But, of course, no one questions the possibility of, like, you know, not letting kids use cell phones in school. Or maybe not letting kids use any form of digital camera, at all, ever? Is that actually impossible? Or just unreasonable?
Or, like, what if the reality is that taking a picture of your own nude body is not actually a crime? What if images of human nudity simply weren't criminalized?
> We are so unprepared to deal with all this shit.
We have always been unprepared to deal with this shit. The social stuff making it exponential means we just can't ignore it anymore.
Very few people have excellent memories of high school even before ubiquitous social apps.
I also love the investigating "whether children were bullied into participating". Um, duh. But most of it was social coercion with a side of physical threat rather than actual violence, so nobody will be prosecuted.
I was close to deleting my Facebook account when I discovered the News Feed Eradicator[1]. This way I can still use messages, groups, events, etc. without having to experience the dreaded news feed. It really improved my quality of life.
Another major step I took was to stop posting. That way I had no expectations of feedback and logged in far less in general.
I just started using this, and it's wonderful. I previously was using Stayfocusd to limit Facebook time to 5 minutes per day, which I depleted quickly. Sometimes I got cut off in the middle of writing a reply to someone, or even doing something for work. Now I don't have to restrict myself anymore, since there's nothing to mindlessly scroll through.
Reading the feed was like playing slots. It pays out just enough to keep you playing, but on net you're still losing. "Maybe that next post will be interesting! Oh, nope, just another story about Donald Trump. On to the next post..." Never again.
Thanks for introducing me to this extension. I've been using my hand to cover news feeds on fb, twitter, etc when I need to go in and respond to a message or something. Although it's easy for me to do that as social news feeds don't hog my attention as much as they induce anxiety.
> Things are different now. In our over-connected existence we have lost the ability to create a blank slate. When, previously, you could separate yourself from past lives and — through reflection and distance — achieve emotional growth and maturity, you are now inhibited by the confines of socially networked relationships.
This is an interesting section, and I think it holds true for a lot of people even if your initial response is "no one's forcing you to be connected".
I personally can't wait to graduate from college so I can delete my Facebook (for some reason a lot of college-related things require it). It's not a real blank slate at all, but it's better than nothing.
Well, from my experience, that is simply not true.
I held out until December of 2014 before joining Facebook. Before then I found (and still find) the interface horrible (being much more happy in my RSS reader and mail client) and was squeamish regarding the privacy, as Germans like me tend to be.
I noticed, though, that it was becoming harder and harder to contact people outside of the professional realm. Often they would not check their email accounts for weeks or not even give out an email address to anybody.
The moment to give up came when I noticed that even using Doodle to schedule an event did not work as good as it used to since some people seemingly migrated off of email in their private lives.
I've gotten rid of my Facebook account probably about two years ago now, and I haven't missed it since. I always thought it would be essential in keeping ties with old friends, but I've found that I naturally stay connected to those I care about regardless of Facebook.
I use twitter regularly, but it's mostly to keep track of my interests rather than social connections.
I have been close to deleting FB a couple of time, but I keep it for the unexpected / distant people that it keeps me in touch with.
I am going to Chile in a months time. I was there 15 years ago. I have a couple of contacts on facebook (I think I started using it around 8 or 9 years ago) that I will meet up with, but there are more who I would like to catch up with, but I have litterally lost touch with them.
It bugs me that people's justifiable criticisms of Facebook lead to tarnishing the whole concept of "social networks".
Based on the studies the author cites, the title of this article should be "Facebook is bad for you". But what about other social networks that don't focus on exploiting their users and manipulating them to addictive activity? (Dreamwidth is one that leaps to mind.) I'd bet dollars to donuts that the dynamics are very different in those environments.
The much-derided "right to be forgotten" is a key part of this. In the past you could just move to the next town, but now your permanent record is public and follows you...
You can delete most of the content, and in theory, for 3rd party, it's pretty problematic to dig up. ( Unless you're a government agency, but that was always the case, wasn't it? ). You can even opt-out of archive.org.
IPFS would be a very different scenario, and that is one of the reasons I hesitate to join.
Delete your account, create one with a different email address, and enjoy the reset.
Did it a while ago on Facebook, and although I've re-added a good 75% of people on the new profile because I still like to socialise with them, having a few weeks break in between was quite pleasant.
I have found it quite easy to ignore FB without having to actually delete my account. I login every couple weeks and spend maybe 2 minutes. I have all email notifications turned off. FB doesn't need to control your life just because you have an account.
I would like to turn this around slightly. Social networks are necessary and will be for a very long time as curation networks. The alternative is simple too much information to deal with.
Here is an excerpt from a blog post called "Slaves to the Feed - This is not the realtime we've been looking for" I wrote some years ago:
"Let’s start with what most people probably can agree. Information is accumulating online. The amount of available information is increasing at an exponential rate, some say it doubles every second year. This mean that any illusion of being able to stay up to date with everything that is going on is utopian and has been probably since Guttenberg invented the press.
Most people know this, yet that is exactly exactly what we all seem to be doing.
There is no shortage of content aggregators and aggregators of aggregators, daily developed to give us a better overview of all the sources of information we have subscribed to and found ourselves now depending on.
This has resulted in an endless stream of articles, news, pictures, websites, products, updates, comments of updates and comments to these comments, being delivered to us second by second that each of us have to deal with.
Constantly checking our feeds for new information, we seem to be hoping to discover something of interest, something that we can share with our networks, something that we can use, something that we can talk about, something that we can act on, something we didn’t know we didn’t know.
