from Hacker News

I deleted my social media accounts

by joemanaco on 1/12/25, 10:26 PM with 481 comments

• by nindalf on 1/12/25, 11:17 PM

  This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure.

  Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on social media. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know a lack of social media meant that I have lost touch with old acquaintances completely. I have a few close friends and that’s it.

  Maybe that’s an ok tradeoff to make, but it’s worth knowing that before getting into it.

• by wruza on 1/12/25, 11:13 PM

  I'm just not reading any of it - not interested. SM addiction is so 2015. I have technical accounts to be able to search for something (e.g. while training loras) or to watch without annoying popups when someone links me to it.

  This dramatic deletion is overreaction, solve the underlying problem instead.

  Rather than scrolling instagram and tiktok, visit /news and /newest, and then /ask, /show. If nothing interesting there, refresh the /newest until there is. You can be first in upvoting or commenting on it, and can get a good bump to your score if you say something that sounds smart before it hits the frontpage. Then you can re-read the quality content you produced and count how much is left to the round number, like it's only 40 to 9700, only 340 to 10000, etc. Much healthier than just scrolling endlessly and sharing memes.

• by bflesch on 1/12/25, 10:53 PM

  I wouldn't delete social media accounts because they might become available to register for malicious actors who can then impersonate you. Keep the accounts, just don't use them any more.

• by openrisk on 1/13/25, 8:15 AM

  When something is used by billions of people its kinda futile to argue about its utility. But then billions are addicted to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling etc. and those benefiting from providing these "services" will do everything they can to keep people addicted while arguing that they are solving a real problem.

  The reality is always a mundane core that gets complicated by human tragicomedy. Of course its wholesome to be able to connect digitally with friends and family. Its also a great economic enabler to connect digitally with professionals. Or to be able to publish to a bulletin board about your brilliant accomplishments.

  But to paraphrase Gates, we need these connections, we don't need the self-appointed universal connectors.

  Its 2025, and this is HN. I put it to you that technically the only thing preventing us today from having good "connections infrastructure" is the corrupting influence of big adtech. One possible vision of how to organize the digital space in technical and economic terms has become the only vision.

• by i5heu on 1/13/25, 9:07 AM

  I stay in touch with ppl that are important to me by writing or calling them once every 2 months.

  I do not care if they do the same. I am old now (almost 30) and came to the realization that all of our lifes are packet and busy and ppl are very bad at keeping up with other ppl that are not continuously presented to them.

  This is the price I have to pay to not be on instagram: writing my friends and ask them how they doing.

  And it is a very nice price to pay.

• by chmaynard on 1/12/25, 11:02 PM

  I love this:

  "Maybe I’ll go old-school and write more blog posts. Like back in the early 2000s, when you actually had to think before sharing your thoughts with the world. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it?"

• by amikaeel on 1/12/25, 11:18 PM

  I deleted social media around 2.5 years ago. After feeling extreme anxiety and withdrawal for about a week I realized this was the right move. I gained massive amounts of productivity, felt more awake than ever, and realized just how many HOURS I was killing browsing. It sounds like the usual rant, but I truly think that in 10-15 years there will be a huge anti social media movement after we fully realize the damage. Social media as a concept is wonderful but in reality it adds nothing meaningful to our lives.

• by asdfasvea on 1/13/25, 6:18 AM

  Remember, the most important step in quitting social media is telling everyone on social media you're quitting social media.

• by joduplessis on 1/13/25, 7:26 AM

  IMO the problem with these social-networks now is that they all turned into ad-machines & "like-bait". The original products worked extremely well - but you gotta make money somehow, and ads seem to be the go-to model.

• by alexwasserman on 1/13/25, 1:48 AM

  "So, I quit. Twitter, TikTok, Facebook — all gone"

  I'm always curious here what counts as Social Media, and what's just a useful site?

  Github? HackerNews? Reddit? Facebook, but only for FB Marketplace which is now a better local sales site than Craigslist?

  What makes it social? Originally with FB and before it with MySpace it was the ability to put up a page about yourself, and then chat with others. HN has a profile and communication, so do the others listed.

• by Over2Chars on 1/13/25, 12:55 AM

  How about a simple rule of thumb: you have to actually meet or talk with a "facebook friend" (every month or more) or else delete/unfriend them.

  If after a few months you have zero "facebook friends" nuke the account.

  Internet updates are no substitute for good old meat space.

