[cuantos]

More importantly social media is bad for your mental health. It hits the brain in many of the same ways as the 'news' and those intentionally boring phone games. It causes dopamine dysregulation which leads to a dependency. Consider the anxiety you feel if you need to go to the bathroom and cannot find your phone. This dopamine dysregulation destroys your mood and motivation.

Being social is a good thing. However companies have figured out they need addictive properties in order to be successful. I previously worked on optimizing companies for user engagement and the addictive properties naturally fall out of the process. If social media satiates your desires you will actually use them less. Think about it; why are your keys always in the last place you look? Because once you find them you stop looking. If you want to keep people on your site you hide their keys. People love a challenge and will be even happier when they find them.

It's particularly bad with modern (low information) news media. I'm a compulsive news junkie* so I have to avoid the news in order to get anything done. I quit facebook and google over their insistence on pushing 'news'. It's junk food for the brain. It's low information and only gives an illusion of being informed. E.g. the recent election.

* Note: I consider HN to be social 'media' news and I am aware that I'm here 'chipping'. I do so intentionally in effort to avoid fettishising vices. Plus HN is as close as I get to an online group of peers. I only use HN after self-flagellating while repeatedly muttering "the flesh is weak".

[forgetsusername]

>Consider the anxiety you feel if you need to go to the bathroom and cannot find your phone.

Is this a real thing?

[Noseshine]

A thread on reddit about just that very topic gained front-page visibility and a lot of "I'm actually doing this right now" comments.

EDIT - I actually found it, "Reddit is probably the world's largest group of people that communicate while shitting.": https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/5dqufr/redd...

[TeMPOraL]

It is. I have a mild case for it, especially when I go for "the longer stay".

But then again, the smartphone simply is that important for many of us. For me, it's a device that's always with me, second only to my own clothes. I may leave a wallet behind, but for sure I'm taking my phone with me. I don't usually think consciously why is that, but some reasons would be:

- the phone is what enables telepathy; if someone wants to reach you with their thoughts over large distances, you have to have the phone with you to receive it (and to respond)

- the Internet-enabled phone also lets me look up answers to random questions that pop up in my head; since the questions pop up randomly and either go away or take real estate in the brain until answered, I want to be able to answer them ASAP anywhere I am and whatever I'm doing

[gaius]

People used to read newspapers while sitting on the crapper. In the 90s it wasn't uncommon to go to the bathroom in someone's house and there to be a stack of magazines on the windowsill...

[BurningFrog]

Bathroom time is already wasted, so it's a guilt free opportunity to check your feed.

Unless you spend 5 minutes finding the phone first.

[JustSomeNobody]

Depends on how long I need to be in there.

[wallace_f]

>More importantly social media is bad for your mental health. [...] Being social is a good thing.

This is all that I need to have learned to quit* social media.

*I still use a Facebook, but I don't post anything, and I don't read anything. It is handy for the messenger though to keep in contact with friends that you might see again, such as when travelling.

[thex10]

You can 'deactivate' your Facebook account and remain active on Messenger, FYI. I did this.

[wallace_f]

Interesting, I actually didn't know that. I'd still need to be able to add people, I'll check that out thanks.

[blahi]

>Think about it; why are your keys always in the last place you look? Because once you find them you stop looking. If you want to keep people on your site you hide their keys.

That is actually very interesting analogy! And when I think about my facebook browsing habits, it only makes sense. Of course it has a flow an rhythm. Something interesting I engage with, a bunch of filler I scroll through, another interesting post. If all that is interesting to me is crammed into the top of the page, that would drop the metrics. Less vertical space used, less ads, less time on site (biggie with investors, I'm sure). Probably get fatigued much faster too. Consume even less interesting stuff than the "long format". I wonder if it is really beneficial (at least to them) in the long term or it is one of those things not worth maximizing (metrics vs. reasons [1]).

Do you have any interesting reading/watching/listening material from your old jobs? What are you up to these days?

[1] http://nxhx.org/maximizing/

[cuantos]

Thanks. I post stories about it secretly on HN through anonomous accounts. I mostly get downvoted as it's usually controversial and counterintuitive. It is to be expected.

I don't teach 'defence against the dark arts' as the techniques are more likely to be exploited if more widely known and I'd rather not help it spread. Thankfully we're already seeing a cultural pushback with people logging off. I expect to see much more of that in the future as society gets better at understanding addiction and individuals get better at optimizing for their own happiness.

As for me; I have my own software product company now and I am free to optimise for the user. I don't need the money but I do like making the world a better place.