It almost seems like an obsession and many critics of digital technology would argue that by consuming information this way we are running the danger of destroying social interaction between humans. One might even say that we have become slaves of the feed.
It might be an obsession, but I think it’s an obsession that many critics will find themselves having to submit to sooner or later.
..."
[+] [-] Sven7|10 years ago|reply
We are so unprepared to deal with all this shit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/us/colorado-students-caugh...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/opinion/from-army-of-one-t...
More than ad-blocking its a good write up on how the attention economy is just wasting everyone's time. http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-b...
[+] [-] serpentor|10 years ago|reply
Or, like, what if the reality is that taking a picture of your own nude body is not actually a crime? What if images of human nudity simply weren't criminalized?
A bridge too far?
[+] [-] bsder|10 years ago|reply
We have always been unprepared to deal with this shit. The social stuff making it exponential means we just can't ignore it anymore.
Very few people have excellent memories of high school even before ubiquitous social apps.
I also love the investigating "whether children were bullied into participating". Um, duh. But most of it was social coercion with a side of physical threat rather than actual violence, so nobody will be prosecuted.
High school is prison, but without its benefits.
[+] [-] talsraviv|10 years ago|reply
Another major step I took was to stop posting. That way I had no expectations of feedback and logged in far less in general.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...
[+] [-] tvanantwerp|10 years ago|reply
Reading the feed was like playing slots. It pays out just enough to keep you playing, but on net you're still losing. "Maybe that next post will be interesting! Oh, nope, just another story about Donald Trump. On to the next post..." Never again.
[+] [-] pmlnr|10 years ago|reply
The Purge: What happens when you unfollow everyone on the Internet? https://medium.com/@helena/the-purge-what-happens-when-you-u...
[+] [-] qzxvwt|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidrusu|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sotojuan|10 years ago|reply
This is an interesting section, and I think it holds true for a lot of people even if your initial response is "no one's forcing you to be connected".
I personally can't wait to graduate from college so I can delete my Facebook (for some reason a lot of college-related things require it). It's not a real blank slate at all, but it's better than nothing.
[+] [-] sentenza|10 years ago|reply
Well, from my experience, that is simply not true.
I held out until December of 2014 before joining Facebook. Before then I found (and still find) the interface horrible (being much more happy in my RSS reader and mail client) and was squeamish regarding the privacy, as Germans like me tend to be.
I noticed, though, that it was becoming harder and harder to contact people outside of the professional realm. Often they would not check their email accounts for weeks or not even give out an email address to anybody.
The moment to give up came when I noticed that even using Doodle to schedule an event did not work as good as it used to since some people seemingly migrated off of email in their private lives.
[+] [-] ghthor|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ianvdl|10 years ago|reply
I use twitter regularly, but it's mostly to keep track of my interests rather than social connections.
[+] [-] collyw|10 years ago|reply
I am going to Chile in a months time. I was there 15 years ago. I have a couple of contacts on facebook (I think I started using it around 8 or 9 years ago) that I will meet up with, but there are more who I would like to catch up with, but I have litterally lost touch with them.
[+] [-] jdp23|10 years ago|reply
Based on the studies the author cites, the title of this article should be "Facebook is bad for you". But what about other social networks that don't focus on exploiting their users and manipulating them to addictive activity? (Dreamwidth is one that leaps to mind.) I'd bet dollars to donuts that the dynamics are very different in those environments.
[+] [-] austenallred|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thadd|10 years ago|reply
I still talk to all the people I wanted to talk to when I had a facebook.
Obviously not for everyone, but I enjoy it.
[+] [-] gaius|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmlnr|10 years ago|reply
You can delete most of the content, and in theory, for 3rd party, it's pretty problematic to dig up. ( Unless you're a government agency, but that was always the case, wasn't it? ). You can even opt-out of archive.org.
IPFS would be a very different scenario, and that is one of the reasons I hesitate to join.
[+] [-] hack_mmmm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snorrah|10 years ago|reply
Did it a while ago on Facebook, and although I've re-added a good 75% of people on the new profile because I still like to socialise with them, having a few weeks break in between was quite pleasant.
[+] [-] hellofunk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThomPete|10 years ago|reply
Here is an excerpt from a blog post called "Slaves to the Feed - This is not the realtime we've been looking for" I wrote some years ago:
"Let’s start with what most people probably can agree. Information is accumulating online. The amount of available information is increasing at an exponential rate, some say it doubles every second year. This mean that any illusion of being able to stay up to date with everything that is going on is utopian and has been probably since Guttenberg invented the press.
Most people know this, yet that is exactly exactly what we all seem to be doing.
There is no shortage of content aggregators and aggregators of aggregators, daily developed to give us a better overview of all the sources of information we have subscribed to and found ourselves now depending on.
This has resulted in an endless stream of articles, news, pictures, websites, products, updates, comments of updates and comments to these comments, being delivered to us second by second that each of us have to deal with.
Constantly checking our feeds for new information, we seem to be hoping to discover something of interest, something that we can share with our networks, something that we can use, something that we can talk about, something that we can act on, something we didn’t know we didn’t know.
It almost seems like an obsession and many critics of digital technology would argue that by consuming information this way we are running the danger of destroying social interaction between humans. One might even say that we have become slaves of the feed.
It might be an obsession, but I think it’s an obsession that many critics will find themselves having to submit to sooner or later. ..."
http://000fff.org/slaves-of-the-feed-this-is-not-the-realtim...
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] branch23|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] idlewords|10 years ago|reply