[jsonne]

Anecdotally I removed all social media from my phone recently and I only am using Twitter for work on desktop. My mood has improved dramatically and my focus is improving. Towards the end I found myself getting angry at posts that showed curated idyllic lives and realized that it's all really a facade.

To that end the last post I saw on Tiktok before deleting it basically said that social media is so insidious because it is both the sickness and the cure. You feel bad and then you feel better ad nauseum and that rang very true for me.

[floren]

> social media is so insidious because it is both the sickness and the cure. You feel bad and then you feel better ad nauseum

Go to an AA or NA meeting and you can hear the same stories.

[oomemoryerror]

Anecdotally, I think using social media requires a sense of emotional intelligence in order to not be adversely affected. You have to be cognizant that the highlights of other people’s lives aren’t comparable to your own life. Otherwise, you go down the spiral of thinking that your life is so much worse than others’.

[jvolkman]

Does that include Hacker News?

[jsonne]

HN falls under work for me (in the sense that I learn things, I have a company that employs engineers so there's a networking element etc) but point taken. I guess I don't think about it as much because it's significantly less problematic than say Instagram and at least I learn things here.

Notably I did cut out reddit which imho is the most toxic social network I was a part of.

[jvolkman]

Got it. Wasn't trying to call you out; just curious. I've read the "removing social media has made me much happier" claim so many times but haven't been able to do it yet. But I think I'm close.

[elliottkember]

I once read a phrase that was something like "smoking cures the anxiety it causes" and I think it's a similar concept