I quit (deleted accounts) all social media 5 years ago (before reels and short form media entered) and LinkedIn a year ago. This whole 'there is value in comments and DMs and connections for jobs' is the hook basically. I considered whether it was worth it. The answer for probably most people is 'No'.
Here is something I noticed: More present in the real world (no more head buried in the phone, neck feels better too). Less social comparisons (the worst part of social media that people don't understand). Depression and anxiety got better. Believe it or not but my quality of social interactions vastly improved after quitting social media. I also no longer take my phone out for pictures unnecessarily. There is no platform to show or compare or share. So I just take pictures for myself when I want to remember something and live the experience for just me. This is not selfish, this is just how reality is. But given that I am more present, I actually engage in the world and remember things as they are cause I am not distracted. I am mindful.
I have been an advocate for a while that social media is a really bad thing. My entire family is so addicted to all this. Mindfulness is the most important part. People are subconsciously comparing their lives to this world and it's driving their decision. Children are sitting with phones scrolling. I really find it concerning that people don't see this as a serious problem.
Get rid of it and don't think twice. The people really important and close to you will either call you or meet you for a meal. Everyone else was probably just a casual connection.
> There is no platform to show or compare or share.
That's the irony of social media to me. Thinking back to it's genesis I really thought of it as a way to connect "grandma" to the family and share pictures with her. At the time there weren't many great technical solutions for this and the average grandma was not technically capable enough to do much more than login and check facebook now and again.
Once the fundamental problem got solved the tone and scope of social media slowly changed as the networks lost users and struggled to maintain a high MAUs to shove ads into the face of.
> The people really important and close to you will either call you or meet you for a meal.
The best part to me is not mediating all experience through this filter of post worthiness.
I can remember anything I would learn or experience would be quickly interrupted by the thought of the possibility and worthiness of sharing what I just learned or experienced.
I would be lying if I said I am not more disconnected from people than I would be otherwise but social media gives me a form of a learning disability because of the post worthiness filter.
My rule for 2026 is to limit short-form media. No Twitter/X, no Bluesky, no Mastodon, no Instagram, no TikTok. If it is designed to be short-form (limited characters, quick videos) then it is not for me in 2026.
I had already avoided short-form video but I added short-form text this year.
I stopped watching short form content last year. I’m not on instagram/X etc, only on YouTube.
My only annoyance is that YouTube still insists on shoving them in my face on the app homepage even though I don’t watch them. It just requires a modicum of willpower now not to click and go down the rabbit hole, which I’ll occasionally fail at.
I'm on Android and I use "one sec" with "In app distractions" enabled for YouTube. no idea how it works but when I click on the shorts tab or any shorts in my feed (in the app, not website), it immediately gets blocked by a heroic looking polar bear saying "No shorts for you!". I believe it can block some other in app stuff like reels in instagram as well
It doesn't. I "worked around" that by setting a 5 minute daily timer for youtube on my phone - just enough to mark a few regular videos as "Watch Later". Gives me an incentive to scroll past the shorts.
I suggest to use the browser even on phones and tablets. Once you get used to YouTube with extensions you realise how aggressive and enshittified the app is
It’s a great rule, but it is still a problem when most of society uses short form stuff. Because they will be influenced by it and they will vote based on it. And they will end up affecting you anyways.
I dropped Google news and Reddit in the last few weeks. I have watched several people have nervous breakdowns, coworkers report having to step back from everything, one even said he’d developed a twitch. However informed we desire to be, that desire seems to be usurped by this constant spin-up mechanism of current media.
HN is probably gonna have to go soon too for me, I have enough ways to keep informed, and it’s hard to feel informed while pretending many events that are deeply effecting everyone I know’s lives don’t exist. I don’t particularly want HN to become about US politics, but I also don’t like that ycombinator is run by, for and with people who I don’t share values with.
It seems like the majority opinion is it’s okay to commit moral suicide to make money nowadays - I never previously felt like the word “depravity” could accurately describe the day to day culture of startups and technology. There are many exceptions (enough to not leave the industry entirely) and perhaps it’s the rule that most people are appalled at Thiel, Musk and Altman, but idk. To me the only correct move against a vampire is to not let them into your house.
"I also don’t like that ycombinator is run by, for and with people who I don’t share values with."
