Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

> Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom.

I've recently been finding it really hard to concentrate on my work and I genuinely think this might be the reason. I find myself compulsively opening twitter and tumblr and scrolling through for ages before realising that literally none of it is interesting. I'm just scrolling past brightly coloured images and auto-playing videos while completely distracted and detached from the real world.

I agree with the sentiment elsewhere in these comments that the solution isn't to completely delete your accounts (I think they can have some value when used in moderation), but rather to change the way I use them. Maybe deleting the native apps and using the webapps will raise the barrier to entry high enough that I'll only use them when there's actually something I want to do on them.

As for Facebook, I deleted that a few months ago and my quality of life instantly increased.

Being social is a good thing. However companies have figured out they need addictive properties in order to be successful. I previously worked on optimizing companies for user engagement and the addictive properties naturally fall out of the process. If social media satiates your desires you will actually use them less. Think about it; why are your keys always in the last place you look? Because once you find them you stop looking. If you want to keep people on your site you hide their keys. People love a challenge and will be even happier when they find them.

It's particularly bad with modern (low information) news media. I'm a compulsive news junkie* so I have to avoid the news in order to get anything done. I quit facebook and google over their insistence on pushing 'news'. It's junk food for the brain. It's low information and only gives an illusion of being informed. E.g. the recent election.

* Note: I consider HN to be social 'media' news and I am aware that I'm here 'chipping'. I do so intentionally in effort to avoid fettishising vices. Plus HN is as close as I get to an online group of peers. I only use HN after self-flagellating while repeatedly muttering "the flesh is weak".

After being a news addict for years, I've decided to not only limit my social media posts (and reading) down to zero, but also the amount of time I spend on the daily news sites (NYT, Guardian, Politico etc). Instead I read media that operates on a longer cycles like weekly (Economist, NewYorker) and longer (Foreign Affairs, Private Eye)

Its been an interesting experiment: most "news" is just content that is ultimately inconsequential, discussing ephemeral events that will be forgotten by the next news cycle.

However, the weeklies and the monthlies, because they have to edit what they write about, do a great job of filtering out the fluff and giving me a better perspective of what mattered that week/month.

I've found I still know what I need to know, suffer much less distractions, and more time to read books (amazing invention btw!)

Tracking my friends stripped a lot of the romance, joy. and mystery out of reconnecting.

Around the same time I got into a new group of friends that were all about their 'personal brand.' Every occasion was started with a good ten minutes of silence while they checked-in to Yelp, Foursquare, snapped photos of the venue / table / food, and tweeted bullshit along the lines of 'having the time of my life!' -- I spent the time looking for typos and leading errors on the menus. It was exhausting. Everybody was there, but nobody was present. Even the meal itself was dull because of the endless obsession with creating something it wasn't.

I never bought into those bullshit games of 'put your phone in the middle of the table' or whatever. If you're a typical human being, my expectation is that you can silence your phone and have the slightest bit of restraint to avoid looking at it every few minutes. I understand if there's an emergency or whatever, but otherwise, keep it on vibrate and be done.

Around this time I completely disabled all notifications and the phone never made a peep.

A few years after that I starting tracking how many images and tweets I was reading vs enjoying. It was about one in twenty or so.

Examining my own tweets and other contributions to social media had me realizing that I was as social as a guy at a party shouting opinions over the music to a room full of people doing the same. It wasn't social, and it was barely media.

I decided to purge the accounts and start from scratch -- and will be doing so every year or so. Starting fresh is nice, but I find that I rarely have anything of actual value to contribute.

I've avoided facebook for years and only use it for events. Instagram is all kids. Twitter is all business and 'I'm speaking at x conference --- here's a link to an instagram post of a photo of a slide in my presentation taken from the back row'. I've avoided the graphic design sites like dribbble where most 'portfolios' aren't filled with client work or art, just 99designs level work that is good, but irrelevant... and the list goes on.

Social media isn't completely dead, but for me, I checked out a long time ago.

I'm hoping that the next wave will be a hybrid of twitter, meetup, foursquare, and tinder --- an app where you check into a location to say 'I'm here, who wants to hang out?' and you can hang out with some strangers for a time.

> I’ve never had a social media account.

