
Claiming our lives back from social media addiction - iafrikan
https://www.iafrikan.com/2017/12/11/social-networking-sites-may-be-controlling-your-mind/
======
killjoywashere
As the father of a teenager daughter who is entirely too addicted to screens
(they're all confiscated, spending the semester in my office), I highly
recommend Catherine Steiner-Adair's book, The Big Disconnect: Protecting
Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age.

It's not just the kids' fault. You taught them to do it by ignoring them when
they were little (because they were boring, remember?)

[https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0062082434/](https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0062082434/)

~~~
dvdhnt
> killjoywashere

Name checks out.

In all seriousness, though, you're absolutely spot on. My youngest is almost 4
and I caught myself repeating the same mistakes with her that I made with my
oldest. I'm much more strict with myself now than before, I aim to protect her
from myself. Going back to correct missteps, such as taking my oldest
daughter's iPad until she's older, has been very tough.

Without going into too much detail, I'd like to acknowledge the escapism
epidemic in the United States.

Thank you for the book recommendation, too!

------
jchw
Social media and people on social media do not know us better than we know
ourselves because all of us lie and try to look cool on social media. Like,
can you think of the last time you saw someone clearly trying to act smart on
a forum, maybe even... right here?

As far as I'm concerned, all social media knows is how to exploit us. It hones
in on what gets us engaged. I think that is far worse than 'knowing us' \- I'd
actually find that comforting, in some ways.

As an example, I don't think social networks really want to work on ending
abusive behavior or harassment because often those behaviors create
engagement. People logging on to argue at random people about whether or not
you should've voted for $CANDIDATE vehemently all day long are people using
the platform and showing up in the numbers. It's good business. Verifying an
actual nazi on Twitter? People may have been angry but they expressed it _by
using the platform itself_. Whether Twitter was right to verify them is up to
you, but the reaction is undeniable.

But honestly, we're all bullshit artists. I would never go liking all of the
stuff I like in real life on a Facebook in my name. Do I want all of my
friends and future employers to know how obsessed I am with some subculture?
Not really. I'd rather like things that make me look normal and fit in.

I haven't been on Facebook in a long time, but the Internet as a whole has
felt worse since engaging socially as my real life identity. I felt it was
more fun and genuine when it wasn't real life identities, although that ship
may have sailed thanks to bots and vandalism.

~~~
bowlich
I'm starting to think that the hyper-engagement of fighting over every
$CANDIDATE, $CAUSE, and $OUTRAGE is going to drive people away from Social
Media.

I started doing blackouts on Twitter and Facebook every time some major news
event occurs because I just don't want to hear about it. And the one thing
that I have noticed is a slow consolidation of my Facebook feed to just a
narrow slice of hyper-engaged people who post multiple times a day about
whatever the latest outrage is -- the broader spectrum of users haven't
deleted their accounts, but most on my "Friends" list haven't posted in years.
I suspect a lot of my friends are disengaged from the platform precisely
because they have zero interest in fighting their loud, opinionated relatives
of opposing political sides.

I miss the days where everyone was just avatars, nick-names, personalities. It
still seems odd to me to be expected to mix my virtual and real identities,
since the "internet culture" when I got online insisted that you do not share
your real-life identity* and Facebook came along and turned that entirely
upside down.

*It was common practice on some of the bulletin boards that I frequented in the late nineties for users to maintain multiple accounts under different nicknames and personas, and even have conversations with themselves.

~~~
flyinghamster
> since the "internet culture" when I got online insisted that you do not
> share your real-life identity* and Facebook came along and turned that
> entirely upside down.

That has been my number one objection to Facebook right from the start. I was
long out of school when Facebook was first established, but the second I found
out about the "real name" policy I thought to myself, "This can't end well."

------
jacquesm
I have a little project going for the last couple of weeks. Things I got to
replace the screens with: an old typewriter, a world radio and an electronics
kit with which you can make a large number of different devices.

Still in the works: an old fashioned wind-up alarm clock, a cassette or tape
reel to reel recorder and a polaroid camera.

You can get all of those for pennies or even for free on Ebay or the local
equivalent. The kids are absolutely fascinated with all this real world stuff
that does only one thing.

And there is no 'app' for the kind of satisfaction you get from receiving a
painstakingly type-written letter with a bunch of stuff crossed out or a morse
code message just for you. Grandparents will likely much more appreciate one
of those too far over and beyond a Facebook message. And what's more magical
than to pull some Latin American station out of thin air?

Besides learning a lot about what makes stuff tick they _also_ learn about the
evolution of technology and the old stuff is so much more real and easier to
relate to that they freely start to figure out how they can do other things in
a simpler and low tech way as well.

After that: tools to take things apart and to do some basic repairs on broken
stuff that we find.