I think if you are careful to avoid clicking on YC startup ads or applying to YC, and you make sure to write a lot of comments calling for regulatory crackdown on AI†, then you can be fairly certain that you, as an individual user, are not contributing to YC's bottom line.
when vampires are knocking at everyones front door , a sizeable proportion of the populace will be vampirized , such that any barricades to your domicile will be inevitably breached
I kinda forget they exist. Last time I used Facebook is around 2015, and I never jumped on Instagram.
Stopped using Twitter when Musk bought it.
Sometimes I forget how much of a luxury it is to not spent cycles doomscrolling on those apps. Until an article like this pops up and I’m just grateful that I don’t feel the need to use social media.
It is possible for a devoted individual to do this, but it is not possible to solve deep societal problems one devoted individual at a time. We still need massive regulation of addiction-based business models.
My mental health improved in meaningful ways when I dropped all social media close to a decade ago. Now I can feel the impact when someone insists I look at some shared item they sent me on Instagram or whatever. I´d rather not return to algorithm-driven services if I can avoid them.
I'm still on Facebook (and Digg for those HNers that hop on to all the tech boards - you know I see you), but it's to keep up with some family that are there. But I adopted a simple catchphrase (GET OFF THE INTERNET) and time my posts for Sunday mornings to get all them folks that were waking up and immediately scrolling. Repeat that for a few weeks, and I think its helped give people the "please disconnect" message.
I'm a huge wrestling and movie dork, so... screens. And the embedded videos on Reddit didn't help since I could watch wrestling on /r/SquaredCircle rather than support the product I like. In conversations, I've blamed The Walking Dead, as that was the first show I recall encouraging people to "hop online to chat" while the new episodes aired. Then "live tweeting" became a thing and here we are.
Friends and family are still there, but they've at least gone from the "grow your business online" or "complain about politics" to talking about the NFL, or a painting they finished, or some music piece they're working on.
I still want to disconnect more, but we don't really have a cure for "shiny rock addiction" yet.
I mostly stay away from algorithmic timelines and deactivate retweets etc on X and Bluesky. For the rest I use them for some snarky comments with a select group of people.
I've tried completely quitting, but I'm not very social irl and would get lonely eventually, so this controlled dose of interaction is what works for me.
I'd encourage the author to look into the difference between mindfulness and intention. From reading their approach, it seems like they are really encouraging people to use the platforms intentionally. From my experience, mindfulness is correlated more closely with awareness than it is intention.
I'm recently restarting an approach to social media and I'm looking at it with fresh eyes. One thing that I wish more of us would agree on would be to strongly prefer platforms that are friendly to privacy, or at least anonymity. Starting new accounts, I was surprised to find the level of intrusion required to get, for example, a new Twitter account up and running. Contrast that with a new HN account, which requires nothing but a username and password.
Occasionally going through the onboarding steps for these platforms can be a real eye-opener on how the platforms have changed.
Not sure why this was killed. I think the point about mindfulness and intention is valid under the modern lens of "mindfulness" (as opposed to the older and more general concept of "be mindful of..."), which is closer to meditation and being present.
I also agree that there is a value to anonymous platforms that is underrepresented in today's landscape. Anonymous like 4chan or Secret, not even pseudonymous (as it turns out, I had an idea for such an experimental discussion platform...). I don't think they need to supplant identity-based platforms per sé but fill another niche.
When I left Twitter and Reddit there felt like a loss of what those sites used to be. The sites I replaced them with are off-ramps, I'm not letting myself get as engaged with them. If they go bad too, they won't feel like a loss.
What worked for me was just engaging in my local community more. There are a lot of great people out there, many of them are just a few houses down from you.
I can assure you, whatever hobby or interest you have, there are others that want to do it with you too. Find those people.
I text friends and family, call a few, and ideally have people over and grill.
For news, go to the source. People used to subscribe to newspapers and magazines for every interest under the sun. Add in podcasts and newsletters.
Technically I still have an industry Slack or two and a local Discord for parents, but those are basically just more groupchat.
Also when you go to do the "what do I need from here" exercise you realize how much of it's just worthless. I dropped Reddit and added one RSS feed from a local bookstore to find out about new books.
In the end, the algorithm was an unnatural way to read.
