I cut out Social Media earlier this year, and it's been one of the best decisions I've made. Part of why I started was remembering that we didn't have doom-scrolling apps before smartphones. The change has been tremendous since I've been trying to go back to more "intentional" media. When I find myself distracted and wanting to pick up my phone, I realize there isn't really anything on it for me to do and am forced to just put it away. So I've started getting into the habit of keeping a book on me wherever I go. I've read 4 books this year!
I'll object to "no doomscrolling" a little bit. My first case of doomscrolling was on my PC, in high-school, in early years of Facebook. It happened not with social feeds, but with news. I had this stupid idea that I need to follow news to "stay informed", and it took me I think a good year before I noticed I'm constantly sad, depressed, angry at, or afraid for the world. When I noticed, I cut news out completely. Mood massively improved, and two decades later, I still don't regret a thing. Plus, I realized some time later that reading news doesn't make you more informed, but more disinformed.
- in bulk, it creates distorted view of reality, by overemphasizing dramatic events;
- individually, approximately half the headlines are bald-faced lies, and the other half merely click bait
- articles usually correct the lies in headlines, but in every case I could independently verify, the text was presenting heavily distorted view of the events
Some of that can be canceled out by following multiple independent sources, but frankly, doing that is IMO one of the biggest ways to waste your life I can think of. Not worth the effort. Meme sites have similar ROI, and are much more fun.
rvshchwl · · focus · HN ↗
TeMPOraL · · focus · HN ↗
cesarsk · · focus · HN ↗
TeMPOraL · · focus · HN ↗
- in bulk, it creates distorted view of reality, by overemphasizing dramatic events;
- individually, approximately half the headlines are bald-faced lies, and the other half merely click bait
- articles usually correct the lies in headlines, but in every case I could independently verify, the text was presenting heavily distorted view of the events
Some of that can be canceled out by following multiple independent sources, but frankly, doing that is IMO one of the biggest ways to waste your life I can think of. Not worth the effort. Meme sites have similar ROI, and are much more fun.