• by mattgreenrocks on 1/12/25, 11:24 PM

  I’m hoping we look back at the social media era with some embarrassment at the amount of time we confused typing in a text box with meaningful communication.

• by scarface_74 on 1/13/25, 5:33 AM

  I think commenters here are missing out on one beneficial part of social media - Facebook groups and communities of interest especially private, moderated groups. Broadcast and discussions are a perfect use case for it.

  And people talk about how bad Facebook is, LinkedIn is far worse. Everyone is trying to be a “thought leader” and no one is genuine on it.

  I have a decent LinkedIn Profile with recommendations, up to date career information. But I never post to it.

  I’m only really active when I’m looking for a job. I will respond to messages and try to keep my network somewhat warm.

• by onemoresoop on 1/13/25, 3:16 AM

  Social media has become a river of trash(and for me that’s what advertising and peddling to sell stuff is) that if you spend effort on you can find some good gems. But the effort spent is not worth the gems. It’s more or less rescuing fully undigested peanuts in turds.

• by fullstackwife on 1/12/25, 11:18 PM

  Another problem with Twitter is that majority of content there is provided by content farms, and then it gets reacted by bots. It is difficult to get interactions with real individuals there. I'm not sure if it should called "social" anymore.

• by toephu2 on 1/12/25, 11:27 PM

  I stopped going on social media apps and felt my mental health improved at least 2x.

  You should try it too!

• by duxup on 1/13/25, 12:17 AM

  I quit facebook long ago. Recently I found out an old friend from years ago had died in the past 6 months, and I had no idea. I got an email at an old email address but that aside everyone knew except me.

  It’s hard to quit when everyone else doesn’t.

• by ozim on 1/13/25, 12:15 AM

  I had FB account when it was novelty and it was still a social network.

  I removed account like 10 years ago when it already was clear it is not social network anymore.

  I also never had a twitter really besides some account to check what it is and left it unused.

  Only LI is one I keep for business purposes but I don’t care about social aspect or discussion there - it is basically a virtual business card and it is quite popular so it’s useful I guess.

• by fredzel on 1/12/25, 11:04 PM

  > Once the accounts were finally gone, I realized just how much of a grip these platforms had on me. The number of times I reflexively typed "t" or "f" into my browser bar (which autocompletes to twitter.com or facebook.com) was honestly terrifying. Waiting for assets to build? Hit Twitter. Software update running? Quick Facebook check

  How many different accounts do you have to delete though? For many of those people "t" and "f" would be substituted by "y"toube, "r"eddit, etc. It doesn't have to be a social media site, might be news you're intrested in, tech sites, deals aggregator.

  I get what you mean, but for someone with habit of looking for distraction whenever they have nothing to do it won't be a cure, bandaid at best.

• by veunes on 1/13/25, 7:06 AM

  A decision to quit - it’s not easy! I deleted Instagram. It feels like even my mind has been cleared. I don’t want to and won’t go back. And the alternative to slow down and share thoughts more intentionally sounds good.

• by penjelly on 1/13/25, 3:12 AM

  Don't agree with author, but related to the desire to delete social media... I've noticed Instagram has been adding more features to bait time from users. A new one being, if you wait long enough on a given reel, it'll suggest you posts your follows liked (or commented on) in the top right corner. This is super creepy and I imagine could be easily gamed by stalkers. These types of features that try to engage me even deeper have made me consider actually removing IG altogether like I deleted Facebook a long time ago

• by lesostep on 1/14/25, 12:23 AM

  I recently joined social media again. Turns out the group that shared my interest in my region was here. So I made a new account and joined.

  And the thing is, I am interested still. But I do miss a lot, because the group is chaotic and really important announcements are mixed in with memes and chatter, so it was a chore to waddle through that everyday, only to discover that nothing important was announced.

  They kinda have to do it, I guess, because engagement metrics are no joke, and if you don't have them, then why are you here. But it really opened my eyes to how to social media completely failed on its premise when it decided that time spent on app would be a good metric.

  Sometimes people just have nothing important to say other to announce, and them it should be okay to keep silent for a while, without being downranked.

  And seeing how those, who always chatter even when they having nothing to say, will ultimately rise to the top on any platform that values time wasted, I left social media again.