It is such a relief to see someone say you do not have to delete your accounts to be healthy. I find myself opening these apps purely out of habit when I am bored or anxious. The idea of pausing to ask yourself why you are logging in is something I definitely need to try.
Shameless plug for the thing I built: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46672734 - meepr, basically not algo driven (except the hashtags are curated), no recommendations etc, if you wanna "grow" on it, you need to tell your friends like the good old days. It's just run by me, not planning on having it run by anyone else, if people like it I'll add a subscription to cover the server cost. (check out the retro theme!! :))
You can use various tools to block the feeds on those websites or redirect the front page to your notifications. This has completely cut browsing for me. I still use those websites because my work requires an audience, but itself pretty much write-only media.
I only have Facebook, mostly because of local community groups, buy/sell pages, marketplace and some group chats. I find blocking the news feed effectively allows me to use it as a tool without being subject to brainrot.
Cocaine (the powder) is extracted from the coca leaf, which indigenous South Americans have chewed for over 8000 years. While the synthetic drug is insanely addictive, the natural form is still commonly used as a mild stimulant, probably safer than caffeine in coffee. So yes?
For me, talking face-to-face is the only real means of socialising. I can barely even see the appeal of having a proper conversation on a chat application (they're much more more ideal for arranging meetups, sharing information quickly and keeping up with people far away).
It's incredibly annoying that we're expected to shift real world social interaction into these apps and platforms. It annoys me when somebody I meet begins talking to me more on chat apps than they do in real life.
However much more than that, I cannot understand the concept of posting personal details, media, worldviews and opinions underneath your own name on some platform, in which anywhere from dozens of friends and family, to the whole world, can see it. Even large group chats seem unappealing. What is the appeal of this for anybody besides the people that run such platforms for engagement and advertising?
Why do people want to see others they do or don't know doing this? What's the point of it?
Why does anybody want or engage in systems of digital reputation (likes, kudos, karma)? Moreso why are these values, or the number of followers/digital friends in anyway important? We all know that these things can be openly bought. It pains me to imagine all the one line comments, and upvote/downvote with timestamps being stored on a server somewhere.
The wildest part is that the companies that provide these platforms are worth more than companies that actually produce meaningful products and services. These are platforms that could only succeed by being free* and then abusing existing users.
Hacker News is the only place online I post, and I only do so in a non-social discourse. I don't know anybody I've replied to or been replied to by on here, and nor do they know me.
> With that said, social media still works for connections. DMs are good. Having actual conversations in comments is good.
No. DMs are not e2ee so you’re allowing an advertising surveillance company to leverage private conversations with friends against you and your friends. It’s also available to federal police WITHOUT A WARRANT. They can data mine it, associate it with your email and phone number, and sell it off to data brokers.
Friends don’t let friends use surveillance platforms.
Delete your instagram and facebook accounts. Today. Refuse to be the honey in the corporate trap that results in your friends and loved ones being placed under surveillance.
They are once you know them. I still haven't found great sources of telegram channels. Only ones being surfaced are from the funnels "how to run k5s on a baked potato? I just published guide on my tg, which you can find on my linktree that is in my ig profile!"
I quit (deleted accounts) all social media 5 years ago (before reels and short form media entered) and LinkedIn a year ago. This whole 'there is value in comments and DMs and connections for jobs' is the hook basically. I considered whether it was worth it. The answer for probably most people is 'No'.
Here is something I noticed: More present in the real world (no more head buried in the phone, neck feels better too). Less social comparisons (the worst part of social media that people don't understand). Depression and anxiety got better. Believe it or not but my quality of social interactions vastly improved after quitting social media. I also no longer take my phone out for pictures unnecessarily. There is no platform to show or compare or share. So I just take pictures for myself when I want to remember something and live the experience for just me. This is not selfish, this is just how reality is. But given that I am more present, I actually engage in the world and remember things as they are cause I am not distracted. I am mindful.
I have been an advocate for a while that social media is a really bad thing. My entire family is so addicted to all this. Mindfulness is the most important part. People are subconsciously comparing their lives to this world and it's driving their decision. Children are sitting with phones scrolling. I really find it concerning that people don't see this as a serious problem.
Get rid of it and don't think twice. The people really important and close to you will either call you or meet you for a meal. Everyone else was probably just a casual connection.
> There is no platform to show or compare or share.