He basically summarized that procrastination is harmful and social media is to blame. He doesn't really share anything I haven't known as a social media addict. Kinda like saying to a smoker that smoking tobacco causes cancer. I know that, what now? I tried shutting down social media sites with plugins, blocking sites in the hostfile and other slow to circumvent things. They kinda worked, sometimes never. I also noticed that if a site gets shut down, something new emerges that replace it.

This is something you have to deal with, regulate it. If you find yourself constantly opening FB, Twitter or whatever your addiction is, then it signals that something you are having problems with something you should be really doing.

Meaning: social media forms a global hive mind. It determines what a lot of people see and hear about the world. Witness the flare up recently over the influence of “fake news” going viral.

A neuron's role, as one tiny piece of a brain, a neural network, or, for my purposes, a hive mind, is to take in a number of inputs and filter them, firing occasionally to convey some distillation of the inputs received.

Anyone who reshares highly inaccurate or incendiary content is being a bad neuron.

If instead you gather a range of news and opinion from a variety of sources and then, being very selective, reshare the one or two things each day (or week) with the best combinations of reputability, newsworthiness, timeliness, importance to current problems society is facing, and exploration of new ideas, then you're being a good neuron.

This in my opinion is the best use of publicly shared social media. If lots of people did this the world would be better off.

There may be career risk in sharing things related to politics, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. Without the freedom to do that, I might as well be in a repressive totalitarian society, and now more than ever that is something we should fight to prevent.

For example: "My second objection concerns the idea that social media is harmless. Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom."

I know it is a newspaper article and not an academic paper but I still need evidence to make me believe these claims are true. I've read people claiming that we are becoming more distracted but I haven't read that the ability to not be distracted is becoming more valuable. Similarly, while I've read claims that social media is addictive but not that it is engineered to be so.

You probably shouldn't indulge at work, but in some careers it may effectively be required.

Most people learn moderation, but some may have to cut themselves off.

I ended up adding Facebook, Twitter,9gag, Reddit and other sites to my /etc/hosts (0.0.0.0). Was the only way to fix it.

While I work I leave my phone at a distant table, with notifications turned down. The only thing that I get are phone calls.

I remember Simon Sinek saying something like: "if there's a person that the first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is drinking a glass of whiskey, you'd say he's an alcoholic". What does that make you if the first thing you do when you wake up is checking Facebook?

Facebook is full of old people because they have more weak connections, while my boy doesn't use a social media platform because in his words, "I have high school"...I'd asked him about it just this week.

What social media might give the author is the ability to continue their relationship with their editor's assistant over the next twenty years as their careers progress and paths diverge and perhaps the editor's assistant becomes an editor in their own right. Sure, TANSTAAFL. But it points both ways.

What I did was I've unsubscribed from all people and pages on Facebook, unsubscribed from all Reddit subs, and unsubscribed from all YouTube channels. In the end, I've learned to stop visiting facebook.com, since all I was seeing was an empty page, but at the same time I avoided giving up my network, and I can still check up on people when I remember about them, I can keep using Messenger and I can keep using Facebook as an identity provider on other websites. Not to mention that this way I don't have to throw out years of stuff generated by me (which can be painful with photos, especially for a data hoarder like me). Same goes for Reddit and YouTube (I keep my comment and post history, the ability to participate in discussions, my uploaded videos, and more).

For Hacker News, which is too valuable to me as a knowledge expanding tool, I did something else: I've started using the "top 10" section on hckrnews.com. I can keep checking it however many times I want, but I'll get stuck in at most 10 comment threads per day, which I consider to be a reasonable compromise (this thread being one of them </meta>).

Never used Twitter, but I suppose something similar can be accomplished by muting all the accounts you're following.

YMMV.

I do consider social media addictive. But adults can usually handle addictive substances. We just have to know our limits, and cut ourselves off if needed. There's really no need for 21st-century temperance activists preaching its evils.

Interesting viewpoint. Does the author really follow this? Has a webpage, blog and an archive that stretches for 91 pages ~ http://calnewport.com/blog/archive/ Not a good sign if the author thinks you should quit or limit your social media contact. I don't care if the authour justifies this as necessary. It's a sign that ignoring the real problem doesn't seem to work.