  People in comments say how it's better to have a few close friends then shallow connections, but social networks did allow us to meet someone that shared our more specific interests. My best friend I have met on a forum: our interests aligned and we spend hours talking about things we couldn't discuss with real friends before meeting up. There is value in shallow connections when they are based on shared interests. This value is lost on most social networks today.

  IMO mastodon and blue sky are "good social networks" for people who want to connect over specific topics.

• by dep_b on 1/13/25, 8:38 AM

  I only use social media for work and WhatsApp for staying in touch with people. WhatsApp is really the killer one that keeps me hooked into the Zuckertrump empire. Just not enough iPhones around me to use Messages, Signal use is very low even among tech friends.

  People often ask me why I don't have Instagram: I'm in the business of making these platforms and Pablo Escobar never used cocaine either. I know how these platforms are built and I know how we think about the people that use it.

• by UberFly on 1/12/25, 11:29 PM

  Nothing like a random politically biased opinion piece to drum up random political opinions on HN. Pass.

• by tracker1 on 1/13/25, 7:43 AM

  I'm not really tethered to social media as much as some. I still text and call my closer friends regularly. Similar for family.

  I do find the reactionary response a bit disturbing. Having been caught up in the trap of "fact checkers" for reposting a political cartoon and similar, I'd definitely prefer the community notes approach. All said the inability of many to have a rational conversation with those they don't completely agree is very wrong on so many levels.

• by okaleniuk on 1/13/25, 7:28 AM

  It's not about accounts, it's more about engagement. I still have my Facebook account, and I actually used it two years ago to fund my gym trainer and tell him I couldn't come.

  Social media is a reality one can't simply ignore completely. One can complicatedly ignore it though to some level of success. For me, the minimal rules are: don't write on reddit, don't read on linkedin. Don't touch anything else. The orange site is ok-ish.

• by ronnier on 1/12/25, 11:32 PM

  I just deleted bluesky and mastodon last week.

• by noncoml on 1/13/25, 11:31 AM

  Social media is for our generation what news and political shows on tv were for the previous. Brain rot.

  I hate to promote Reddit, because it’s not worth it, but I have a pretty nicely curated home page of just “good things”, cats, pics, etc that I love to browse when I want to jeep my mind idly occupied. If I make the mistake and go back to popular I get filled with rage, feeling of injustice and hopelessness.

• by kouru225 on 1/13/25, 6:36 AM

  Ngl if I were Zuckerberg I'd be doing the exact same thing. I feel like the majority of people are severely underestimating the impact this last election will have and still are in denial. If you think he's doing the wrong thing it's cause you don't know what the consequences will be if he doesn't do this.

• by mellosouls on 1/13/25, 10:32 AM

  The motivation is basically "social media now its more diverse in thought". He even signs off with an acknowledgement he might try BlueSky.

  Honestly, there are good reasons to quit social media because of their intrinsic toxicities, but at least if you are doing it for ideological motives admit that its about you.

• by manaut on 1/13/25, 12:34 PM

  You can always choose to unfollow people if their perspectives don’t resonate with you—you don’t have to leave social media entirely for that. By curating your feed, you can focus on content you enjoy, which naturally creates a personal thought bubble. When censorship comes into play, that thought bubble is shaped for you, removing the need to manage it yourself.

  It’s worth reflecting on what democracy means in this context. For me, it means being willing to tolerate other thought bubbles, even when it’s challenging. This openness is preferable to having our thoughts policed. In an ideal world, thought bubbles would be more permeable, fostering trust and understanding between people with differing perspectives. That trust can’t grow if we only defend our own bubble. Overcoming the divide is crucial if we want democracy to thrive (or not die).

• by chrisvalleybay on 1/13/25, 10:36 AM

  I have mostly left social media, but I have not seen the need to delete my accounts yet. For Twitter, I never use the feed but rather bookmark links to one specific account that I read. Facebook I open about twice a month just to see if I have been invited to a birthday party or anything like that. Instagram I just went 7 weeks without opening.

  Turning off the machine feeding stuff to my brain really has helped me. I feel better, cleaner and less disturbed/distracted.

  Now I am actually considering leaving YouTube as well, although it has been such a lovely place at times, since I notice it is deteriorating my health.

  I recommend you try it; nothing has to be deleted. It's simply removing the habit of using it. It does make life a bit better :)

  Oh, and a good first step is to install the extension `News Feed Eradicator`. This is how I got started. I run it on everything.

