Not to dispute anything the article says, but a reminder: Hacker News is social media too.
Which is fine! But I often see comments on here (typically under any article about Facebook) where the poster says they’ve deleted all social media and their life is much better for it, etc etc. No you haven’t because you’re still on here. No problem with that as long as you’re getting value from the time you spend here, but it should perhaps give you pause when prescribing what others do with their time: others may decide some other form of social media is a worthy use of their time and their choice is not necessarily more or less valid than yours.
Thank you for mentioning that. I was just about to say that I quit all social media EXCEPT for HN.
And sometimes I am faced with the same negative effects as I was on larger platforms. For example posts or comments about salary or revenue will make me worry about my own financial future. Or technical posts will scratch on my self esteem when a lot of expertise is involved.
I think what makes HN feel different to its community is the fact that it is well moderated niche community that can look like heaven at first.
I guess HN is social media, but I don't think it's the kind of social media the article is talking about. There's no social network involved in HN, no identity or personal branding (outside of dang) and the user-generated content is mostly comments on articles generated outside the site. I'm not arguing that it isn't social media, but then I guess the comments section of a blog is also social media by the same definition, and both of those things seem qualitatively different than, say, Facebook or Twitter. It may just be that the category of 'social media' is too broad to use about different things, some of which are more problematic than others.
I wish people would stop thinking it’s such a clever take. HN has chosen to leave out almost every engagement driving feature that modern social media is IMO defined by much more than just upvoting and commenting.
It’s social media in the same way my monthly pathetic run is professional sports.
Had to remind people of the same thing on a popular blog with a (hyper)active comment section recently. Social media is like cooking: everyone thinks their own tastes better than anyone else's. (Yes, I know the other analogy. Gross.) Or maybe it's like driving: everyone thinks they're above average. Too many people relentlessly bash social media they don't like, while ignoring any flaws in the social media they're using to do it. Maybe it would be more productive to look at how they're different, and how to accentuate or replicate the good parts.
Video games aren't social media either. These places can be used as a form of social media, but that requires quite a bit of work and a lot of profile browsing, setting up, etc.
In no form are they social media by default though.
Which is fine! But I often see comments on here (typically under any article about Facebook) where the poster says they’ve deleted all social media and their life is much better for it, etc etc. No you haven’t because you’re still on here. No problem with that as long as you’re getting value from the time you spend here, but it should perhaps give you pause when prescribing what others do with their time: others may decide some other form of social media is a worthy use of their time and their choice is not necessarily more or less valid than yours.