by imakwana on 4/21/25, 4:24 AM with 497 comments
by 8s2ngy on 4/21/25, 5:47 AM
by donatj on 4/21/25, 6:58 AM
This was my biggest source of joy on the modern internet.
When the walls fell and everybody left, I dropped 200 followers to 500 but by X's own metrics no one sees my tweets. I would estimate between 13 and 20 is my average view count. When I do post, I am lucky a single person interacts, and it is almost always someone I know in the real world.
I have presences on Mastodon and Bluesky, but my follower count on both remains in the low teens. I don't think the market is there anymore for "dude that ponders technology questions". I tweet like it's 2010 and no one cares anymore.
This was the death of social media for me. This was the last place I was really "social" on the internet and it died.
Genuinely this has had a very negative effect on me, the only somewhat of a silver lining is that I now have these conversations with ChatGPT. It's not as much fun though.
Instagram is just brainrot these days. I'd used it for years to post my absolute best photos as a sort of curated gallery. No one cares anymore. Nothing I post ever gets seen. Why bother.
That sums up my general opinion of all social media these days, why bother.
by kleiba on 4/21/25, 7:47 AM
But I've got to say, it's getting harder and harder to keep that up. As our kids get older especially, almost all of their social activities are somehow tied to social media one way or the other: no matter what they're joining, minimally there's a WhatsApp group. My wife has reluctantly joined WhatsApp and if it wasn't for that, it feels like we would pretty much be destined to become social outcasts.
In one recent instance, we weren't even aware of a parent group for one of our children's school class until someone asked us (in person!) why we didn't come bowling the previous night. We had no idea, and no-one sees the necessity to include someone who - for whatever reason - is not on WhatsApp.
I can see the argument that we are inconveniencing others by not wanting to be reachable to what has now become a standard means of being in touch, and that we cannot expect others to jump through hoops just to include us. But a few years back, I was quite deeply involved in privacy research and I definitely feel no inclination to share all of my communications (and pictures) with Meta.
by nomilk on 4/21/25, 5:58 AM
Kinda crazy that the magnitude is so small! (my next [admittedly rather cynical] thought is "who funded this?")
by countWSS on 4/21/25, 5:20 AM
by ryandrake on 4/21/25, 5:33 AM
by Kozmik1 on 4/21/25, 6:13 AM
by flkiwi on 4/21/25, 4:26 PM
I was never on Instagram or TikTok, but neither seems to be "social" media as much as a communal fire hose anyway.
I was on Bluesky for a minute, but it was 99.9% people trying to one-up each other with witty or ironic one-liners for clout, with most of the rest being ex-Twitter people trying to keep Twitter combat alive in an arena (blessedly) free of the people who have made Twitter unbearable. I got tired of witnessing a neverending improv open mic while being randomly assaulted by people I agreed with.
So now I'm just living my life, aware of the challenges of the world, but not bathing in them.
by perching_aix on 4/21/25, 5:11 AM
Can anyone translate? Random web search find suggests multiplying by 37 to get a percentage, which sounds very questionable, but even then these improvements seem negligible.
This doesn't really line up with my lived experience. Getting myself out of shitty platforms and community spaces improved my mental state significantly (although the damage that's been done remains).
by Arisaka1 on 4/21/25, 7:50 AM
Even though I am rationally aware that people work in better environments and get paid while I'm job searching for the past 6 months, it feels like seeing any sort of announcement regarding other people's successes hits a subconscious chord my brain hates. It felt like I'm being actively intimidated, making my already depressed and sad state of job searching worse. The "highlights reel effect" on LinkedIn is deliberate and I'd argue inevitable, because everyone is trying their best to show how good they are as candidates and workers.
Now that I closed it, and I'm sticking to the usual communities (Discord, etc.) may be running into better engineers than me but I see it either as a neutral event or a positive one, because they share their code and insights which I can learn from.
by notepad0x90 on 4/21/25, 12:27 PM
It's been a bliss. I don't over consume, I have more time to get things done now, and it's sort of obvious but everything feels better with bigger screens and keyboard and mouse.
