[dont__panic]

I've done something similar, cutting Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and all other major social media apps out of my life over the past few years. I would agree that HN is an issue as well, and that I should probably moderate my time on it.

However, I also can't deny that I've genuinely learned a lot from links shared on HN, and I can also attribute nearly my entire push to eliminate social media from my life to HN.

Additionally, HN, like a few other "hobby forums" I belong to, doesn't try to manipulate me to spend more time on the site so it can show me more ads. It only shows me content that other users have posted and shared -- unlike Facebook or Instagram, I don't see an ad every 2-3 posts or comments. That means something to me. Right now, all of those "hobby forums" teach me more about things I care about than they stress me out or piss me off or steal my time. Toward the end, Facebook was just a thing that ate up 10-15 minutes of my time multiple times per day. I can at least point to genuinely interesting facts I've learned from browsing HN.

And most importantly, I mostly do it during work hours anyway :-).