That's the irony of social media to me. Thinking back to it's genesis I really thought of it as a way to connect "grandma" to the family and share pictures with her. At the time there weren't many great technical solutions for this and the average grandma was not technically capable enough to do much more than login and check facebook now and again.
Once the fundamental problem got solved the tone and scope of social media slowly changed as the networks lost users and struggled to maintain a high MAUs to shove ads into the face of.
> The people really important and close to you will either call you or meet you for a meal.
Which is easier now than it ever has been.
I haven't had social media in 11 years.
The best part to me is not mediating all experience through this filter of post worthiness.
I can remember anything I would learn or experience would be quickly interrupted by the thought of the possibility and worthiness of sharing what I just learned or experienced.
I would be lying if I said I am not more disconnected from people than I would be otherwise but social media gives me a form of a learning disability because of the post worthiness filter.
My rule for 2026 is to limit short-form media. No Twitter/X, no Bluesky, no Mastodon, no Instagram, no TikTok. If it is designed to be short-form (limited characters, quick videos) then it is not for me in 2026.
I had already avoided short-form video but I added short-form text this year.
I stopped watching short form content last year. I’m not on instagram/X etc, only on YouTube.
My only annoyance is that YouTube still insists on shoving them in my face on the app homepage even though I don’t watch them. It just requires a modicum of willpower now not to click and go down the rabbit hole, which I’ll occasionally fail at.
Try to turn off YouTube watch history.
You get no feed at all. It’s marvelous.
I blocked them from my suggestions page with ublock origin
Yeah but that doesn’t work in the app, or does it?
I'm on Android and I use "one sec" with "In app distractions" enabled for YouTube. no idea how it works but when I click on the shorts tab or any shorts in my feed (in the app, not website), it immediately gets blocked by a heroic looking polar bear saying "No shorts for you!". I believe it can block some other in app stuff like reels in instagram as well
It doesn't. I "worked around" that by setting a 5 minute daily timer for youtube on my phone - just enough to mark a few regular videos as "Watch Later". Gives me an incentive to scroll past the shorts.
I suggest to use the browser even on phones and tablets. Once you get used to YouTube with extensions you realise how aggressive and enshittified the app is
It’s a great rule, but it is still a problem when most of society uses short form stuff. Because they will be influenced by it and they will vote based on it. And they will end up affecting you anyways.
The whole world would be a better place if all of these disappeared.
(Add to this YouTube Shorts.)
I dropped Google news and Reddit in the last few weeks. I have watched several people have nervous breakdowns, coworkers report having to step back from everything, one even said he’d developed a twitch. However informed we desire to be, that desire seems to be usurped by this constant spin-up mechanism of current media.
HN is probably gonna have to go soon too for me, I have enough ways to keep informed, and it’s hard to feel informed while pretending many events that are deeply effecting everyone I know’s lives don’t exist. I don’t particularly want HN to become about US politics, but I also don’t like that ycombinator is run by, for and with people who I don’t share values with.
It seems like the majority opinion is it’s okay to commit moral suicide to make money nowadays - I never previously felt like the word “depravity” could accurately describe the day to day culture of startups and technology. There are many exceptions (enough to not leave the industry entirely) and perhaps it’s the rule that most people are appalled at Thiel, Musk and Altman, but idk. To me the only correct move against a vampire is to not let them into your house.
"I also don’t like that ycombinator is run by, for and with people who I don’t share values with."
I think if you are careful to avoid clicking on YC startup ads or applying to YC, and you make sure to write a lot of comments calling for regulatory crackdown on AI†, then you can be fairly certain that you, as an individual user, are not contributing to YC's bottom line.
† I contributed to the campaign of Alex Bores, running for Congress in NY-12 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TbsdA7wG9TvMQYMZj/consider-d...
when vampires are knocking at everyones front door , a sizeable proportion of the populace will be vampirized , such that any barricades to your domicile will be inevitably breached
You have to welcome vampires in.
doesn't make much of a difference when you are the only non vampire left
I'm fairly sure there is a book about that exact thing, but I can't remember how it ends...
I just don't do Facebook, any more. It's been ages since I logged in.
I never really did Twitter/Twatter, or anything else.
The closest thing I have to social media, is HN comments.
Same for me!