The Internet is addictive. In fact I've spent a bit of time writing my own tasking system to tackle this problem. In writing up an accompanying blog post on distraction and focus I found the GTD, work hard, achieve more in less time frenzy isn't new. It pre-dates the Internet by decades. Take Charles R. Schwab, owner of Bethlehem steel, someone who Thomas Edison described as a hustler. Schwa hired the best productivity guru he could. Ivy Ledbetter Lee. Lee proposed a very simple technique to focus and work on. Then charged Schwab USD$20,000 for the effort. You can read more in this article, "Ivy Ledbetter Lee" ~ http://jamesclear.com/ivy-lee

Quitting social media is a temporary fix as you'll probably find other ways to distract yourself and avoid work. The deeper problem is realising the Internet is very addictive and find coping mechanisms to counter the side effects.

While reading up on the problem of Internet addiction and digital works, I re-read the article pg wrote on this topic, "Distracting Distractions" I found an update on his suggestions: "The strategy described at the end of this essay didn't work. It would work for a while, and then I'd gradually find myself using the Internet on my work computer."

It is a problem that could yield some interesting work.

As someone who, years ago, implemented a lot of change to improve my life; here are some thoughts:

If you want a better, and more meaningful life, figure out what (and who) in your life is detrimental to your quality of life. Then rid yourself of those elements.

Second, enumerate everything (and everyone) you spend time on that adds no value--eradicate those elements from your life.

Make no mistake, these can be two very big, strenous and time-consuming tasks; which might need to be planned out in detail--as in how you will rid yourself of each element. The hardest part will usually be to "quit" detrimental people. But once you are done, boy, will your life improve.

When these two steps are done, you have been rewarded more time, not simply given, but earned. In the case of social media, I think I read that the average (globally) time spent is at something like 2 hours per day! If social media is one of those things either detrimental to you, or that adds no value, and you are an average user--then you just freed 14 hours per week.

Imagine if you took up a new hobby (do you even have one? many don't), something that actually improved quality of life, 14 hours a week learning a new instrument, or learning to draw, or write, or ski. That is a lot of time. Novel activities are good for your brain!

Another thing I have observed, especially in the age of social media--but it's not new, just seems worse now--is that a lot of young people need to learn how to be alone. Some people are hardly never alone. They have to learn this before they can learn to concentrate.

If you are like me, an introvert, you are probably alone a lot (if you are not, that can drain you of energy), but one thing you probably need to learn is to cut down on multitasking. It's not good for your brain (learning, memory) or body (stress), it's not good for productivity.

Sorry for rambling.

For the record: I barely use social media; I have inactive accounts here and there.

1) To show how the mind works and to showcase it on a CV. 2) To be available to this thing called the 'internet' which is basically a giant global party where the only information that we can find out about one and another is either through what others say about us or what we say about ourselves. If I purpose a crazy solution to a problem you will most likely want to verify who I am to see if my idea has any credence.

The article is right that it is a distraction but for CS minds to come together and share ideas it is almost a necessity to help drive innovation.

If you find yourself constantly wasting time on Facebook during work, you just lack discipline. I don't know about you guys, but my news feed is generally pretty boring, thus I don't have the urge to keep checking it. I'm not trying to claim moral superiority here, just saying that if you have an addiction problem, you need to take responsibility and hold yourself accountable rather than blaming the tool.

The irony of this whole situation being that the reason they scan applicants social media in the first place was to look for red flags in the applicants behavior outside of the work place and/or to find reasons they shouldn't be considered for employment.

Kind of ridiculous.

> Most social media is best described as a collection of somewhat trivial entertainment services that are currently having a good run. These networks are fun, but you’re deluding yourself if you think that Twitter messages, posts and likes are a productive use of your time.

This rings of the author's experience being in academia. In the business world, good products do not sell themselves.

"Most social media" is not Twitter. Twitter is a relatively unique social network.

Social networks spend a lot of time optimizing performance because they know how much it increases traffic. So it seems like a browser extension that adds a bit of latency and gradually ramps it up for the websites you choose could help to reduce the impulse to check too often.

At least this is my personal experience.

You can of course get rid of TV, music, theater, art, books, .. out of your life and focus only on your career skills development.

Social media is young generation's way of life. It's such a valuable communication channel for teens. Embrace it. Teach them and yourself how to use it to your benefit in moderation.

However, I can't just shut my accounts down. The advantages they give me over a life without them are just things that I don't want to miss out. I feel "blessed" of having even the opportunity to use amazing worldwide connected tools like facebook and twitter considering the last 100 years.