• by nobodywillobsrv on 1/13/25, 7:22 AM

  Anyone feel like the article is thinly disguised moral policing and rather than a post about social media it is more of a broadcast announcement of acceptable thought?

  Very little discussion of the actual problems with regulating speech the way the EU or Fact Checkers does. Just an implicit statement it was correct.

• by tobyhinloopen on 1/13/25, 7:55 AM

  Browsing social media while working is easily solved by not logging in on these services on your work machine or browser. I have social media logged in on another instance of my browser, so I actively have to switch profiles to browse social media.

  This added step makes it hard enough to not mindlessly browse it.

• by phkahler on 1/13/25, 12:27 PM

  >> The number of times I reflexively typed "t" or "f" into my browser bar (which autocompletes to twitter.com or facebook.com) was honestly terrifying.

  I reflexively type "news" into the browser. It may not be quite as bad as FB or X, but I should probably stop.

• by flumpcakes on 1/13/25, 9:49 AM

  I haven't had social media for 10+ years. There's been periods where I create a facebook account again, but it is soon deleted within a week or so. I only use WhatsApp to talk to real-life people and Discord to talk to online gaming "friends". I do have accounts obviously on some websites to make comments like this.

  It is awfully lonely I must admit. I have a partner of over a decade which helps but not having social media is very isolating. My wife has all the social medias and knows what happens with my family before I do!

  My last 'experiment' was the shortest - I registered for an Instagram account and when it suggested that I add my real-life next door neighbour in the sign-up process I immediately stopped and deleted the account. That is scary.

• by FinnLobsien on 1/13/25, 9:56 AM

  I got rid of Instagram and Facebook and have never looked back. It did lead to me losing touch with some people and slightly less serendipity (i.e. someone being in town, which I see on their Instagram story and then we hang out).

  Instagram went first and then I realized I hadn't logged on to Facebook in 2 years so why bother keeping it around?

  I think for people who can just decide to keep the account and no longer use it, they should keep it just to stay in touch with some folks. But I realize that as long as I'd have an account, I'd keep using it.

  Personally, for me the tradeoff between 2+ hours every day on Instagram for an occasional few hours with an acquaintance isn't worth it.

• by roddylindsay on 1/12/25, 11:52 PM

  For me outright deletion just led to other issues like missing out on events / family photos / chats with people I otherwise wasn’t connected to. The target for most people is probably low-moderate use. <shamelessplug> Personally I struggled to achieve balance with my social media usage for years and spent the last two years building out a coaching service to help people like myself keeping social media under a daily time allowance…think of it as a personal trainer (with real accountability and all) for social media and other everyday habits. We just launched this week at zabit.com if anyone wants to check it out.</shamelessplug>

• by Double_a_92 on 1/13/25, 9:33 AM

  I don't understand what people are doing on social media that they can get addicted by it, or at least specifically by the social aspect of it.

  E.g. facebook for me is mainly the messenger and a few random photos or people. Everything else on there is not enjoyable.

  Reddit is like a forum where I can occassionally say things about my hobbies. Also nothing that sucks me in, in an unhealthy way.

  X and Mastodon are mostly news and random people showing off things.

  Youtube is like TV where at some point you watched what you wanted to watch for the day.

  The only thing that seems addicting to me are Apps like Tiktok or Instagram, where you are just one simple swipe away from the next bit of short term entertainment.

• by afavour on 1/12/25, 11:25 PM

  Yes, yes, heard it all before. And it’s never matched my lived experience.

  Social media does have a powerful use case: keeping in touch with friends and family you don’t see often. It feels trite to watch a video of them with their kid and give it a ‘like’ but I’d miss it if it were gone. Especially if it was still there for everyone else, I’d miss their collective presence more than they’d miss my singular one.

  Rather than another scolding post telling everyone to delete social media I’d much rather folks think and talk about how we can make a better social media, preferably divorced from the control of giant corporations.

• by skoczko on 1/13/25, 7:57 AM

  This all sounds to me like complaining about fast-food restaurants because you’re overweight. Do they serve trash? Yes. But there’s a simple solution: don’t eat it. And don’t feed it to your kids. I have a facebook app and the only time I use is to check updates for my son’s soccer practice. I also go to McDonalds to buy coffee because it’s good and cheap over here. No corporate entity will ever put your health amd well-being over their business interest. Why is this so hard for people to comprehend? You want fact checking? Read NYT.

