
Social Networks Are Bad for You - grayfox
https://medium.com/@GOODROOT/social-networks-are-bad-for-you-5a341d0aafa1
======
Sven7
Adding a couple more articles I have come across this month on social networks
and their unthought-out consequences.

We are so unprepared to deal with all this shit.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/us/colorado-students-
caugh...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/us/colorado-students-caught-
trading-nude-photos-by-the-hundreds.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/opinion/from-army-of-
one-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/opinion/from-army-of-one-to-band-
of-tweeters.html)

More than ad-blocking its a good write up on how the attention economy is just
wasting everyone's time. [http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-
its-ok-to-b...](http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-
block-ads/)

~~~
serpentor
But, of course, no one questions the possibility of, like, you know, not
letting kids use cell phones in school. Or maybe not letting kids use any form
of digital camera, at all, ever? Is that actually impossible? Or just
unreasonable?

Or, like, what if the reality is that taking a picture of your own nude body
is not actually a crime? What if images of human nudity simply weren't
criminalized?

A bridge too far?

~~~
bsder
> But, of course, no one questions the possibility of, like, you know, not
> letting kids use cell phones in school.

That probably wouldn't have helped. I doubt they were taking the pictures at
school.

> Or maybe not letting kids use any form of digital camera, at all, ever? Is
> that actually impossible?

At this point, probably. You certainly would destroy your child's social life.

The bigger problem is parents _not knowing what the hell their kids are
doing_. This is rather simple: "Yes, I'm going to have all of your passwords
and occasionally I'm randomly going to take your phone to check _every single
app_ on your phone and computer. And you will unlock them, or you are grounded
and won't have a phone. Ever. No, you don't get a choice in this. If you don't
want me seeing it _you probably shouldn 't be doing it_."

------
talsraviv
I was close to deleting my Facebook account when I discovered the News Feed
Eradicator[1]. This way I can still use messages, groups, events, etc. without
having to experience the dreaded news feed. It really improved my quality of
life.

Another major step I took was to stop posting. That way I had no expectations
of feedback and logged in far less in general.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-
eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator-
for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en)

~~~
qzxvwt
Thanks for introducing me to this extension. I've been using my hand to cover
news feeds on fb, twitter, etc when I need to go in and respond to a message
or something. Although it's easy for me to do that as social news feeds don't
hog my attention as much as they induce anxiety.

~~~
e_proxus
Not many people seem to know about it, but there's also
[http://messenger.com](http://messenger.com) for just the messages.

------
sotojuan
> Things are different now. In our over-connected existence we have lost the
> ability to create a blank slate. When, previously, you could separate
> yourself from past lives and — through reflection and distance — achieve
> emotional growth and maturity, you are now inhibited by the confines of
> socially networked relationships.

This is an interesting section, and I think it holds true for a lot of people
even if your initial response is "no one's forcing you to be connected".

I personally can't wait to graduate from college so I can delete my Facebook
(for some reason a lot of college-related things require it). It's not a real
blank slate at all, but it's better than nothing.

~~~
ghthor
You'll unfortunately find that many things outside of and past college may
require it as well _-_

~~~
ams6110
I've never had a Facebook account, and I haven't noticed that I've been
prevented from doing anything without one.

------
Ianvdl
I've gotten rid of my Facebook account probably about two years ago now, and I
haven't missed it since. I always thought it would be essential in keeping
ties with old friends, but I've found that I naturally stay connected to those
I care about regardless of Facebook.

I use twitter regularly, but it's mostly to keep track of my interests rather
than social connections.

~~~
collyw
I have been close to deleting FB a couple of time, but I keep it for the
unexpected / distant people that it keeps me in touch with.

I am going to Chile in a months time. I was there 15 years ago. I have a
couple of contacts on facebook (I think I started using it around 8 or 9 years
ago) that I will meet up with, but there are more who I would like to catch up
with, but I have litterally lost touch with them.

------
jdp23
It bugs me that people's justifiable criticisms of Facebook lead to tarnishing
the whole concept of "social networks".

Based on the studies the author cites, the title of this article should be
"Facebook is bad for you". But what about other social networks that don't
focus on exploiting their users and manipulating them to addictive activity?
(Dreamwidth is one that leaps to mind.) I'd bet dollars to donuts that the
dynamics are very different in those environments.