I kinda forget they exist. Last time I used Facebook is around 2015, and I never jumped on Instagram.
Stopped using Twitter when Musk bought it.
Sometimes I forget how much of a luxury it is to not spent cycles doomscrolling on those apps. Until an article like this pops up and I’m just grateful that I don’t feel the need to use social media.
As much as others seem to hate Snapchat, I seem to avoid all the fake news because its just friends on snapchat.
Strava is pretty great too. No fake news on there.
4Chan? Well, I doubt any company wants to get caught astroturfing on 4chan, but I do think there are government psych-ops on it.
Facebook/IG/Reddit/HN? Dangerous stuff if you are trying to avoid fake news. I'll continue to consume. But I come in highly skeptical.
Didn't Israel get caught astroturfing 4chan?
I can "finish" reading my Mastodon timeline because it's not designed to scroll endlessly. Then I read a book.
I open Mastodon many times a day, see what my actual friends are really doing, smile, and go back to my day. It's lovely.
It is possible for a devoted individual to do this, but it is not possible to solve deep societal problems one devoted individual at a time. We still need massive regulation of addiction-based business models.
My mental health improved in meaningful ways when I dropped all social media close to a decade ago. Now I can feel the impact when someone insists I look at some shared item they sent me on Instagram or whatever. I´d rather not return to algorithm-driven services if I can avoid them.
I'm still on Facebook (and Digg for those HNers that hop on to all the tech boards - you know I see you), but it's to keep up with some family that are there. But I adopted a simple catchphrase (GET OFF THE INTERNET) and time my posts for Sunday mornings to get all them folks that were waking up and immediately scrolling. Repeat that for a few weeks, and I think its helped give people the "please disconnect" message.
I'm a huge wrestling and movie dork, so... screens. And the embedded videos on Reddit didn't help since I could watch wrestling on /r/SquaredCircle rather than support the product I like. In conversations, I've blamed The Walking Dead, as that was the first show I recall encouraging people to "hop online to chat" while the new episodes aired. Then "live tweeting" became a thing and here we are.
Friends and family are still there, but they've at least gone from the "grow your business online" or "complain about politics" to talking about the NFL, or a painting they finished, or some music piece they're working on.
I still want to disconnect more, but we don't really have a cure for "shiny rock addiction" yet.
I mostly stay away from algorithmic timelines and deactivate retweets etc on X and Bluesky. For the rest I use them for some snarky comments with a select group of people.
I've tried completely quitting, but I'm not very social irl and would get lonely eventually, so this controlled dose of interaction is what works for me.
I'd encourage the author to look into the difference between mindfulness and intention. From reading their approach, it seems like they are really encouraging people to use the platforms intentionally. From my experience, mindfulness is correlated more closely with awareness than it is intention.
I'm recently restarting an approach to social media and I'm looking at it with fresh eyes. One thing that I wish more of us would agree on would be to strongly prefer platforms that are friendly to privacy, or at least anonymity. Starting new accounts, I was surprised to find the level of intrusion required to get, for example, a new Twitter account up and running. Contrast that with a new HN account, which requires nothing but a username and password.
Occasionally going through the onboarding steps for these platforms can be a real eye-opener on how the platforms have changed.
Not sure why this was killed. I think the point about mindfulness and intention is valid under the modern lens of "mindfulness" (as opposed to the older and more general concept of "be mindful of..."), which is closer to meditation and being present.
I also agree that there is a value to anonymous platforms that is underrepresented in today's landscape. Anonymous like 4chan or Secret, not even pseudonymous (as it turns out, I had an idea for such an experimental discussion platform...). I don't think they need to supplant identity-based platforms per sé but fill another niche.
When I left Twitter and Reddit there felt like a loss of what those sites used to be. The sites I replaced them with are off-ramps, I'm not letting myself get as engaged with them. If they go bad too, they won't feel like a loss.
What dod u replace them with?
What worked for me was just engaging in my local community more. There are a lot of great people out there, many of them are just a few houses down from you.
I can assure you, whatever hobby or interest you have, there are others that want to do it with you too. Find those people.
Also read the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger.
Volunteering especially
In effect, I got rid of the middlemen.
I text friends and family, call a few, and ideally have people over and grill.
For news, go to the source. People used to subscribe to newspapers and magazines for every interest under the sun. Add in podcasts and newsletters.