Look at HN as an example, if I see a post on here that is related to some programming thing, I have my terminal right here where I can play with the concept. Even things like youtube are much nicer on a big screen.
My only pet-peeve is with web front-end designers insisting on wasting screen real-estate at the left and right margins. I wish there was a button on every such site where you can "maximize" the content div so that it takes up 100% width.
by submeta on 4/21/25, 6:36 AM
by rimeice on 4/21/25, 6:09 AM
by ElijahLynn on 4/21/25, 5:22 PM
Didn't matter if it was news, social or whatever, it messed with my dopamine apparatus, as Gabor Mate calls it.
I do limit my self to the first page or two of the HN feed though, to keep up on tech developments for my career, which I still have to be careful about.
It's feeds in general. It leads to abnormal dopamine release which affects motivation.
by scyzoryk_xyz on 4/21/25, 12:43 PM
I started deleting Instagram every Sunday evening and installing every Friday.
I had this hypothesis that it’s the weekends that people have the best stuff to share and when it makes sense for me to still exist to everyone. And then nobody notices me disappear over the week. It’s a lot more enjoyable to be engaging with others’ content when you’re posting your own.
But the surprising result, after a few months, is that I’ve started missing weekends. The memory of all those people has faded and so has the urge to share.
Which brings me to a point: on one hand I do feel better day to day, but I’ve also felt a bit of a mourning period not being reminded about acquaintances’ lives. Kind of like a smoker who’s now missing out on social smoke breaks.
by alwa on 4/21/25, 5:03 AM
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33697/w336...
Possibly relevant that the 6 week trial period occurred in the 6 weeks leading up to the American election in 2020.
by young_unixer on 4/21/25, 7:15 AM
But I know that once I create an account, I'll get hooked to the feed, to uploading pictures, etc. because I know myself.
I don't know if the positive social aspect (meeting people, or creating a lasting connection with people that I meet once IRL) is going to offset that addiction and the general anxiety that comes with having an account.
by ChrisMarshallNY on 4/21/25, 7:47 AM
The only reason I had it, in the first place, was so I could participate in a technical forum for an infrastructure platform that I authored.
That platform has long since left the nest, and is in very capable hands. Like a spent first-stage booster, I am no longer relevant.
Before completely walking away from Facebook, I had turned off all notifications, and never doomscrolled. Made walking away, much easier.
I miss it like it like I miss a painful boil on my arse. It was just old white people, screaming at each other.
by Thoreandan on 4/21/25, 4:24 PM
* Who died this week
* Spammers liking your posts and asking for friend adds
* Gofundme's for ppl who will now spend the rest of their lives in medical debt
* Interesting articles maybe twice a week or so.
Nobody I know in town is on Mastodon or BSky.
The silence is deafening.
by KronisLV on 4/21/25, 9:17 AM
I found that for social media, platforms like Mastodon feel more comfy and less commercialized, whereas for chatting with other people either 1:1 or group chats across various apps feel nicer without being directly tied to a social media platform. At the same time, platforms that are more focused on a particular set of topics/activities like Reddit/Discord/HN/... instead of people just trying to advertise their lives or build a brand in a sense (the likes of LinkedIn as well) or whatever are more meaningful to me.
To some degree, it probably has something to do with the size of those communities: Mastodon is niche enough not to get spammed with as many bots or adverts or people trying to push a certain narrative, it going under that radar is one of the best things about it, instead it's more organic content.
by anshumankmr on 4/21/25, 7:06 AM
by tushar-r on 4/21/25, 9:22 AM
I do have an Instagram account, and use that to follow the Slackwyrm comic (and ignore people asking me to give them my "desirable" id.)
I did try Blind, but quickly gave up on that mess of an app. 1 day of using it and it just was rage bait after rage bait. Maybe next time I'm job hunting - a friend stated that it was very useful for her negotiations.