~~~
mattbettinson
>And what's more magical than to pull some Latin American station out of thin
air?

Pulling the entirety of Wikipedia and Youtube out of thin air?

That being said, I totally agree - I love books, my manual film camera, dream
of owning a typewriter (but have no use for it) and love records.

~~~
tomjen3
I nearly broke myself at some point because I started to realise that just by
typing on a computer I was broadcasting things through space, hammering rays
of light under the Atlantic, and getting a reply back in miliseconds.

If I think too much about it, I almost can't do anything because that is
magic, made _real_.

Another good way to break yourself is to go into any reasonably sized
supermarket and look, really look, at all the different products and where
they come from, then imagine the insane amount of work that goes into making
that possible.

I mean a typewriter is pretty cool and all, but it doesn't really compare to
sending messages through space, at the speed of light.

~~~
jacquesm
Fair enough but that part of the magic is so beyond what a young kid can
understand without all the context involved that it is magic that can't be
decomposed. The elements involved are closed off to inspection.

~~~
tomjen3
I think you may be underestimating your kid here. Try to walk him trough the
steps and see if he can't grasp at least _some_ of the magic.

~~~
jacquesm
As good as we can, consider it done. But that's _still_ not the same as being
able to trace the wiring or to follow the mechanical linkages.

What I found really interesting is that they have no problem understanding
vacuum tubes but fail at understanding transistors which are essentially the
same thing only going from a literally transparent glass tube with inner bits
that you can see to a little black piece of plastic with three metal legs
sticking out.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

------
mkstowegnv
In my life some of the most interesting lasting friendships were made with
strangers I met in hostels while traveling and at weddings. But my recent
experiences with hostels and weddings and bus stops and pretty much everywhere
(even in remote areas in the third world) is that instead of talking to each
other everyone is giving their attention to their smartphones. Social media
needs to start making its emphasis the creation of more real world social
interaction. What about an opt-in geoaware app tied into or within FB (or
other) that runs in the background and when it notes a critical mass of people
nearby looks for common friends and interests in the crowd and after
appropriate reactions to prompts, makes introductions or even proposes a
flashmob activity from among those that some of these people have stored (in
the app or somewhere that the app can access) in the hopes that just such a
moment would arrive.

~~~
kristiandupont
Perhaps. But I would never activate such a thing. I'd expect to run into
weirdos that are impossible to get rid of.

It's a cliché to say that we as engineers look to solve all problems with more
tech, even the problem of too much tech. But in this case I think it's really
warranted.

I've had two experiences here in Copenhagen that were interesting to me. Once,
I was on a bus that got stuck in a pile of snow. Everybody got out and helped
push it. Another time, the ATM's collectively stopped working for a half hour
or so. In both instances, people were almost delighted to have a reason to
speak to strangers around them. The bus ride turned into a small party, and
with the ATM situation I saw a person giving a stranger cash (not a lot, but
completely out of the blue). Both times I had the feeling that it was like
people were waking up from a zombie-sleep and I wonder if things were more
like this in villages in the old days.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
It seems true that comfort breeds alienation while adversity encourages
interaction and interdependence, and, being that that's what we evolved for,
many people seem to enjoy the latter. For my part, though, I'd like that
limited to WoW guilds; communication greatly disrupts my comfort unless done
in the most abstract and expedient environments possible, like cyberspace. The
smartphone has done wonders to make meatspace more bearable for me.

~~~
michaelchisari
There's a fantastic quote from Orwell about Hitler's rise that points out that
the appeal of fascism was struggle and conflict itself. I'l see if I can find
it, but it is something I wonder about from a sociological standpoint: When we
have our basic needs met, how do we deal with the alienation that results? If
we don't deal with that alienation, can we expect someone who promises
adversity to arise?

Being poor, lacking healthcare, experiencing violence, etc are all terrible
things, but overcoming them often strongly informs our identities.

If we manage, through politics and technology, to achieve a safe, post-
scarcity society with all basic needs met, will we have to deal with a
collective identity crisis (or millions of individual crises) and if so, how
do we deal with it?

