My mental health improved in meaningful ways when I dropped all social media close to a decade ago. Now I can feel the impact when someone insists I look at some shared item they sent me on Instagram or whatever. I´d rather not return to algorithm-driven services if I can avoid them.
When I left Twitter and Reddit there felt like a loss of what those sites used to be. The sites I replaced them with are off-ramps, I'm not letting myself get as engaged with them. If they go bad too, they won't feel like a loss.
What worked for me was just engaging in my local community more. There are a lot of great people out there, many of them are just a few houses down from you.
I can assure you, whatever hobby or interest you have, there are others that want to do it with you too. Find those people.
I just don't do Facebook, any more. It's been ages since I logged in.
I never really did Twitter/Twatter, or anything else.
The closest thing I have to social media, is HN comments.
My mental health improved in meaningful ways when I dropped all social media close to a decade ago. Now I can feel the impact when someone insists I look at some shared item they sent me on Instagram or whatever. I´d rather not return to algorithm-driven services if I can avoid them.
As much as others seem to hate Snapchat, I seem to avoid all the fake news because its just friends on snapchat.
Strava is pretty great too. No fake news on there.
4Chan? Well, I doubt any company wants to get caught astroturfing on 4chan, but I do think there are government psych-ops on it.
Facebook/IG/Reddit/HN? Dangerous stuff if you are trying to avoid fake news. I'll continue to consume. But I come in highly skeptical.
When I left Twitter and Reddit there felt like a loss of what those sites used to be. The sites I replaced them with are off-ramps, I'm not letting myself get as engaged with them. If they go bad too, they won't feel like a loss.
What dod u replace them with?
What worked for me was just engaging in my local community more. There are a lot of great people out there, many of them are just a few houses down from you.
I can assure you, whatever hobby or interest you have, there are others that want to do it with you too. Find those people.
Also read the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger.
TLDR: "I manage my alcoholism by only having two drinks a day."
I wish "Hacker News front page but the titles are honest"[0] was a real thing. Your TLDR does it for this article.
[0] https://dosaygo-studio.github.io/hn-front-page-2035/news-hon...