Most of my WA group chats are archived & no notifications - no pressure to read them immediately. Left every group chat except close friends and family anyway.
by anovikov on 4/21/25, 6:30 AM
Since then, only tried reddit, but it has a different problem - it's an echo chamber where no real discussion is possible on any topic as anyone who disagrees with even minute details in dominating dogma of every subreddit, gets downvoted to invisibility. Plus too many subreddits are merely karma mills that people use to boost their karma to allow themselves at least some actual voice in other subreddits - and those useless-by-design subreddits dominate the whole thing because you need to do a lot of those "filler" posts to allow oneself one real one, thus SNR on the platform is ridiculously low - but it's not some evil bots who's creating noise, but actual live people, and not even dumb ones, just because they HAVE to. And going through this - for what? To get a chance to participate in one more "someone on the internet is wrong" debate?
Meaningful talk is possible in groups where people are united by at least something and where is at least some real barrier of entry. These are not the social media. They can't afford filtering who gets in because that way they'll lose viewership and leave a lot of money on the table. I wonder why that comes as a surprise to anyone.
by TriangleEdge on 4/21/25, 10:10 AM
Hypothesis: people who regularly use social media score higher then the average population in narcissic personality trait.
by methuselah_in on 4/21/25, 5:51 AM
by jmount on 4/21/25, 3:33 PM
> Facebook and Instagram deactivation improved emotional state index by 0.060 standard deviations (p < 0.001)
The link didn't click through to the appendix. This seems off, as small effects (the small number of standard deviations) tend to be associated with undesirable high p-values, not low ones. Though also, the 0.060 itself seems lower than the visual graphs indicate.
by TheBozzCL on 4/23/25, 4:09 PM
Yesterday, I blocked it completely at home and partially at work - I might still need to read some posts from time to time, but I don’t want to be able to browse it.
It’s been a bit hard to come up with things to fill my time with again. Kinda scary.
by physicsguy on 4/21/25, 7:33 AM
For Instagram with you needing to log in to view pages, you find that you can’t find opening times for restaurants etc because many places use it to advertise that they’re open/closed at short notice.
by alex1138 on 4/21/25, 6:27 PM
People have been demanding 'please just let me see what my friends post' for YEARS
It's (probably) not going to change
by theaussiestew on 4/21/25, 10:15 AM
by firesteelrain on 4/21/25, 9:17 AM
by MaxGripe on 4/21/25, 10:15 AM
I also use a browser plugin that blocks LinkedIn feed. This is because I can't stand seeing the nonsense that seemingly serious people post there.
by sullivantrevor on 4/21/25, 3:38 PM
www.elswhr.app
by spenrose on 4/21/25, 2:39 PM
by jokoon on 4/21/25, 8:30 AM
Also cats.
I just scroll for like 10min before going to bed.
Been using it for about 6 months now.
by jdeaton on 4/21/25, 3:38 PM
by veunes on 4/21/25, 8:42 AM
by 0xbadcafebee on 4/21/25, 7:46 AM
by rich_sasha on 4/21/25, 5:37 AM
Then life got busy and somewhat difficult, and I had no more time for this. Still, I'd occasionally go on Facebook and get really down. I'd see all my "friends" living it up, having fun etc while I was stuck in my rut. Very depressing.
But then, a few things happened. One, I understood it's really all fake. Two, all my real human friends stopped using Facebook, basically. And anyway, Facebook now just shows me AI slop that is nothing to do with anything - weird videos, people definitely shutting down a 5000 year old family business, you-wont-believe-what-she-did videos etc. Not that I use it much, just some friends for whatever reason are still on Messenger.
by grumple on 4/21/25, 11:49 AM
by nachox999 on 4/21/25, 1:03 PM
by wolvesechoes on 4/21/25, 11:33 AM
Yes, we can live without social media. I know it is possible from my own experience. And when everyone has a phone and e-mail address, you can stay connected without FB or other account.
It will require more effort, but valuable things rarely come without it.
by ein0p on 4/21/25, 5:22 PM
by JasmineSCZ on 4/21/25, 7:16 AM
by thoroughburro on 4/21/25, 11:57 AM
by daniel_iversen on 4/21/25, 8:08 AM
by tjpnz on 4/21/25, 10:08 AM
by revskill on 4/21/25, 4:58 AM
by sneak on 4/21/25, 5:28 AM
Many people prefer having anxiety about drama to being bored.