<story><title>I quit Instagram and Facebook and it made me happier</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/01/social-media-detox-christina-farr-quits-instagram-facebook.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antidesitter</author><text>Very cool demonstration!&lt;p&gt;You might be interested in this interactive demo of social networks: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncase.me&amp;#x2F;crowds&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncase.me&amp;#x2F;crowds&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;. It explores how the connectivity structure of social networks impacts the spread of ideas.</text></item><item><author>dougmwne</author><text>I have an odd image that I think provides a good mental model of this. Bear with me...&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;These metronomes start out tick-tocking in their own time, but each affects the other until they are all locked in perfect sync.&lt;p&gt;This is what global digital media culture is doing to us, subtle nudges to conform to a single global monoculture, so gradual that it&amp;#x27;s hard to see it happening until it&amp;#x27;s happened.</text></item><item><author>vlunkr</author><text>I’m also tired of the “global” culture. Reddit is a terrible offender of this. The same opinions always prevail, and dissenting ideas are pushed out of sight. This applies to politics, religion, humor, pop culture, everything. It rewards conformity and it’s so boring. Smaller subs are usually lots better, simply because there are fewer people there to perform their predicatable voting.</text></item><item><author>propman</author><text>I deleted Instagram a few months ago and I’ve not missed it once. The people who post more take up most of my bandwidth and those people I sincerely do not care about but due to social etiquitte have to follow. As I grow older I find that I really don’t care about maintaining superficial relationships with acquaintances, many of whom I might not see ever.&lt;p&gt;Other negatives- I click on one picture of a scantily clad woman and  my entire search feed turns into softcore porn for a month.&lt;p&gt;Culture is too vain. Selfies, blatantly showing off, spending hours on touch up apps were looked down upon in the entire history of the internet until that Ellen selfie photo that got huge. Apple, Facebook, Google, the media all advertised and made it socially accepted that the vanity is good. That had it’s pros and cons but I feel like we are crossed over on the cons side too much.&lt;p&gt;The culture is too global. Everyone’s opinions&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;comments all converge to the same dumbed down pop culture accepted norms&amp;#x2F;memes. Everyone tries to be funny in the exact same socially accepted way and there is no originality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spin</author><text>Thank you for sharing this demo (and to the GP for the video with the metronomes).  Very interesting; very cool.</text></comment>
<story><title>I quit Instagram and Facebook and it made me happier</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/01/social-media-detox-christina-farr-quits-instagram-facebook.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antidesitter</author><text>Very cool demonstration!&lt;p&gt;You might be interested in this interactive demo of social networks: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncase.me&amp;#x2F;crowds&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncase.me&amp;#x2F;crowds&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;. It explores how the connectivity structure of social networks impacts the spread of ideas.</text></item><item><author>dougmwne</author><text>I have an odd image that I think provides a good mental model of this. Bear with me...&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;These metronomes start out tick-tocking in their own time, but each affects the other until they are all locked in perfect sync.&lt;p&gt;This is what global digital media culture is doing to us, subtle nudges to conform to a single global monoculture, so gradual that it&amp;#x27;s hard to see it happening until it&amp;#x27;s happened.</text></item><item><author>vlunkr</author><text>I’m also tired of the “global” culture. Reddit is a terrible offender of this. The same opinions always prevail, and dissenting ideas are pushed out of sight. This applies to politics, religion, humor, pop culture, everything. It rewards conformity and it’s so boring. Smaller subs are usually lots better, simply because there are fewer people there to perform their predicatable voting.</text></item><item><author>propman</author><text>I deleted Instagram a few months ago and I’ve not missed it once. The people who post more take up most of my bandwidth and those people I sincerely do not care about but due to social etiquitte have to follow. As I grow older I find that I really don’t care about maintaining superficial relationships with acquaintances, many of whom I might not see ever.&lt;p&gt;Other negatives- I click on one picture of a scantily clad woman and  my entire search feed turns into softcore porn for a month.&lt;p&gt;Culture is too vain. Selfies, blatantly showing off, spending hours on touch up apps were looked down upon in the entire history of the internet until that Ellen selfie photo that got huge. Apple, Facebook, Google, the media all advertised and made it socially accepted that the vanity is good. That had it’s pros and cons but I feel like we are crossed over on the cons side too much.&lt;p&gt;The culture is too global. Everyone’s opinions&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;comments all converge to the same dumbed down pop culture accepted norms&amp;#x2F;memes. Everyone tries to be funny in the exact same socially accepted way and there is no originality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jhwhite</author><text>What field of study is this?</text></comment>