[VLM]

Most people don't need to delete their accounts.

I have a tasty bottle of rather expensive whiskey on the bar in my basement right now. Luxury consumables are a good gift, I guess.

I don't want to drink it right now because I have things to do requiring sobriety, its a bit early in the day for that sort of thing, etc. I got my reasons, none of them terribly interesting.

If I don't want to drink it for various reasons, I merely need to not drink it; for me this is very easy to do, not having an addiction.

An alcoholic whom does not want to drink it, would absolutely need to perform the ritual of dumping it down the drain.

Note that the ritualistic act of pouring alcohol down the drain does not cure alcoholism, it just wastes time and money. And it is just so with social media addicts periodically deleting their accounts. Usually comes alongside a long rationalization and projection about privacy and paranoia about sharing information.

[necessary]

I think pouring the alcohol down the drain does more than just waste time and money: it increases the cost of pouring another drink and creates an opportunity for self-reflection for the addict when popping open another bottle. This can make the difference between pouring one more drink and abstaining for another day.

For the only moderately addicted social media user, the cost of recreating your accounts might actually be greater than abstaining.

And all it would take is a small burst of motivation caused by finding a website that 1. causes self-reflection towards one's use of social media and 2. reduces the cost of deleting your accounts.

Point being, pouring the alcohol down the drain increases the cost of further addiction and increases the likelihood of prolonged abstinence.

[ipaddr]

Or throws you in a new endless cycle of deleting and recreating accounts with each new account representing a new leaf / new you. I've seen people in this birth/death cycle.

[agency]

What a bizarre take. You should continue to volunteer your personal information to an ad-tech behemoth… in order to prove you’re not an addict?

[jamal-kumar]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that the whiskey in the basement isn't spying on you

It would be a truly messed up world if that was the case

[VLM]

> whiskey in the basement isn't spying on you

Everyone important in the world already knows my SiL bought it for me, tracked at the point of sale using a loyalty card, tracked via her credit card, her highway pass shows she visited to deliver it to me on my birthday, it probably has a RFID chip somewhere either for theft protection or inventory tracking (maybe in the presentation box not the bottle itself "obviously"?). The bank has a record of what she bought which is probably legally or illegally shared with the health insurance company and/or medical care. Her fitbit tracked her walking thru the store.

But, yeah, the "real" threat to my privacy is people on HN now know I have an expensive bottle of whiskey, LOL. Or my cat-meme sharing account on FB, if I used FB, would know that I have a nice bottle. Because that distractor is the "real threat" not everyone in the paragraph above whom I have zero control over.

If an organization or whatever knows they're going to piss people off, give them a false sense of control. Maybe give them fake elections where both candidates are insiders. Maybe provide corporate oversight by a revolving door between the regulators and the regulated. Its all pretty standard propaganda stuff.

[imwillofficial]

What a weird comment flow to read. Your defensiveness off putting.

[jamal-kumar]

Truly, dude just went OFF. Morning basement whiskey vibes.

Honestly funnier than my little joke

[hunter2_]

The one little nugget I'm gleaning is that for people who are able, not even volunteering that you're incapable of simply ignoring the account is also worth considering. Like setting up an email filter instead of clicking unsubscribe on a mailing list, since doing so is yet another piece of information.

[ipaddr]

Volunteer random information or targeted information for who you want your character to be. Never volunteer personal information unless you want your character connected to your person.

[VLM]

Binary thinking. You can ONLY actively consume or actively delete, unthinkable that you can passively not use it.

Its like claiming its impossible for that bottle of whiskey to sit, undrinking, on my basement bar top, whiskey can only either be chugged immediately or angrily poured down the drain. Its impossible that bottle is sitting there without my drinking it.

I assure you, despite your claim that its impossible, I have a mostly full bottle of whiskey on my bar and an unused Facebook account. Why do you believe I'm lying? It seems realistic, reasonable, and a wise course of action.

The other reason deletion is pushed is to provide the illusion of privacy. You have no privacy anymore. Everyone important or actionable has total access to your entire digital life and always has and always will; the government, the banks, the big corporations. Its a false illusion that deleting your cat-meme-sharing account somehow protects you from the credit reporting agencies or the NSA. Its important to provide that false illusion of choice so that people are distracted from the actions of the credit reporting agencies and the NSA and the IRS and the banks and ...

[imwillofficial]

This isn’t binary thinking. It’s clear you don’t understand people who need these extra steps, and thank god for that. This is a problem I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

However, your lack of understanding does not make it any less relevant or useful.

[syshum]

Ironic that you talk about binary thinking then proceed to think of Privacy only in the binary of having it from government or not.

Aside from you being factually wrong on your take (you have massively over stated the competency of government and big finance, their data is more wrong than it is correct)

That however is not the only, and in many cases not even the most important, realm for which one may want to protect their privacy

At this point I am not sure what is more ignorant, your thoughts on addiction or your thoughts on privacy... it is a pretty close race

[mattgreenrocks]

No, most people should delete their accounts and go cold turkey. In time, they will begin to see that they never needed it, that human relationships necessarily require reaching out (aka work), and that social media was merely empty calories all along.

[phphphphp]

People are different. I, personally, find ownership of digital and physical things to “weigh” on me and so deleting something digital or giving something away physical is meaningful to me — it keeps my life simple in this moment, whether I acquire the thing again in future is not relevant. Not everybody is the same :)

[mattgreenrocks]

Ditto. Delete if only to feel a smidgen more agency in your life. Completely worth it.

[entropie]

> An alcoholic whom does not want to drink it, would absolutely need to perform the ritual of dumping it down the drain.

Nope. Iam an sober alcoholic and don't have any issues with alcohol in my flat around me. In fact there is a bottle of expensive wine standing on the table next to the front door for a few weeks now (kind of a tip for a favor I did) I just dont care. Ill hand it to my mom when I see her next.

I guess its a bit pedantic to point this out. I felt the need to do it.

[gompertz]

Unsure how this is so upvoted... It pretty much goes against anything evangelized in Deep Work or Atomic Habits - must reads promoted by most on HN. Y'all need to revisit those books I think ;)