• by ge96 on 1/13/25, 8:45 AM

  I want to be a producer more than a consumer. I produce videos (admittedly that are technical and dry) so it's not like I get hundreds of thousands of views.

  On my downtime I still participate in social media though usually anonymously in the form of shit posting. Or just watching YouTube. I did get sucked into that crap of posting everyday about my glamorous life. Eventually I found I didn't know what to post anymore. Had to find something to post. I'm glad I never got sucked into it completely like TikTok/Instagram.

• by upghost on 1/13/25, 9:49 AM

  A few strange things you will miss when deleting social media that are nonobvious.

  1. Some companies will not look at your resume or do business with you unless you have a LinkedIn account, especially in the age of AI. Fine by me.

  2. If you go to start a business, you will find most of these social media companies require you to have a personal account in order to make a business/marketing account. This is very annoying.

  3. Damn I miss Facebook Marketplace. But it's not worth having FB. You can usually have a friend do marketplace stuff for you.

• by iLoveOncall on 1/12/25, 10:56 PM

  > and why you should too

  This is not actually explained in the article.

  It rightfully explains how X, meta and others have taken a turn for the worse to say the least, but it doesn't say why I should delete my Facebook or Twitter account.

  Neither do the hundreds of calls to delete such accounts in the past few weeks or months have.

  I get that the point is "You should stop using such social media", but I don't get what __deleting your account__ actually adds on top, especially when put in relation to the political reasons behind stopping to use them.

• by qwertytyyuu on 1/12/25, 11:15 PM

  Does hacker news count as social media?

• by arisbe__ on 1/13/25, 9:43 AM

  Delete your HackerNews acct too, even this platform is beyond corrupted by bad actors and arrogant fools. The Web is 100% dead, killed by AI and poisoned human hearts.

• by ChrisArchitect on 1/13/25, 1:11 AM

  Related:

  Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42581119

• by rednafi on 1/13/25, 7:21 AM

  I use social media in a write-only manner. I keep it around for two reasons:

  - I write blogs and share them there. On multiple occasions, I’ve received job offers in my inbox. Job opportunities from acquaintances on Twitter are far better than LinkedIn DM spam.

  - Staying up to date with the latest fads also teaches me what not to chase. Sometimes, the firehose is the only way to get that information.

  I never had problems dropping the mic and not arguing with strangers.

• by hugoromano on 1/13/25, 12:33 AM

  For those who have achieved this, well done. I've experienced the positive impact of reducing my social media usage over the years, while still keeping my accounts for the occasional need to connect. I've taken steps to limit social platforms from accessing my phone contact list and have set a cap of 20 contacts, including on WhatsApp. This has significantly reduced Meta's profiling and advertising targeting.

• by Kim_Bruning on 1/12/25, 11:18 PM

  See also:

  Don’t build your castle in other people’s kingdoms (2021)

  https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/11/01/dont-build-your-cast...

  HN Discussion:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41712885

• by yard2010 on 1/13/25, 7:33 AM

  Politics aside, this text is sobering. The people in charge are all but good leaders. It's comical. If it wasn't our lives that is.

• by RHSman2 on 1/13/25, 7:29 AM

  I am 90% social media free. I often wonder my internal desire to ‘broadcast’. Funny thing. So much better without and no need to broadcast.

• by calmbonsai on 1/12/25, 11:28 PM

  Aside from Facebook (which I was never on), I'm still on Mastodon, but have let Twitter go fallow due its moribund nature.

  I deleted LinkedIn (after the MSFT acquisition) 10 years ago, due to the business model change. Even prior to that, it was getting too spammy anyways.

  I keep a token Instagram just for viewing the rare family/friend that insists I see something from a trip, but I never post there.

• by thallavajhula on 1/13/25, 9:11 AM

  OMG! This is crazy. I literally drafted up a blog post with the same plan of action. I just didn't want to delete my social presence just yet and was trying to figure out how to do it. Reading through every sentence of your blog post, I could totally relate. Wow. This really is such a uncanny coincidence.

• by amelius on 1/13/25, 10:30 AM

  Why can't the EU build their own social media platform?

  What if they structured the financing like they do with science?

• by recursivedoubts on 1/12/25, 11:47 PM

  I doubled down on my social media account (twitter) and htmx finished first in the 2024 rising stars for front end frameworks:

  https://risingstars.js.org/2024/en#section-framework

  so... it depends.