I get around very often and make friends and contacts almost everywhere. Some of these connections are not relevant until I am in location X again. Some are old friends in my hometown that I from time to time contact. Some are professional connections. In many cases Facebook is the only viable connection to keep contact with less-frequently contacted people.

Messenger? Doesn't work. Some countries use WhatsApp, some LINE, some KakaoTalk, some Threma and some, well, facebook messenger. Replacing facebook with 6 messaging clients is just not gonna work.

I am currently blocking most websites through a little snitch profile but I can feel the urge to unblock them and just... one more time... check if there is something new. I even catch myself occasionally opening facebook just to see the "connection unsuccessful" message.

From my experience, Pomodoro helps a lot in staying focused. But please, if you have anything to share to get rid of this addiction, share!

I feel like 2 years ago people would pile on about how unusual it was to not be part of social media, how there is little argument against leaving, or how you must be seeking attention or must be anti-social. Well, as a very social 20-something, I left Facebook 3 years ago, myself a heavy user with thousand+ friends scattered around the world, and it has made zero negative impact on any aspect of my life ('invitations to events' or 'keeping contact' is the typical fear against leaving, and it continues just as seamlessly [1] - people don't stop caring, thinking, or reaching out to you just because you leave Facebook, and vis versa), and it has easily been one of the top 5 or 3 decisions I've made in these 3 years. It's the equivalent of cutting out unnecessary yet significant things, or simplifying your life so you can remain mindful of the bigger goals. This may sound like something cheesy from the 4HWW, but I nonetheless think that kind of mindset is right on.

Now I see more people leaving Facebook who I wouldn't have imagined doing so a few years ago. Perceptions will remain divisive for some time, but I can see "avoiding social media" as gaining some real cachet as "I don't fuck around". Regardless of whether there is actually a correlation with avoiding social media and being a more serious, goal-oriented person, I do think mainstream perception will continue to change for the better away from the stigmatizing "Wow <person X> is not on <platform>, what's his deal?"

[1] Lightweight messaging apps, especially for international contacts... certainly not the whole investment of 'social media' since it's nothing but the messaging.

Basically, Facebook converts time of every single user life and productivity decrease into own revenue. And it's done with very very low efficiency--for the whole year it's around $40+ per US user for Facebook. As reported average user spends 50 minutes per day on Facebook. Hence, about 7.3 full 24 hour days (if we add sleep time required to compensate being awake 7.3 x 1.4 = 10.2 days) of your life make Facebook $40+.

I wonder what it means for US GDP in general should the data be run countrywide calculating distraction time and productivity decrease during the work hours.

As far as comments, I always try to act online as I would in real life. This means I try to avoid snark online since it is so hard convey sarcasm online. I also always think about if I was having a real conversation how would I act. If you read my comment history, most (all?) are calm, and I think are how I have disagreements in real life. I try to follow the thought process that you can shear a sheep many times, but can only skin it once.

I'm really looking forward to a post social network world. Though I fear something even more addictive, and destructive will come around.

Do like I do and turn your phone or tablet notifications for these apps off and check them later in your free time. If you really can't handle being personally responsible in your job, then sure, quit social media, but otherwise grow up and keep your brain on.

It was quite an eye opener.

This may also have something to do with the fact that this was a novel and enjoyable project (for me) with a hard deadline, but there were a couple times where my brain was trained to go open up Reddit when I was stumped on something, and I immediately caught myself since it wasn't the normal page and got back to work.

I like his scarcity argument there is something to it.

I'm less convinced of his argument that he and Steve Martin don't need it. Yeah right - but they already got visibility. Arguing against marketing from the top of the hill may get you print in the NYT but it still feels false.

There may be generational aspects to this story too.

This sounds such a short-sighted argument. Do people greet others because they expect some sort of rewards? It's a basic courtesy. Yes, some people overdo it but using a social media moderately could be a good norm. Again, the balance is the key, and we'll still need a bit more time to figure out the right amount of dose for each, but rejecting them outright is equally misguided.

The only problem is that like every social illusion it creates a social contract which makes it hard to get out of it - mostly because it will feel like being isolated from the "world" and in losing that perfectly crafted new "self/identity" will shatter the ego (we all know the ego doesn't enjoy being messed with).

Even if one is using it "just" for the messenger part, one is still part of all of this.

