I thought about that. What I decided was to distinguish between social media driven by deliberately addictive engagement in order to sell ads (Facebook, Twitter), and social media that doesn't depend on ad revenue and invites active engagement rather than passive scrolling (Hacker News, and a guitar forum I read regularly). I don't need to give up all online interaction, just the ones that are actively and deliberately unhealthy.
"I used to have an alcoholism problem. I used to drink wine, beer, hard liquer, you name it. But then I did a cleanse in March, and I stopped drinking hard liquer and wine. I only drink beer now. But that's ok, because I actually like the taste of beer!"
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Wait, then why are you here?
I thought about that. What I decided was to distinguish between social media driven by deliberately addictive engagement in order to sell ads (Facebook, Twitter), and social media that doesn't depend on ad revenue and invites active engagement rather than passive scrolling (Hacker News, and a guitar forum I read regularly). I don't need to give up all online interaction, just the ones that are actively and deliberately unhealthy.
I don't know man. This sounds like:
"I used to have an alcoholism problem. I used to drink wine, beer, hard liquer, you name it. But then I did a cleanse in March, and I stopped drinking hard liquer and wine. I only drink beer now. But that's ok, because I actually like the taste of beer!"
Yeah, it does. And if I felt that HN was intruding on my ability to do other things the way Facebook and Twitter do, I'd quit it, as well.
edit: Maybe a better analogy would be that HN can be chewing gum when I'm trying to quit smoking.