• by junto on 1/13/25, 6:18 AM

  I quit Facebook recently when I realized that the only reason I was going there was for the targeted Amazon ads.

  They were so good and knew exactly what kinds of things would interest me, that it kept me coming back (subconsciously).

  However in Amazon’s own app and website, they really have poor suggestions.

• by jkc101 on 1/14/25, 6:12 AM

  Has anyone pursued ADA accessibility claims against social media platforms? Their algorithms seem clearly predatory toward ADHD users. Basic accommodations like 'focus mode' should be required, just like other accessibility features.

• by skwee357 on 1/13/25, 9:42 AM

  I don't oppose deleting social media, but I can't see to understand one simple thing.

  LinkedIn is the de-facto standard for looking for a job in certain places. I wonder, people who deleted LinkedIn, how do they get along with looking for a job?

• by entropyneur on 1/13/25, 6:55 AM

  Less censorship on Facebook and less regulations sounds like a good thing (doubt the latter will happen anyway). The problem with Facebook has never been that it allows harmful content. It's that it actively promotes it.

• by silexia on 1/13/25, 6:30 PM

  This article is written from an extreme far left perspective if the author thinks it is "far right" to support free speech and oppose intrusive government regulations.

• by pmarreck on 1/13/25, 1:18 AM

  No.

  Because of what nindalf said, basically: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678031

• by kelvinjps10 on 1/13/25, 5:11 AM

  for me is not the daily use that is useful, but from time to time, I need to buy or sell something and Facebook marketplace is good for that. Or I need to find the contact information of someone and it is also useful for that (Facebook). And for twitter, before I didn't even need to create an account I just use it for seeing updates of government officials or app/services updates

• by Over2Chars on 1/13/25, 12:50 AM

  Does this mean I have to delete my friendster account?

• by plutoh28 on 1/13/25, 4:34 AM

  Yeah social media has gotten very predatory, especially since short form content blew up due to TikTok. I’ll have chats with people that are just an exchange of instagram reels and reactions.

  HN is my only form of social media now on my phone. Now, it’s time to build meaningful relationships in my life again.

• by __coder__ on 1/13/25, 4:50 AM

  Its been 6 months without social media. I didn't missed any news or update that really matters to me.

• by tacostakohashi on 1/12/25, 11:19 PM

  This is actually a really tough one.

  Obviously, FB, twitter, insta, LinkedIn etc. are a toxic cesspool. I've left my accounts there pretty much dormant for 10+ years.

  Ideally, I'd have maintained connections and contacts with my own network, using my own media, direct emails / texts, phone calls, in contexts that I controlled. The problem is... I didn't. I basically just buried my head in the sand and withdrew.

  I guess the takeaway is to try to use these platforms in a positive way, as a means to an end, and not get sucked in, or to network in some other, better way, rather than withdrawing, because that's not actually a good alternative.

• by staticBr on 1/14/25, 9:12 PM

  The day you causally find an old work colleague at the top list of hacker news.

  Hi Jochen wink

• by marginalia_nu on 1/12/25, 11:10 PM

  I don't think deleting social media accounts is a good idea. Used appropriately, social media can be very useful and open doors that would otherwise not be available.

  The problem is when you are just looping[1], absentmindedly opening and closing news and social media sites for hours. This can eat a lot of time, and is generally pretty draining.

  I've been adding separate user accounts based on what tasks I'm doing, and locking them down so they can only perform those tasks.

  I have a social media account (which I'm on right now), I have a coding account which I can not access news or social media from, and I have a few other accounts. This creates friction when task switching, and makes it so I have to be a bit more deliberate with how I use the computer. (I have social media blocked on my phone, as I find that's just not compatible with a happy life)

  I've also recently been setting up Site Specific Browsers[2], basically custom PWAs, a web browser with no URL bar and no tabs, to further add barriers between tasks (like checking CI) and just noodling on the web. (I use electron to do this, but you can also use chrome by starting it with --app=https://www.example.com/ . Sadly Firefox has removed the ability to do this. )

  [1] https://xkcd.com/1411/

  [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_browser

• by chenlian on 1/13/25, 6:42 AM

  I completely understand Mark. As a business owner, this is actually a helpless solution.

• by surgical_fire on 1/12/25, 11:20 PM

  > he casually mentioned that Meta is teaming up with Trump to fight EU regulations affecting their platforms.

  I really hope EU just bans Meta from operating here.