I'm not sure why would anyone use FB. to get new opportunities, FB. et al should not be taken seriously since most create their own persona on it akin to an MMORPG where one can literally choose to act like an Apache helicopter.

Moreover FB. is pure evil at its core: it's a global scale psychological experiment that future generations will refer to as: "those decades where everyone diluted their identity online, forgot about their "real" selves and thus slowly became clinically insane".

Some of the other arguments in the article are so broad that one can apply them to the Internet as a whole e.g. "distraction free work: just unplug your cable or disconnect your wi-fi"

At the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do. If you have to avoid social media to stay mentally healthy and to get your work done, OK. If you can still do your work and remain mentally healthy while using social media, OK.

I don't see the point in using anecdotal evidence, limited research, and popular myths to prove that social media is bad or that we should delete it. If it doesn't work for you, stop. It's like telling the world that alcohol is bad and that we're better off not doing it because you have a problem with alcohol. I'm not here to defend alcohol. I am here to suggesting considering that alcohol isn't necessarily evil. And I'm also here to say the same about social media.

This idea that social media is inherently evil because of the psychological tactics used is academically interesting but practically just a way for you to get onto your soap box and sound profound. It might also be a way for you to rationalize your choice for having somewhat regretfully deleted your Facebook. I get it. I did that for a long time. I see now that my problems with social media were mostly my own issues; and I see now that I can maximize the benefit of social media without becoming mentally disturbed or financially ruined.

I pulled the plug on Facebook and Instagram this weekend, not that I was a heavy user of Instagram anyway and Facebook a light to moderate user. (it sounds like I'm discussing a coke habit here). What I will find frustrating is that in my social group - and I'm sure I'm not alone - Facebook appears to be the central tool for organising one's life.

Everything is organised on Facebook. Social events, parties, last minute "Does anyone want to go for a drink?" requests, discussions and meetup arrangements on my side hobby of homebrewing. I fear I shall become something of a social outcast, particularly as many friends I have, I don't have their mobile numbers as all contact was made through Facebook messenger.

This is one part of the reason that I'm pulling away from Facebook in particular. Facebook has almost two billion users and the internet as a whole has roughly 3.5 billion users.

How one corporation having that much data willingly supplied - where they live, where they work, where they've been, where they currently are, among everything else - by so many people is, frankly, a disaster waiting to happen. I want no part of it. I've given them enough data over the last couple of years. No more.

And on a less tin-foil hat angle it is a huge distraction that, aside from the social life organisation aspect, serves no good purpose that can't be provided using other means (email? phone calls? meeting face to face and sharing your selfies in person?).

I've also withdrawn from Instagram and plan to start developing in VueJS or EmberJS rather than React. I'm not officially boycotting Facebook, I'm just choosing not to use their products.

If you're trying to turn social media into your career - say, being a journalist but only tweeting about things - then, no, that's probably not going to work. This seems to be what the article is railing against.

If however, you're using social media to help your work elsewhere find a wider audience, and then providing added nuggets of value on social media, then that's valuable.

The era of someone producing one piece of work that defines them for the rest of their career is now probably over. Theres an expectation now that you're continually engaged.

I think it works both way. It can be detrimental to people who think what they say online is "private" (Justine Sacco), but plenty of attention seekers double down and take advantage of the viral effect of Twitter or Facebook to "promote their brand", whatever that means, or to make up controversy. But for these people it is also a double edged sword as the consequences of saying something on social media cannot really be controlled. But for most of us it is only a source of problems and unnecessary controversy, it is especially true on Twitter.

Then again, maybe that's also kind of why everything's become so polarised and clickbaity in the media world now. Because the people writing for it are incapable of writing anything deeper than a 140 character soundbite.

This is still the case, except that the number of access methods and filters have increased, and many of them are with us everywhere, all the time.

Our own time is indeed finite, and my experience has been that the digital world will consume as much of that limited time as you let it.

Awareness is a first step, and a purposeful approach to consuming content helps keep your content consuming time balanced with, well, all the other stuff you can do in this world.

I agree with this particular sentiment but I don't believe that "deep work", as Cal Newport calls it, requires us to turn off social media or other forms of less-deep work altogether. Certainly, we must balance and control our usage of social media. Certainly, we must be more than just consumers and create tweets/posts/blogs/etc. These mediums can be great ways to give back to the community.