Found the Orwell quote:

 _“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly
all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought,
has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security,
and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance,
for patriotism and the military virtues. Hitler, because in his own joyless
mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only
want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in
general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and
self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flag and loyalty-parades ... Whereas
Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people “I offer
you a good time,” Hitler has said to them “I offer you struggle, danger and
death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet”_

~~~
watwut
Hitler promised a lot more and did not arise to power in the situation of good
economy. He promised new land under theory that Germany is overcrowded, he
promised power and went up as capitalism/democracy seemed to be failing.
Hitlers popularity went down when economy was better and up when it crashed.

Another thing that played against socialists in Germany was knowledge of purge
in Russia. Germans were scared that something like that will happen there
unless there is strongman in lead. And to be fair, communists getting power
would likely mean danger and killings.

People also hoped that Hitler in power will cause street violence go down.

People will trade identity and purpose for comfort, but in Germany it did not
happened out of comfort. And it happened in violent already militaristic state
that valued military a lot long before Hitler.

~~~
michaelchisari
My wording was unclear by positioning it as "the appeal" as opposed to "one of
the appeals".

Hitler promised a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The
Nazi party was extremely cynical in its application of promises and even
ideology. One of the the most interesting and disturbing pieces of Nazi
propaganda was a poster of a banker and a communist holding hands, with the
caption, "Marxism is the guardian angel of capitalism."

An absurd and nonsensical statement, it was instead appealing to a particular
segment of German society's emotional rejection of both the banks and
communist movements.

What Orwell is referring to is not the totality of Nazi appeal, because they
positions themselves to have many, often conflicting with each other, but one
particular appeal to a certain segment of society.

~~~
watwut
> What Orwell is referring to is not the totality of Nazi appeal, because they
> positions themselves to have many, often conflicting with each other, but
> one particular appeal to a certain segment of society.

What I want to say is that the amount of people who were throwing away
comfort, safety and short working-hours in exchange of struggle was smaller
then the quote implies. Their choice dont speak for humanity. German history
does not give us reason to worry that alienation from having too good life
leads to such catastrophe.

Struggle seeking segments of society had their own reasons to accept that deal
and it was not that their all basic needs were well met. It was not collective
identity crisis due to all problems being solved. A lot them were hurt,
scared, damaged by WWI experiences, used to violence and inside country that
was breaking down. They did not believed the comfort can be gained unless
Germany gets to power again and destroys enemies.

And the wish for militaristic values did not came out of nowhere either - the
boys were raised to be that way. There was a lot of social status to be gained
by being in military plus guaranteed state employment (and whole state
institutions being all ex-soldiers).

------
j7ake
It's kind of the junk food or cigarettes equivalent for our brain (previously
was TV but now it's back more addictive than ever)

We will probably look back at this period with the same sense of disgust at
ourselves and at companies as we do now when we look back at the tobacco and
junk food craze.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Is the junk food craze over?

~~~
michaelchisari
In LA, there's plenty of people who are vegan, non-smoking yoga instructors
who are glued to their phones.

It isn't yet an accepted idea that these things are addicting and bad for you,
unlike junk food and tobacco.

------
cdancette
I feel like there's at least one article per day about this on the front page
of HN.

Though it's good more and more people become conscious about the issues with
social networks and addiction / attention loss.

~~~
chillingeffect
I believe the reason the "problem" doesn't go away is because it's constantly
framed in black and white terms: "Is social good or bad?" and usually
supported with the same bleak facts: "it's makes use depressed, it gives
marketers information about us."

It's a really a form of media control a la the Chomsky model of "allowing
lively debate, but only within certain range of discussion." It's becoming
tedious and conditioning us to stop considering how to bring our use of it
under our control.

What would bring resolution (and great mental health) would be articles that
talk more about how to use social media in a healthy ways. These comments are
the ones the spring up in forums, including HN, where people have a bit of
distance and self-reflection. For example, don't overly fetishize friendships
from decades ago. don't give personal details. Don't give overly idealistic
presentations of ones' self, etc.

~~~
RpFLCL
> For example, don't overly fetishize friendships from decades ago. don't give
> personal details. Don't give overly idealistic presentations of ones' self,
> etc

Unfortunately these are the sorts of activities that social media sites
encourage. The rush of dopamine from a flood of likes and comments is real and
encouraged like a game.