  "There you go Zuck, you don't need to worry about our regulations anymore"

  I think we would live just fine around here without their awful products. It would also serve as a cautionary tale to other companies willing to undermine regulations around here.

• by pluc on 1/13/25, 7:41 AM

  Anyone who needs to advertise they deleted their social media accounts with more than a sentence on said networks is gonna be back on there in a week. They crave approval and engagement and likes and without it will spiral out of control.

• by chrsw on 1/13/25, 11:51 AM

  Is IRC "social media"? I'm not quitting that.

• by slackfan on 1/13/25, 3:48 AM

  Congrats OP, now will you join us in the real world?

• by jpmattia on 1/12/25, 11:42 PM

  The right-turns on FB and Twitter make for big openings in the space. It strikes me as quite an opportunity to eat FB's lunch, just as BlueSky has been eating Twitter's lunch.

• by PaulHoule on 1/12/25, 11:10 PM

  ... this was me in 2016. (Facebook had Cambridge Analytica, LinkedIn had taken on a demonic element to me in that I'd spent years prospecting and it had brought so many grifters and bullshitters into my life I felt like I was becoming a bullshitter... It would have been one thing if I was making money but I wasn't.)

  I got back into social media about 1.5 years ago when Mastodon seemed to be coming on strong. I've lately gotten into Bluesky and all I can say is: (1) come on in, the water is fine, and (2) sure it will go bad someday when the money gets tight but back in the day we expected platforms to decay and for the cool kids to move on to the next one.

• by danlugo92 on 1/13/25, 11:25 AM

  Only a sith deals in absolutes.

• by johnea on 1/12/25, 11:09 PM

  Excelent call to action.

  The distictions between made "deleting the accout" and "just stop using it" are really mute. The main point is to disengage from such platforms.

  Of course, almost no will. In spite of the clear conection between these platforms and individual mental health, and even more importantly massive distribution of seriously mileading "fake news", most people quite frankly just don't give a shit.

  Look at the near total indifference to the petro mafia's distruction of the natural world. Most people just can't be bothered.

  So when you compare something like failing to respond to corporations eliminating the ecosystem services required for life on earth, to a call to action against the crimes of asocial media, do you really expect a significant number of people to care?

  I'm doubting it...

• by jwr on 1/12/25, 11:28 PM

  I'm puzzled as to why people rage about Twitter and Facebook going down the drain, and then switch to new services like Bluesky or Threads and try to convince everyone to do the same.

  I mean, why on earth would you expect anything different this time from yet another "social" thing made and run by a corporate entity?

  I moved to Mastodon, which at least has the benefit of not being owned by a corporation, which will perhaps save it from the usual paths of ensh*ttification.

• by rahidz on 1/13/25, 4:55 AM

  Is this text AI generated?

• by Deprogrammer9 on 1/12/25, 11:19 PM

  Meh I still use IRC, whatever.

• by constantlm on 1/12/25, 11:22 PM

  Covering your eyes does not stop the oncoming train.

• by codr7 on 1/12/25, 11:10 PM

  I should whatever I feel like, thank you very much.

• by mvdtnz on 1/13/25, 6:32 AM

  Regarding Elon meeting members of the AfD party,

  > The content? Let’s just say it made me want to yeet my phone into the nearest ocean. How anyone can take that level of garbage seriously is beyond me. But hey, bubbles are cozy, right? Musk, Zuckerberg, and Trump — what a trio. Honestly, this could be the perfect setup for a dystopian sci-fi thriller. Except, spoiler alert: no happy ending here.

  He doesn't explain further what "garbage" he's talking about.

  Sorry but I just can't take your grievance seriously if you won't at least explain it. This type of writing is the epitome of the echo chamber. If you don't already know what the author is talking about and already aggressively agree with them, not only are you not the target audience but they intentionally make the writing impenetrable to you.

  This is the absolute worst type of internet dreck. It's ironic that the author rails against "bubbles" in the quoted paragraph.

• by gadders on 1/13/25, 10:18 AM

  tl;dr; - My left-wing social media bubble is compromised and there is a risk I may hear opposing view points. Please everyone watch as I performatively delete my accounts.

  Honestly this is the tech equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and posting "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." just in case someone says something you disagree with.

• by vlachomir on 1/12/25, 11:27 PM

  I did not know that we could post stupid stuff on hacker news.

  The truth is that nobody cares if we delete our accounts on social media.