You online presence affords recruiters and hiring managers the opportunity to identify who you are before they make a determination to formally invite you to an interview (phone or in person). Even if you opt out of self identify, they can still figure it out if you have FB, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.

Thus, are you qualified, but didn't get a call back or request to interview email? It may be because of your race, gender, sexuality, etc.

If I didn't laugh so hard at this, I'd have to cry. Let's say my mileage has varied significantly. Diametrically. Exponentially. Hilariously.

No idea whether social media has any effect on anything; I don't use it. So there's that.

And then I realize that HN is social media, after all.

Read The Distraction Addiction: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16131064-the-distraction...

Quitting social media for personal usage is a pretty good idea though if you're always checking it.

https://sosuke.com/creating-and-taking-ownership-of-your-per...

"There are many issues with social media, from its corrosion of civic life to its cultural shallowness,..."

Can anyone elaborate on how it "corrodes" civic life? I am guessing this mean "civic" in the sense of civility not civic as in civic duty? Is this referring to the mean spiritedness of many people's online personas?

Can we get someone to restore the correct punctuation?

If pushing addictive narcotics is denounced as one of the moste evil deeds possible, how's this different?

Every time you distract yourself with browsing HN or checking whether Toady One has updated Dwarf Fortress, a little ding lets you know you just satisfied an addiction.

Probably turn people into bell addicts with a feedback loop.

I think a valid solution is to limit social media usage to within specific windows (eg: only use social media for 1 hour per day)

If someone builds a stereotype and then says - I don't like that. It speaks more about the stereotype, than about the real thing necessarily.

http://amzn.to/2fdEaol

Any suggestions on replacing in this manner?

It's a digital nicotine patch for your bad browsing habits.

Maybe I made the wrong call, but I'm happy to start flagging nytimes articles with the same judiciousness I'd flag a Breitbart article with an innocent-seeming but obviously-politically-motivated conclusion at hand.

judson_brewer_a_simple_way_to_break_a_bad_habit

But many people (sadly even on HN) think it is ok to fire people, based on their opinions.

Very much like in the early days, people just didn't have any awareness that cigarettes were harmful. Hell, everybody was doing it (see Mad Men).

I've learned from day trading and investing is how much we downplay herd psychology. Our society has geared us to beat any sense of opposition as hostile. Our evolutionary process have selected individuals based on how well they are able to blend and we feel instinctively safer in large numbers (def. mech. against predators). We are social creatures so they say.

But history is filled with instances were the crowd behaves very predictably over and over because the underlying constraints of group think are there. Social media is particularly aggravating medium for which false,fake,wrong have greater mobility than facts and common sense.

Besides the dissemination of false information which is harmful to our society and individual as a whole, perhaps the sheer noise and frequency of sensationalist artifacts is the biggest perpetrator of all.

It's only recently that we are beginning to become aware of the what if effects of being exposed to so much "spamming with our running commentary of bullshit masquerading as insight". So far, studies have confirmed that it's negative on the individual.

Having said that, there's plenty of people who don't care. They are happy uploading selfies and food they are about to digest and poop out in 12 hours. It's fleeting moments that are so ephemeral, information that otherwise would be irrelevant, insignificant noise, is being magnified through the crowd effect that social media platforms exploit and engineer to grow their user base.

Our low interest money has created a whole new economy where the number of active users without any doubt, taken at it's face value rather than examining it's intrinsic worth.

Just how important is it for everybody to be so connected and knowing every possible detail going on with everybody else?

For me, not very, and I've for the most part (besides HN & Reddit) have embraced off the social media grid lifestyle 3 years ago and I'm fucking loving it so far. I feel happier.

I'm not perfect as I use HN & Reddit. Although, I do spend less and less time on those platforms and experience more joy as well.

So why should I listen to what this guy has to say about social media?

But I am now a heavy FB user despite that, as an expatriate it helps a lot with keeping the fluency of my native tongue. The ease with keeping in contact is also really good for me, quite a bit away. I just wish there were fewer cat pictures.

The relevance for work and career is zero, of course. But the personal value is high.

ROFL. That's 1 long helluva a Dump. Hope you don't have roommates or a large family.

That's my immediate reaction to the title.

As it happens, deciding for myself is more important to me than my career assessment by other people.