My point is, I come to HN for similar reasons as why my gf goes to Instagram. We are both affected by what we see. It might distort our worldview. We are both addicted.

You can claim the high ground, and believe that somehow what you do here is different or more "noble" than what other people do on other social media sites, but that's a very common illusion.

I'm not trying to claim any personal high ground. I'm trying to understand, in general, how these different types of sites tend to affect people.

I also use FB for groups related to computing. It's not DL groups for me, but something else in the computosphere that concerns me but the aspect is similar. I think a lot of people on this site might display behavior similar to OP's.

After all, facebook is but a tool, it's up to you how you wield it.

I'm curious if p1esk sees these things as really bad or actually normal or acceptable.

However, social sites provide an opportunity to communicate with smart, knowledgeable, caring, or just like-minded people, who might not be available otherwise. To me, that's valuable enough to outweigh the negative aspects.

Perhaps in time more people will be able to use Facebook (and HN) more judiciously, as you do. That would be a good trend I think.