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Comment by spike021 | Hacker News Reader

Social media isn't inherently bad, if you can learn how to self-curate.

I've made pen pal friends on international trips who I stay in contact with on Instagram and Twitter because it doesn't make sense to exchange phone numbers. I use lists and muted words/phrases on Twitter to only see tweets from people I care about reading, on topics I mostly am fine with.

I guess for people who still browse Facebook and Twitter like they did 15 years ago, then social media should get buried. But there are some pretty effective ways to curb its toxicity and reap benefit from it these days.

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"Junk food isn't inherently bad, if you can learn to self-discipline." This ignores the fact that it's 100% engineered to be as addictive as possible, just like social media.

You may have found a way to use social media that works for you, but the net effect on society is still negative.

"Social media isn't inherently bad, if people across the world can learn how to self-curate." Is equivalent to "Social media is bad" IMO.

There are always going to be "enough" people who can't self-curate that social media will be harmful.

But you could say the same thing about nearly everything.

Sure there are millions upon millions of books. Someone who enjoys reading won't elect to read books they know are a waste of time or something that will be offensive to them.

Same can be said for consuming newspapers (anyone else just skip the front page and go right to a special section you actually care about, like sports or business instead of politics?), TV, movies, video games? Music?

So are all things bad because some people are incapable of deciding for themselves how to consume said things?

It is self evident that not all products are equally good or equally bad to individuals or society.

You simply cannot compare reading books to taking opium, for instance.

So then you can make the same argument for social media, which further proves my point. It's not one-sided at all.

I’d argue that you cannot. Social media inherently needs to hold your attention for as long as possible, and will do that through controversy, misleading and false information, and an attempt to manipulate. It’s part and parcel of the product, and extremely harmful to society as a whole.

I think you're misunderstanding the argument altogether, honestly.

The argument isn't whether social media is toxic but whether users can do some work themselves to filter out as much of the toxicity as possible and still benefit from using it.

This thread is really just a circle; things in the right moderation aren't so unhealthy.

"The dose makes the poison" is as true for social media as it is for everything else. I agree that self-curation (and restricting your time) are critical; the problem is that social media companies are incentivized to de-curate and addict you to their product.

Reddit and HN are also social media…

I don't know about that. Is any web site that has user comments social media now? That seems an overly broad definition.

HN isn't particularly social as far as I can see. I don't have a network of friends. It doesn't facilitate personal connections or groups.

As a quick check, here's the first definition from a google search of social media:

"websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking."

I was surprised by the "or".

https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asocial+media&oq=def...

Your definition of social networking uses itself. That’s not a great definition…

Were 90s newsgroups and BBS social media?

Yes

No, they were before social media was a thing. Social media has an implicit social network behind it and profiles where you can post information, not necessarily in a forum.

HN has none of these features. Neither do BBS message boards.

Wouldn’t email suffice for international pen pals?

Given that we are friends through shared hobbies that involve photos of things in the hobby, that wouldn't work nearly as well.

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