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> it's not clear what specifically within social media constitutes harm Honestly, I think it's just the fact that it's a website that allows you to constantly be exposed to different things that are interesting and stimulating. You can remove upvotes, scrolling, all you want, but you'll still have the IV drip of novel content. Constant exposure to novelty is harmful, I think. We weren't designed to have our minds blown every 5 minutes. Spend a few hours a day having your brain washed with memes and fascinating articles (or at least the titles), and your brain will re-calibrate to this as the new normal, and anything less stimulating (reading books etc.) will feel boring. Constant novelty makes the world seem unstable and makes me feel flighty and anxious compared to more mundane activities, so the mental health connection is no surprise. Hacker News is less stimulating than other social media because it's text-based, it's about more serious topics, it's well moderated, and it doesn't abuse addictive techniques like infinite scrolling. However, I bet many people here will attest that they sometimes close HN only to open it right back up again. Closing a website only to open it immediately because you are bored is a sign that you subconsciously believe the website is one of the only interesting things you can do. Either your brain is right, and everything besides HN, reddit, Twitter, etc. is actually boring, or these things are just so artificially stimulating that using them causes everything else to feel boring in comparison. I'll let you decide which you think sounds more accurate. |