As long as these sites operate as massive companies (selling ads), they'll
keep encouraging the things that increase screen time.

> It's a really a form of media control a la the Chomsky model of "allowing
> lively debate, but only within certain range of discussion."

I do agree with your point about increasing the scope of the conversation, but
I'm not convinced that the healthy habits you mentioned are actionable for
most users.

------
cousin_it
I think of TV/gaming/internet/Facebook addiction as a generalized addiction to
screens. You probably can't kick it cold turkey if your job involves looking
at a screen. But you can do the next best thing: avoid all screens except your
work screen. No smartphones, tablets, consoles, TVs... (A dumb phone is
allowed.)

~~~
ashark
TV with no antenna and putting part of what used to be your Internet+services
money to a dvd or two a month, and maybe a game every couple months on some
older console, probably wouldn’t be too bad. Or just using the library for
movies. The Internet and its never-ending content are the main problem, IMO.

~~~
kokol998
Main problem, how? Wouldn't doing what you say feel incredibly limiting since
you know you could be enjoying so much more? Do you do what you describe?

~~~
ashark
> Main problem, how? Wouldn't doing what you say feel incredibly limiting
> since you know you could be enjoying so much more?

More limiting in the sense that I would have fewer options for wasting time,
yes. More limiting in that I'd be forced to engage with media I had on-hand,
yes. More limiting in the sense that I'd somehow be worse off after, say, a
year of that? I very much doubt it, and expect the opposite would be the case.
Little of my use of the Internet is productive, what is productive is rarely
more so than, say, reading, and mostly it serves to take time from activities
that would at least not be any more a waste of time, and may well be more
improving (including simply _sleep_ ).

> Do you do what you describe?

No. I'd cancel our home Internet _today_ if it wouldn't be incredibly
inconvenient for my wife. She's a teacher, and she does and is expected to do
way more work stuff online in the evenings and on weekends than I am as a
developer, unfortunately.

------
rn3aoh
I've read an article like this so many times... They called it "internet
addiction" before, and accused people of persistent need to check their email.

What all of these authors seem to conveniently ignore is that "social media"
is not television, not a single source broadcast, even though social media
companies would really want it to be. Just a single chokepoint. Social media
has real people on the other end. Mediated by social media companies, sure,
but perfectly real otherwise.

Saying that people are addicted to it is largely equivalent to saying that
people are addicted to other people.

~~~
gaius
_Saying that people are addicted to it is largely equivalent to saying that
people are addicted to other people_

Think about it this way: a little sugar, salt and fat isn't harmful. In fact
you need salt and fat as part of your diet to be healthy, and sugar was a rare
treat - that's why they taste good. But if companies start adding more and
more of these things to food, such that the consumers start to forget what
real food tastes like, and then start making foods that are nearly all sugar
and fat, well that is very bad for your health. That's what social media is.
It's food without nutrients, and only the most shallow form of human contact.

~~~
ForRealsies
I find the same in regards to Reddit. It is glorified trivia porn. Knowledge
without nutrients, interesting but overall fleeting and forgotten in mere
hours.

------
Demoneeri
I find the comments here depressing. Like everything, only a small portion of
people are addicted to something. I use social media every day. Facebook,
Instagram, Snapchat, etc. If I read the comments here, I should be alone in a
dark room envying other people's lives. But last Thursday, I met some of my
friends after work for a 5@7, Friday I had dinner with my wife and her
friends. Saturday, a friend couple from another city came for an event in our
city and we went walking and stopped to take a beer in an Irish pub. Then
Sunday, 2 friends came home for brunch. Yes people checked their phone 1 or 2
times, but nobody was "addicted"...

Most people go on with their life while enjoying social media.

------
jhiska
Articles on social media detailing how to combat social media addiction or
"the crisis of attention" or whatever clickbait title is the latest way that
social media is capturing our attention.

~~~
supernovae
yeah, do people not realize hackernews is "social media"?

------
imartin2k
“The 21st-century challenge will be how to live when others know us better
than we know ourselves.”

I think this is very well put.

~~~
thinkMOAR
I guess that would/could be correct. Though you have to account for the amount
of 'propaganda' people post on their social media. It's not always sunshine as
people portray on social media.

------
zaarn
I've deleted my facebook account a decade ago, the last time I logged in when
facebook revived the account and told me it was hacked.

I don't think I've ever really had the desire myself to reactivate it, my
fellow students started posting into some shared group there but eventually
everyone moved to whatsapp as that was more widely deployed and direct.

FB, for me, has no actual value other than capturing users like a venus
flytrap.

