

Why I'm Quitting Social Media - JayCruz
http://tapenoisediary.com/2009/06/06/why-im-quitting-social-media/
When you read a book, watch tv, or consume other type of media, you do it for a purpose. Most of the time the purpose is to entertain yourself. But on the web, specially on so called social media like Twitter, the purpose is constantly being challenged and shifted. It’s a two way, or asynchronous conversation as it has been proselytized, but you still have to manage that expectation. To listen or to talk, to participate or to follow, to write or to read. This is theoretically great, but you will never have that sense of completion I was talking about. It’s an open loop that never closes in your head.
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alanthonyc
This is a classic "quitting an addiction" post. I've seen and heard this many
times, from people playing wow to smokers to coffee drinkers.

If you have to announce how and why you are quitting, then you probably _are_
doing it too much.

~~~
dschobel
<http://www.newsweek.com/id/183180> here's a newsweek "I'm quitting FB"
article

and I'm certain I've seen one on slate.com

Is Facebook really so all consuming for these people who have to quit it
publicly?

Personally I love FB. It's like auto-pilot for my social life. It reminds me
about the birthdays about the people I only vaguely care about, leave them a
one-line message on their wall and that's it until next year.

All the people who are really in my life I rarely interact with on FB but it's
great for making lots of people think that lots of people care about them.

What's not to like?

~~~
frossie
_it's great for making lots of people think that lots of people care about
them_

followed by

 _What's not to like?_

Dude, I think you answered your own question: superficial relationships
masquerading as genuine ones - you know, that _does_ bother some people.

~~~
derefr
But these are superficial relationships replacing _non-_ relationships, not
replacing genuine ones.

~~~
frossie
Again, not everybody thinks the same. It is possible to prefer a non-
relationship to a superficial relationship. Some people value authenticity for
its own sake.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to change their mind, I just want to explain
why the appeal of the social media is not universal (not that it has to be of
course). For example there are some people I would call "intentional
introverts" who quite genuinely would prefer not to have a happy birthday
greeting from someone they are not close to. Others obviously are delighted by
the same thing. It takes all kinds to make the world, etc etc.

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transburgh
So you blogged about it and posted it on a site that votes content

~~~
sho
Maybe he's trying to make a commitment he will be held to.

~~~
dschobel
Like mr. "I can write stackoverflow in a weekend"?

Also, haven't there been a dozen articles posted here about how publicly
stating your intent hinders your ability to achieve it? It was in reference to
startups, but it's the same psychology at work I imagine.

~~~
sho
Maybe saying you're going to do something is different from saying you're not
going to do something. One is easier to verify than the other.

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rottencupcakes
I've been thinking about doing something like this for weeks.

It seems like at the start of my day I'll log onto Hacker News and read 5 or 6
interesting articles. However, without even trying, by the end of the day, all
the links will be grey instead of black. I'll end up clicking on every link,
even the links I really don't give a shit about. It's a time sink - it really
is like surfing channels without feeling as guilty about it.

However, I wouldn't want to quit, I'd really want to limit myself. I'm not
sure how to approach that though. Maybe an hour a day or reading random
articles? How can I count that? Maybe a firefox extension.

But then how do I seperate searching for random articles from searching for
solutions to problems when I'm coding or doing real work? How do I seperate
those two things? I think part of what makes the internet so easy to kill time
on is that it blurs the distinction.

If anyone can come up with a good plan or strategy to prevent time and life
from being sucked away by the dark corners and alleys of the internet, while
still allowing me to use it for interesting and productive work, please let me
know. I think it would be helpful for all of us.

~~~
jacquesm
Have you discovered the 'noprocast' setting yet ? It's in your profile.

~~~
sho
I just enabled that.

It is utterly PATHETIC that I need to limit myself so. However .. humans are
weak. You have to trick yourself.

I was thinking of writing a daemon to rewrite HN's IP before I found out about
noprocrast ... good feature.

~~~
jacquesm
I am very guilty of this myself.

A bit of a story, not sure if it is to my advantage but with all the honesty
going around here (see darkxanthos) I might as well.

I'm stuck in one of the worst inspirational gaps I've been in for a long long
time, and I'm trying to find the 'holy grail', a self-regulating community.

I realize that HN is to some extent set up to achieve exactly that, but given
the number of people complaining about the neigbourhood going to pot it seems
that there is some room for improvement.

So I find myself reading HN more than I probably should, but I hope it will
jolt me out of my 'writers block' into a more productive phase.

Whatever the outcome I certainly learn a lot from hanging out here!

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josefresco
"illusion of an audience"

What about those who use this illusion to drive traffic to their website or
front door? Just because you use Twitter for useless chatter doesn't mean
everyone else does. Or am I missing the point of the article?

If you spend x hours Tweeting every week and can track it all the way to
measurable 'results', you can still get a sense of accomplishment that the
author seems to be searching for.

~~~
yangyang
I'm not saying there are none, but what 'results' can you achieve from
tweeting (that aren't achievable more efficiently elsewhere)?

~~~
sho
Well I'm saying there are none! Twitter is just a centralised blogging service
with a gimmick.

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onreact-com
I tend to agree with the exception of watching TV. Watching TV is even worse
than wasting time on the Web. Here you are just a passive consumer while on
the Web you at least take part in communication.