~~~
austenallred
I don't agree with all of the article, but I'd argue Twitter, Instsgram,
Reddit and HackerNews follow the critical aspects of that dynamic.

~~~
kedean
I disagree. Instagram, yes, as it's pretty much a facebook addon these days,
but:

\- Twitter is generally a way for people to follow famous/semi-famous people
nowadays. Most people don't go there for their friends. If they follow
someone, it's because they WANT to see what they have to see. There is little
pressure to 'follow' someone back, like there is with Facebook friends.

\- Reddit is semi-anonymous. The running joke is that you never want anyone in
real life to know your reddit username. It's all about sharing, but it does
not have the same kind of "dredge up the past" issue.

\- HN falls in with Reddit. I know few people who use HN, and those that do I
don't communicate with on it. Hell, most people don't even pay attention to
usernames unless it's someone well known like tptacek.

------
thadd
I deleted my facebook a year or so ago.

I still talk to all the people I wanted to talk to when I had a facebook.

Obviously not for everyone, but I enjoy it.

------
gaius
The much-derided "right to be forgotten" is a key part of this. In the past
you could just move to the next town, but now your permanent record is public
and follows you...

~~~
pmlnr
This is not entirely true.

You can delete most of the content, and in theory, for 3rd party, it's pretty
problematic to dig up. ( Unless you're a government agency, but that was
always the case, wasn't it? ). You can even opt-out of archive.org.

IPFS would be a very different scenario, and that is one of the reasons I
hesitate to join.

~~~
gaius
It's more like you do or say something stupid when you're young and years
later it's still the top hit for you in Google. The ease of finding it makes a
huge practical difference that I think is willfully overlooked by opponents of
it - between a prospective employer or date idly typing it in, vs needing real
actual investigation to ferret it out.

There is also that Google don't really care about this - they'll ruin your
livelihood by dredging up your past mistakes for a couple of cents of ad
revenue. That sort of power needs to be curbed.

------
hack_mmmm
Interesting view. “We are creatures who — for the sake of our own mental
health — thrive on living in the present”

------
snorrah
Delete your account, create one with a different email address, and enjoy the
reset.

Did it a while ago on Facebook, and although I've re-added a good 75% of
people on the new profile because I still like to socialise with them, having
a few weeks break in between was quite pleasant.

~~~
hellofunk
I have found it quite easy to ignore FB without having to actually delete my
account. I login every couple weeks and spend maybe 2 minutes. I have all
email notifications turned off. FB doesn't need to control your life just
because you have an account.

~~~
sentenza
I do the same with the added twist of using another browser for Facebook.

That way, the tracking via the ubiquitous buttons doesn't work and the barrier
for "just checking Facebook" is higher.

------
ThomPete
I would like to turn this around slightly. Social networks are necessary and
will be for a very long time as curation networks. The alternative is simple
too much information to deal with.

Here is an excerpt from a blog post called "Slaves to the Feed - This is not
the realtime we've been looking for" I wrote some years ago:

"Let’s start with what most people probably can agree. Information is
accumulating online. The amount of available information is increasing at an
exponential rate, some say it doubles every second year. This mean that any
illusion of being able to stay up to date with everything that is going on is
utopian and has been probably since Guttenberg invented the press.

Most people know this, yet that is exactly exactly what we all seem to be
doing.

There is no shortage of content aggregators and aggregators of aggregators,
daily developed to give us a better overview of all the sources of information
we have subscribed to and found ourselves now depending on.

This has resulted in an endless stream of articles, news, pictures, websites,
products, updates, comments of updates and comments to these comments, being
delivered to us second by second that each of us have to deal with.

Constantly checking our feeds for new information, we seem to be hoping to
discover something of interest, something that we can share with our networks,
something that we can use, something that we can talk about, something that we
can act on, something we didn’t know we didn’t know.

It almost seems like an obsession and many critics of digital technology would
argue that by consuming information this way we are running the danger of
destroying social interaction between humans. One might even say that we have
become slaves of the feed.

It might be an obsession, but I think it’s an obsession that many critics will
find themselves having to submit to sooner or later. ..."

[http://000fff.org/slaves-of-the-feed-this-is-not-the-
realtim...](http://000fff.org/slaves-of-the-feed-this-is-not-the-realtime-
weve-been-looking-for)

------
branch23
I wonder if the rise of networks such as snapchat that lack the permanence of
Facebook can work to counteract some of negative effects mentioned here.

------
idlewords
I gotta warn my friends about this!