~~~
acheron
_everyone moved to whatsapp_

Maybe the distinction is worthwhile to make if you try, but in general “I
don’t use Facebook, I use [thing that is also Facebook]” is not really a
convincing argument.

~~~
Toast_25
While owned by the same company I don't think it traps you in the same way.
Whenever I log into facebook it turns into a 10 to 15 minute thing that could
have been one or two. I avoid that thing as much as possible, but that's not
really a problem with whatsapp.

I do dislike the "status" feature they put in though...

------
alexandercrohde
As a dude who doesn't use social media (no FB, linked-in, twitter, vine,
snapchat, instagram, whatever I don't get the big deal.

People love writing angry posts on social media about social media. If you
don't like it, don't use it, nobody is stopping you, quit the drama.

------
someguys
We (with a friend) think that what people became with social media is really
depressing. Nobody goes out anymore and everyone is connected online without
really knowing nobody. Facebook, Twitter... made an awful society. The
solution would be to connect these people more in real life. What do you guys
think of a social media 2.0 that would connect people irl? We are working on
something like that, a meetup like improved app. Would love to get feedbacks
about the idea.

~~~
deadmetheny
I miss the days when if you wanted to meet somebody you just went to a bar or
coffee shop or started some sort of hobby and talked to people. Trying to push
tech as a solution of a problem that was caused by tech to begin with...man,
that's something.

~~~
someguys
I think that it would be realistic to think we will never get back to theses
times. Tech has already been pushed too hard into new generations.

~~~
deadmetheny
I can literally go do those things right now and meet people, I've made plenty
of connections doing exactly those things. Not everyone you try to talk to
will be into conversing with random folks, but some will, and that's fine. If
you're too afraid to just talk to people, I don't know what people think an
app is going to do to help.

~~~
someguys
I am agree with what you said, but the aim is to pull those who spend too much
time on social medias (not necessarily afraid of talking to people) and make
them go out ! btw, thanks for giving your opinion :)

~~~
deadmetheny
If it helps someone actually socialize a bit, I'm all for it. I don't mean to
sound like I'm shitting on your project or anything, it just feels so weird to
me that it's necessary.

------
partycoder
Every now and then, try to have an offline day. To me it has been very
beneficial.

e.g: to get into the habit of reading, exercise, etc.

You will naturally end up doing something better than browsing a feed.

------
b111coins
Its probably nothing in comparison to video games and we dont talk much about
that.

~~~
yoz-y
I disagree on both points. Human population spends less time in aggregate
playing games that on social media. I don't have a quote from somewhere but
just from the monthly active users from various social networks it is quite
safe to say that almost everybody is on at least one social network.

The second thing is, that people do talk about the addictiveness and bad
effects of games _all the time_ , and have been doing so since games existed.

~~~
watwut
Monthly active is nowhere near any kind of problem.

I know no one who would flunk the school cause he can't glue out of Facebook.
I know multiple people who had huge problems in school due to being unable to
stop playing or woke up multiple times during night to care about kingdom.

~~~
yoz-y
I mentioned the MAUs only to give some importance to the scale. Social
networks affect an order or two magnitudes more people than games. Social
networks lead to anxiety, depression and have been instrumental in many
disastrous cases of mob justice and harassment.

People do get influenced by games and it can lead to problems you have
mentioned. However, I do not think that gaming can transform the society as a
whole. Social networks have already done it, both in bad and good ways.

------
erasemus
My predictably unpopular theory is that highly social people are really
_afraid_ of other people. Perhaps not without reason if one regards other
humans as potential predators. So they designate a group of people _friends_
and use it as protection against all the other people.

Yet they remain afraid, and this fear is what makes social interactions
addictive (like gambling; the great the fear the greater the high on the
occasions when you don't lose).

~~~
wutbrodo
You may be using a very nonstandard of "highly social", but doesn't it usually
also imply that you get along well with new people?

~~~
erasemus
Yes they get along with new people and have a large number of shallow
relationships. Whereas I think normies and aspies tend to have deeper
relationships with only a few people. Btw, they're not aware of their motives
-- they don't _feel_ afraid (though I suppose they may have felt so when the
whole process began, at school).

