where the demand for tech workers outstrips the supply.
Of course no one is ruling you out based on what your social media says about
you. Employers can't afford to.

If you work in an industry where an employer knows there'll be 50 equally
qualified candidates available at the drop of a hat then they can afford to
filter people out of their candidate pool; checking someone's social media
reputation is precisely the sort of filter they use.

Note that there are _huge_ numbers of programmes aimed at getting more kids in
to coding. This will be standard practise for narrowing down the pool of
developers in a decade or so.

------
JDiculous
I vehemently disagree with the assertion that all social media is a net
negative on one's life.

First of all, there are many people who make a living off of social media, and
HN itself is social media which for me personally has had a very positive
impact on my life. But let's ignore this for a second.

Social media simply allows one to expand their network and influence way
beyond what one could accomplish solely offline. This means being exposed to
opportunities that one may have never encountered via p2p word of mouth alone,
whether that be job postings, business opportunities, potential clients,
business partners, knowledge, motivation, etc.

Social media of course can be a toxic waste of one's time (eg. the default
Reddit homepage). Social media addiction is a serious problem that needs to be
addressed. If you're compulsively checking your Facebook/Instagram every 5
minutes then that's probably a serious problem (unless you make a living off
those platforms) that needs to be addressed. For the rest of us who maybe
check it for 5-10 minutes in the evenings during our downtime, it's not really
a big deal.

Also I'd imagine that the author is a huge recipient of the positive end of
social media even if only indirectly, his blog articles and such being shared
through social media in order to market his book. I discovered his work over a
decade ago through his blog which I used to actively follow. So it's a little
bit hypocritical of him to knock on bloggers. But I totally agree with his
observation that as a whole we're losing our ability to focus, and social
media addiction is a serious problem.

------
dizzystar
On the other hand, there has been an increasing trend of companies adding a
red this-is-required star to social media links on applications.

I've been outright rejected for several jobs because I said I have no useful
SM presence.

I could understand this for something like band promotion, but for programming
and similar jobs, it makes zero sense. I don't post pictures of me online, and
even so, I never take photos when I'm out, and I'm not sure why it matters.
It's almost like they think I'm hiding dead bodies or prison tats on my face.

~~~
paulie_a
Even if you do have a social media presence that should be considered a red
flag about the company.

Personally I would fill those blanks in with
[http://notapplicable.com](http://notapplicable.com)

It probably wouldn't result in a response but at least it would send a
message.

------
iamhamm
I'm not sure I buy that not using social media is the linchpin of my career,
but I take his point that it's largely a waste of time to be reasonable. I
have all the major social media services and I use them occasionally (for
example: I don't install the apps, I just login from a browser). I think the
bigger message that I take from this:

1\. Some people are probably "addicted" or at least habituated in a way that
makes social media actively negative in their lives.

2\. For the rest of us, maybe some see value in social media and others don't.

I'm in (2): I take the "does doing X enrich my life?" approach to social
media. Maybe once or twice a week I log on and see if anyone had anything
personally interested happen. If so, great, if not or if it's just not
something I want to spend brain on, I just keep scrolling. I've got other
places to spend my time and I recognize that passively consuming a feed isn't
enriching my own growth - so I don't do it.

For the people in (1), it's a very different story. They may be using social
media to an active detriment. Not sure how you get there, but to quote the
psychologist in Annihilation:

"Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct."

I guess for some folks, that's social media - it's destructive to the point
that bloggers need to write articles about quitting it. Or maybe it's just
more clickbait since that's our world now.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
This site is my social media, and I'm addicted to it, and I can't concentrate.
This is a cry for help.

~~~
iamhamm
"Hi, I'm shrimp_emoji and I'm a hackaholic."

