TechCrunch Argues Social Media News Feeds 'Need to Die' (techcrunch.com)

"Feeds need to die because they distort our views and disconnect us from other human beings around us," argues TechCrunch's Romain Dillet: At first, I thought I was missing out on some Very Important Content. I felt disconnected. I fought against my own FOMO. But now, I don't feel anything. What's going on on Instagram? I don't care. Facebook is now the worst internet forum you can find. Twitter is filled with horrible, abusive people. Instagram has become a tiny Facebook now that it has discouraged all the weird, funny accounts from posting with its broken algorithm. LinkedIn's feed is pure spam.

And here's what I realized after forgetting about all those "social" networks. First, they're tricking you and pushing the right buttons to make you check your feed just one more time. They all use thirsty notifications, promote contrarian posts that get a lot of engagement and play with your emotions. Posting has been gamified and you want to check one more time if you got more likes on your last Instagram photo. Everything is now a story so that you pay more attention to your phone and you get bored less quickly -- moving pictures with sound tend to attract your eyes... [F]inally, I realized that I was missing out by constantly checking all my feeds. By putting my phone on 'Do Not Disturb' for days, I discovered new places, started conversations and noticed tiny little things that made me smile.
He concludes that technology has improved the way we learn, communicate, and share information, "But it has gone too far...

"Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you."

Comments

Yes, they do!

[DaMattster]

Social Media Newsfeeds need to die an ugly death! They do distort reality and are really psychologically toxic.

Re:Yes, they do!

[PopeRatface]

With luck, Social Media will die along with it.

Re:Yes, they do!

[thinkwaitfast]

When you figure it out, it's easy to manipulate rating systems. I used to do this for fun on reddit. I got bored and haven't done it in a while, but on a thread I was able to do things like get both top and bottom scores using the same comment, get massively high scores and massively low scores. A lot ha to do with understanding how memes and beliefs (the sacred cows) are used. Timing is also very important.

It was fun and I could get just about any karma I wanted, but also somewhat scary in how easy it was to swing opinion...almost like people had none of their own and had to be told what to think.

Re:Yes, they do!

[amiga3D]

I solved the overload problem by simply taking all the social media apps off my phone. Now, unless I decide to sit down at a computer I can not get immersed in the cult. I will usually sit down and look through twitter feeds for the day, make a few tweets and retweets and then move on. I ditched Facebook entirely and got rid of 90 percent of my SPAM. I'm astounded at all the people standing, walking and leaning on something furiously tapping away at their phones. Mine is in my pocket most of the time now.

Re:Yes, they do!

[TheRaven64]

Here's a first step: Stop referring to advertising platforms[1] as 'social media'. This is probably the most impressive advertising success in recent decades. A set of companies have managed to get a positive-sounding term attached to their product to such an extent that all mainstream media use it. It's as if tobacco companies had managed to get 'happiness products' used as the generic term for all of their wares.

[1] I'm being generous here: psychological manipulation platforms might be a better term: their sole reason for existing is to build a detailed psychological profile that can be used to manipulate you. The most benign use of this is to try to influence you to favour a particular brand over another.

Ironically

[Waffle Iron]

A news feed is telling me that news feeds must die.

Re: Ironically

[Zero__Kelvin]

Slashdot existed more than a decade before the first social media site. The true irony here is that you are posting on Slashdot, a site for people with strong technical knowledge, and are so clueless about technology that you think you are using a social media site.

Re: Ironically

[Known Nutter]

While Slashdot may (barely) meet wikipedia's technical definition, language evolves and I think a reasonable person would agree that, today, "social media" means social networking services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, G+ (?), and instagram and not a news aggregator with a comments section.

When someone says " social media" nobody thinks "slashdot" -- nobody.

This isn't a tech miracle...

[AmazingRuss]

"Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you." ... I was ignoring those people long before I got a phone. Now I can pretend to look at the phone, and it's less rude.

Article is more nuanced than title may imply

[bettodavis]

In a few words: it's not a Luddite manifesto.

It simply recommends shutting down all social media and smartphone use for a weekend, to reduce "Tech Fatigue" (or ennui) and re-discover the joys or at least, different things of life already around you. Like conversations with family, friends, movies, a book, everything that is already there but easily ignored with the excuse of 'looking at something' in your phone.

Oh, and the amazing fact that you won't really miss anything of value by shutting them down for a while. After all, we lived for millenia without them. The feeds and news will still be there whenever you return.

Things have changed

[willoughby]

News used to be stories about what has happened - events - and what it might mean. IOW, stuff you didn't already know. Today "news" is about what people are talking about because those things generate more clicks. Thus the top "news story" on the NBC News website atm is about a Trump approval survey rating drop and events in Catalonia are reduced to a sidebar.

News headlines used to be written to inform in a condensed manner. Now a "news" headline is a riddle to entice you to click.

"News" today is very different from what it used to be a few decades ago, and I don't envision it changing for the better.

And now for a list of other things I don't like...

Re:social media is garbage

[DontBeAMoran]

Zuckerberg called them "dumb fucks".

Here's the quote for the "(citation needed)" readers:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks

Not the feeds, the notifications

[Nemosoft Unv.]

It's not the feeds themselves, it's the continuous barrage of push notifications. Ever noticed how many sites want to enable them? I just say no.

At one point I realized that WordFeud was one of my greatest productivity killers. Every few minutes it goes bleep and you pick up your phone to place a word. Kil-ling! Nothing gets done! So I disabled all notifications, sounds and vibrate; the only thing left is the LED. Now I work for a while and when I take a break I'll see the LED flashing (or not) and have a little distraction. Then put the phone down and continue working. Do this for all your apps: WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, email, et cetera and you'll find peace and quiet. And yet, nobody has complained yet that I was late with replying, or that I missed a funny must-see video.

So instead of push, pull.

Re:The worst one of all

[Scott Tracy]

I have no idea what you are searching for (I had to do a bunch of image searches just to get any Pinterest results), but a simple "-pinterest" as your last keyword will solve your problem.