Technically I still have an industry Slack or two and a local Discord for parents, but those are basically just more groupchat.
Also when you go to do the "what do I need from here" exercise you realize how much of it's just worthless. I dropped Reddit and added one RSS feed from a local bookstore to find out about new books.
In the end, the algorithm was an unnatural way to read.
I use Bluesky and Lemmy a bit, but not as much as I'd previously used Twitter and Reddit.
It is such a relief to see someone say you do not have to delete your accounts to be healthy. I find myself opening these apps purely out of habit when I am bored or anxious. The idea of pausing to ask yourself why you are logging in is something I definitely need to try.
Shameless plug for the thing I built: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46672734 - meepr, basically not algo driven (except the hashtags are curated), no recommendations etc, if you wanna "grow" on it, you need to tell your friends like the good old days. It's just run by me, not planning on having it run by anyone else, if people like it I'll add a subscription to cover the server cost. (check out the retro theme!! :))
You can use various tools to block the feeds on those websites or redirect the front page to your notifications. This has completely cut browsing for me. I still use those websites because my work requires an audience, but itself pretty much write-only media.
I only have Facebook, mostly because of local community groups, buy/sell pages, marketplace and some group chats. I find blocking the news feed effectively allows me to use it as a tool without being subject to brainrot.
>If you’re job hunting, LinkedIn especially can help you connect with the right people.
This bothers me, feels like linkedIn is setup more in a way to take advantage of that potential bargain.
Is it possible to use cocaine mindfully?
I encourage you to compare using YouTube with videos on the right hidden. It will disturb you how easily they can trick you to click.
Intstagram and friends are far, far worse.
Cocaine (the powder) is extracted from the coca leaf, which indigenous South Americans have chewed for over 8000 years. While the synthetic drug is insanely addictive, the natural form is still commonly used as a mild stimulant, probably safer than caffeine in coffee. So yes?
Cocaine is a good drug for this analogy.
I have never understood social media.
For me, talking face-to-face is the only real means of socialising. I can barely even see the appeal of having a proper conversation on a chat application (they're much more more ideal for arranging meetups, sharing information quickly and keeping up with people far away).
It's incredibly annoying that we're expected to shift real world social interaction into these apps and platforms. It annoys me when somebody I meet begins talking to me more on chat apps than they do in real life.
However much more than that, I cannot understand the concept of posting personal details, media, worldviews and opinions underneath your own name on some platform, in which anywhere from dozens of friends and family, to the whole world, can see it. Even large group chats seem unappealing. What is the appeal of this for anybody besides the people that run such platforms for engagement and advertising?
Why do people want to see others they do or don't know doing this? What's the point of it?
Why does anybody want or engage in systems of digital reputation (likes, kudos, karma)? Moreso why are these values, or the number of followers/digital friends in anyway important? We all know that these things can be openly bought. It pains me to imagine all the one line comments, and upvote/downvote with timestamps being stored on a server somewhere.
The wildest part is that the companies that provide these platforms are worth more than companies that actually produce meaningful products and services. These are platforms that could only succeed by being free* and then abusing existing users.
Hacker News is the only place online I post, and I only do so in a non-social discourse. I don't know anybody I've replied to or been replied to by on here, and nor do they know me.
> With that said, social media still works for connections. DMs are good. Having actual conversations in comments is good.
No. DMs are not e2ee so you’re allowing an advertising surveillance company to leverage private conversations with friends against you and your friends. It’s also available to federal police WITHOUT A WARRANT. They can data mine it, associate it with your email and phone number, and sell it off to data brokers.
Friends don’t let friends use surveillance platforms.
Delete your instagram and facebook accounts. Today. Refuse to be the honey in the corporate trap that results in your friends and loved ones being placed under surveillance.
Telegram channels are great sources of news and perspectives.
They are once you know them. I still haven't found great sources of telegram channels. Only ones being surfaced are from the funnels "how to run k5s on a baked potato? I just published guide on my tg, which you can find on my linktree that is in my ig profile!"
TLDR: "I manage my alcoholism by only having two drinks a day."
I wish "Hacker News front page but the titles are honest"[0] was a real thing. Your TLDR does it for this article.
[0] https://dosaygo-studio.github.io/hn-front-page-2035/news-hon...