• by pino82 on 1/13/25, 9:32 AM

  I had a dream recently, where Elon Musk said the following:

  I'm not actually the bad guy you think I am. It was basically all a show. You had suuuuuuch a hard and looong time understanding the danger of all these corporate social media silos. Where we control what opinions are visible and what not so much. Social media (in that particular fashion) was always a trap, a problem to definitely avoid, since day 1, but it was sooooooo teeeeerribly hard to make you understand.

  So I though, well, if you are all too stupid to understand it, I will make a veeeeeery bizarre and freaky show for you that you will never forget. It will be so unreal, even you all will actually _get_ it now!!! Because it's such an important lessons for the upcoming future...

• by 50208 on 1/13/25, 8:06 AM

  I've been social media free going on almost 10 years ... would never go back. I haven't missed anything important, but skipped all the time waste and bullshit / misinformation / disinformation.

• by PawgerZ on 1/13/25, 4:12 PM

  I always forget that we're not quite the normal crowd here in Hacker News. I think I need to stop reading so many comments on this site. Trying to convince me that I'm a sociopath for posting my grandma's obituary on my timeline.

• by shahzaibmushtaq on 1/13/25, 12:18 PM

  Are you relying on mainstream media again in the same way you did in the pre-social media era?

  Oh no, it has something to do with the president-elect Trump and of course politics too. The first two paragraphs explained a lot and the later paragraphs were there to cover up his opinions by dragging in morality, teens and how bad the world had become due to social media.

  I didn't read a single about misinformation, disinformation, fake news and how to counter them.

  Hacker News was created by Paul Graham, and he is using social media. Which means ignoring social media isn't a wise decision.

• by bArray on 1/13/25, 12:11 PM

  > Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Meta is ditching its fact-checkers

  There is a global recession coming, everybody is trimming the fat where possible, all tech industries are cutting where possible. I think it can be reasonably argued that the very nature of fact-checking is a dangerous one anyway - by nature of which facts are used (perspective problem) and what gets checked.

  > Meta is teaming up with Trump to fight EU regulations affecting their platforms

  Why is this a problem? What specific EU regulation being removed causes issue? The ones that curtail freedom of speech? The EU is a largely undemocratic body, where significant positions are not even voted on. Do you really want to be controlled by this unaccountable body?

  > Recently, he hosted a live chat on Twitter with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of Germany’s AfD, a party flagged by the “Verfassungsschutz” as a far-right extremist group.

  It's the only popular right wing party that has been allowed to exist, and they picked up a large range of unrepresented voters. A unified block of right wing voters is exactly the situation created by trying to suppress an entire wing of politics. The right-wing party of Germany is technically somewhat ideologically aligned with the government Elon will be working for - this is far from crazy that they talk to each other.

  > Alice Weidel claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was not "right-wing," but a communist instead.

  When you get to such extremes, the difference between fascism and communism become difficult to see. Putting people in death camps for example, are we talking about the concentration camps or gulags? Extreme nationalism is unique to which ideology? Which ideology was uniquely a dictatorship?

  > Profit First, Morality... Somewhere in the Basement

  Nothing new. If something is for free, then _you_ are the product.

  > Teens and Social Media: A Toxic Cocktail

  I have said this for a long time, stop exposing children to unfiltered access on the internet, under any context.

  > Once the accounts were finally gone, I realized just how much of a grip these platforms had on me. The number of times I reflexively typed "t" or "f" into my browser bar (which autocompletes to twitter.com or facebook.com) was honestly terrifying.

  The trick is to know your limitations and account for them. I don't use social media on my work computer at all, and until recently I didn't even have any chat apps. These were all relegated to my phone, and it's purposefully slow and old.

  > Honestly? No idea. Some friends recommended Bluesky, but I’m holding off for now. Maybe I’ll go old-school and write more blog posts. Like back in the early 2000s, when you actually had to think before sharing your thoughts with the world. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it?

  The magical new social media will not resolve your issues with social media, social media has been around long enough to know this.

• by wordofx on 1/12/25, 11:10 PM

  Facebook removing 'fact' checkers is good, they weren't fact checkers, they were bias enforcers.

  Community notes is far superior to the bias enforcers.

• by aeternum on 1/13/25, 2:10 AM

  Why do people feel the incessant need to post about deleting/not using social media.

  They're clearly hypocrites as posting to a blog or HN is pretty much the same thing.