------
ensignro2340
I don't remember where I heard/read it, but I always think about something
someone said along the lines of "I want to be the person who creates a social
media app, not the person using it every day"

I've found more and more time in the day the fewer social media accounts I
have. I just wish the industry could step a little further away from LinkedIn.
It's the only social media site I feel has any bearing on my career at the
moment (I mean the only one employers ask about regularly).

~~~
amelius
> I just wish the industry could step a little further away from LinkedIn.

Are there any open-source and federated alternatives to LinkedIn? (Other than
just posting your resume as a HTML page)

------
nopacience
Something curious about facebook is, they let anyone access user profile/pages
(or whatever it is called), so visitor can see the user profile picture and
might be able to see other stuff. Facebook "protects" the privacy of the
"visitor" because the user cannot see what visitors have visited their
profiles.

So, users have no privacy, but visitors have their privacy protected.

Facebook should list "who" visited user profiles. I dont know why they dont do
this already. And even more, they could somehow list what photos the visitor
chose to see, how long visitor stayed on user profile, which 'full resolution
pictures' visitor had downloaded. If they only saw thumbnails then no need to
list, but if visitor made the effort to download all full resolution user
pictures then the owner of those pictures should be able to see who has
downloaded them.

So this way, the user would be able to see how frequently visitor X, Y, Z has
stayed on their profiles, and how many/which full res pictures they have
downloaded/seen.

If the user profile is not a person, but a store (or company snooping on you),
then the store would be able to benefit from this data and send some message
saying "We noticed you have been visiting us lately, and you seem to have a
lot of intrest in product X. Do you want to know the price or make an offer?"

Or, if the user is a person and has seen weird behaviour from weird users,
then user would be able to take precautions.

So in the end, the user profiles are public and have no privacy. But the
visitors/consumer of other people profiles can snoop on other lifes and have
their privacy protected because the page they visited is never able to know
they have been visited by visitor X Ntimes.

~~~
duncanawoods
> I dont know why they dont do this already

Because people would use Facebook less.

Creeping is one of the core values of FB whether its acquaintances you think
you want to know more or the old flames you think you want to forget. It may
not be entirely negative as it sounds - its essentially gossip with a digital
middleman and no distortion. Or at least a different kind of distortion with
more control by the source.

------
manishsharan
Is LinkedIn considered social media ? I don't use it much but I consider it as
an address book of past colleagues that updates itself.

------
reaperducer
Does HN count as social media?

Aren't fora the original social media platforms?

~~~
mkirklions
HN is social media, but its much more anonymous since its based on usernames.

------
bazzlexposition
"Demographically speaking I should be a heavy social media user, but that is
not the case. I’ve never had a social media account."

And I am supposed to spend the next 10 minutes reading your opinion, about
something you haven't even experienced firsthand.

------
jmartrican
> You should quit social media because it can hurt your career.

Quitting social media might hurt your social life. FB is how I stay in touch
with friends and family. Its how we exchange pictures of our kids.

------
nicodjimenez
I like Cal Newport's Deep Work book. It gave me some extra confidence to blow
off social media, email, and Slack, and focus on one thing, without feeling
like I must be missing something important.

------
emodendroket
This title suggests a somewhat different piece than it actually is. The
argument seems to be that cultivating a social media presence as a career
strategy is not helpful at best and may even be hurtful for dividing your
attention. That's probably true, but I like to use social media to have
discussions, find out about local events, or get in touch with friends, and
have never really thought that someone would hire me because they liked an
opinion I posted on Facebook.

------
rhcom2
Is HN "social media"?

~~~
thisisit
In some sense, yes. A friend of mine, once got obsessed over the karma he was
generating on HN. Every two hours he would check his HN profile, just to see
if his karma had increased or not.

~~~
justherefortart
What does karma do for you here?

I still can't downvote so it seems pointless.

~~~
psyc
I don't know the exact number, but I believe you get downvotes around 500. It
may have changed.

~~~
justherefortart
So close... Help a brother out! ;-)

------
purplezooey
Kind of a simplified argument. _"...foundation to achievement and fulfillment,
almost without exception, requires that you hone a useful craft and then apply
it to things..."_

yeah that sort of overlooks a lot of stuff, like bullshitting skills (very
important today).

------
mkirklions
What do HN readers use for social media?

I basically only use Reddit, HN, and instagram(which I'm slowly quitting).

~~~
wmichelin
Facebook, Reddit, HN.

