Hacker News Reader

Comment by swader999 | Hacker News Reader

I think its great that you did this and realized some benefit but isn't HN social media?

I wouldn't consider HN social media, but instead a news aggregator with a robust comment section. These things existed long before the emergence of social-media networks.

Who am I? Who are you? We don't know. There are no friends, connections, or personal details shared. Interactions are fleeting and temporary.

Reading and writing HN comments can suck as much time as social media. I'd say if it sucks too much time for your taste, quit. If it doesn't, good for you.

Time spent is not the only consideration. Consider how the app is affecting one's psychology. Consider how addictive patterns and the so-called attention economy are changing people's attention spans, patterns of behavior, and thinking.

And..having friends on here would be somehow bad?..

I like Clay Shirky's definition of social media, (something like) a website where the users create the content, where the thing wouldn't exist in the same way without the users. But the definition of the word doesn't really matter, I guess. I'm just not sure why not having friends here makes it "ok", and why if you made friends here you'd have to quit because of your policy/your identity as "someone who quit social media years ago".

Irrelevant definitions aside -- I think everyone can agree there is a dramatic difference between a website like Facebook and a website like HN.

The vast majority of the negative psychological triggers, for example, associated with a platform like Facebook, are missing from HN.

For what it's worth, my experience is the opposite. The vast majority of negative psychological triggers I see in my online life are on HN, not facebook or twitter or reddit.

> I think everyone can agree there is a dramatic difference between a website like Facebook and a website like HN

No we cannot all agree on that! For one I completely disagree. Also I 100% consider HN social media. It checks all the boxes the way I see it.

It doesn't check all the boxes.

It's much easier for me to forget the people here on HN, there's no "follow", there's not pictures, there's just ad hoc comments with random people.

I don't build a relationship with people here. I just read text.

Well, I'm not the vast majority hehe. On FB I just chat with my friends around the world and sometimes while doing that, look at their pictures of what they've been up to. It's so nice. My friends are amazing. I've no idea why everyone acts like you are forced to look at your "news feed" on FB.

On here, it's all-too-frequent crazy/nasty/snarky/jerk comments. Yes, negative psychological triggers is a good way of putting it! Like the other day[0] I found the people from the US claiming Australians wouldn't have to put up with the lockdown if we only had guns, really disturbing. Then yesterday, the guy who's surprised when people move to Australia, because the people there are ok with censorship[1]. When I discovered !!Con after being on HN a lot it was like "OMG, there are places where programmers congregate and it's actually fun, joyous, positive and supportive!" haha.

[0] For reference. Actually reading all these comments is not recommended. What a shitfight. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28451066

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28452423

What is !!Con? I’m new here.

HN is topical, you’re sharing an interest in a public forum that is mostly civil. You might notice my name and recall to avoid or pay attention to.

A “friend” is different, because it creates and incentive for the platform to do something about that graph connection. I don’t HN cares at all whether we’ve ever been associated with each other.

There's still the notion of karma points but if it doesn't suck you in then that's ok.

Adding to the other commenters, I find hacker news similar in form to Reddit. Anonymous-ish aggregators without personal relationships. But it can still be toxic like social media. I didn’t quit social media because I was seeing my friends do cool things. I quit it because it was addictive and because it is stressful to read too many comments and opinions about politics. Those toxic aspects are also present in Reddit and HN, even if they aren’t social media sites per se. HN is a bit better because it’s not deliberately addictive like others, but it’s still extremely easy for HN to be one of the feeds you scroll through addictively in your free time.

In my experience, Hacker News lacks cults of personality, even small ones like in a friend circle. When I read the comments, I never read the username or timestamp, or votes, because it all looks like boring meta data. Even the back and forth comments can be read on their merit without noticing who's talking. In total, there's hardly any social pressure.

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