‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

Re:‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the ... by optimuspaul on Thursday April 19, 2018 @01:41PM (#16878089)

I might argue that you are in a minority there. I don't doubt that finding good content is possible on Facebook and Twitter, but to be fair it was outside those conclaves that the quality content was actually residing. Back in the day I definitely discovered new things on those platforms, but it has been some time. Most things I see there now are short attention span low quality memes and crap. Might have more to say about who I follow and friend compared to who you follow and friend than anything else. To that I say, good job, I wish I had the time and patience to curate my social graph better.

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Re:‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the ... by coatmatter on Thursday April 19, 2018 @02:14PM (#16878459)

I used to think that I knew how to use Facebook properly and that it was everyone else who was using it wrong and getting the wrong rubbish things in their feed. Then I realised what was more likely the case was that only a small proportion out of my friends going back over a decade is interesting in any way. And out of that segment, only a small number are on my level reciprocally communicative terms - the rest are way above my "league" (I don't comment on their posts, and they don't comment on mine).

So here was the conundrum: Continue trusting the sorting algorithm by posting and sharing links to a very small obliging audience (as well as continuing to read and comment on links shared by another, but not necessarily the same small group), or change something? I went for the deactivation experiment. So far so good (I think?).

At least Twitter has a larger pool of "talent" to start with, but it still doesn't make "curation" any easier and most users* would probably concede it's a massive waste of time. Admittedly, Facebook Memories has made me realise that past-me is a poorer version of current-me and if the trend (hopefully) continues, future-me will also cringe at current-me.

Seriously, there's so little time to waste: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html

* Of course, there's probably a minority who have gotten employment or work connections through Twitter but I'd say that's a small minority compared to main userbase.

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Re:‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the ... by spike021 on Thursday April 19, 2018 @07:13PM (#16880974)

>At least Twitter has a larger pool of "talent" to start with, but it still doesn't make "curation" any easier and most users* would probably concede it's a massive waste of time.

I know it's not optimal because Twitter neglects it, but I find the lists feature to be useful enough for curation.

I follow quite a few accounts on separate lists that I wouldn't want to follow all the time in my main feed.

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