------
drdrey
OP doesn't need social media for professional opportunities, therefore you
don't either

------
ohmichel
This is a powerful piece. Definitely Cal have a point when he says "If you’re
serious about making an impact in the world, power down your smartphone, close
your browser tabs, roll up your sleeves and get to work. ".

------
askafriend
Devil's Advocate: While we're at it, how about we quit the New York Times,
CNN, Fox News, etc too? They have the same effect, just not the same
distribution power that they had in the past.

------
nwsm
> If you’re serious about making an impact in the world, power down your
> smartphone, close your browser tabs, roll up your sleeves and get to work.

I found this pretty pretentious.

~~~
amadeusw
How come? I found this very empowering. It's just the motivation I needed this
morning, and perhaps every day. It makes me realize that I'm here at work for
a reason, and browsing hn is not one of them.

------
zzzeek
nice article, but the concept of a career that is too much based on self-
promotion and too little on actual production is not a concept invented by
social media. It's fine to say, "hey don't waste all your time on twitter" but
this seems to address people who specifically are pursuing their social media
persona as a means to career advancement. It depends on the career.

------
mslate
> Join Social Media. Your Career May Depend On It

------
slantaclaus
Why all this sentiment now? Seems like all these articles are just chasing the
financial headlines.

------
wmichelin
Does NYT just let anybody write for them nowadays? This article came off as
very... amateurish.

~~~
grzm
Looks like it was a guest piece, which may explain (while not excuse) what
you're seeing:

> _" Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown
> University and the author of “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a
> Distracted World” (Grand Central)."_

As an aside, during the expansion of media online, a lot of traditional media
picked up a lot of bloggers. In some cases they were included in sections that
distinguished between the traditional staff and the blogs, and were held to
different journalistic standards, often on different teams. (Don't read this
to mean that there aren't excellent bloggers; indeed there are.) That
distinction has fallen away so it's not always obvious. Then again, people
often mistake editorials and opinion pieces for news articles when it's right
there in the header.

------
known
In social media you're unknowingly disclosing/sharing intimate details of your
life;

------
20171026
Does publishing YouTube programming videos and career advice count as social
media?

------
of
I maintain multiple troll accounts on Twitter and Facebook. That's all I use
these services for. I take pride in my active part in the downfall of these
services, while at the same time producing intriguing and low-brow troll
content.

Once Mark Zuckerberg accepts the fact that not everyone uses the Internet
according to his sheltered brain's arbitrary rules (I've even had to send a
picture of my driver's license to Facebook to get them to unban one of my
accounts. It's just a website! Get over yourselves), then the bubble will pop
- with small communities scattered throughout the multiverse of the net just
like Web 1.0.

And that's basically it. The web is a multiverse where each of us are
simultaneously able to have multiple identities, living multiple realities.
It's never been suited to the rules that Facebook is trying to force people
into. I feel like Facebook would be better off making their own Internet if
they want people to adhere to their bullshit.

------
feelin_googley
[https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cal-
Newport/146867498697353](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cal-
Newport/146867498697353)

------
kilovoltaire
(2016)

~~~
sctb
Thanks! Updated.

------
hashkb
Social Media is so obviously bad for you/society and good only for platform
owners and advertisers. Most obvious thing in the world. To me, it's not at
all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different.

~~~
AlexCoventry
> not at all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different.

I don't know; I'm addicted to reddit right now, and haven't noticed any
greater tendencies to risky behaviors or violence.

~~~
crispyporkbites
you're not addicted to reddit, at a molecular level your body doesn't even
know what reddit is

~~~
AlexCoventry
I'm aware, but from that perspective I don't know what the parallel to crack
cocaine is supposed to be.

------
promeus
Social media is not a problem. Tools for social internet connections are.
Before all centralized tools we stayed connected with blogs, forums, etc.
Fragmentation is important. Practically speaking, content is king. By giving
your content to someone for free, you are creating a precedent in which,
someone will explore your effort for nothing in exchange. Facebook is
bottomless pit of greed. Thats why they are failing. Yes if you are
technically and psychologically educated individual you can make this tools to
work for you. But in a long run this is not true solution.

