I think there's a lot of value, both social and emotional, to social media. That doesn't change the fact that social media products as they exist are not only not creating that value, they are outwardly, openly hostile to it. HN being a notable exception and why I spend a lot of time here. The discussions are thoughtful and the topics are (usually) at least somewhat relevant to my career and life. That said, the more mainstream social medias are not relevant to me, they are not stimulating or thoughtful, and they are not valuable.

I have Instagram and TikTok installed because both of my partners send me things from them that made them think of me, and in this way, and only this way, they are relevant and nurturing to my existence. That said, I never engage with them outside of that context, because it's just an endless barrage of vacuous bullshit, as are the rest, with TikTok personally, I think, being the largest firehose of stupid, worthless, intellectually bankrupt, pointless shit ever constructed by mankind. Holy fuck. Like they're all bad, but TikTok... it's just the modern social media apparatus refined and polished to a mirror shine. Takes absolutely no effort to engage with, and if you're sufficiently numb to outside stimulus, you will scroll it for literal hours. If social media is a drug, TikTok is black-tar heroin.

The danger of the point I'm making is that the less-realness that I'm arguing justifies poor behavior online. It does not. Many posters become seduced by the less-realness of online contact that they disconnect their own notions of what decent behavior is.

> Those are real people interacting in a potentially useful way. Being "addicted" to ideas and conversations is not necessarily unhealthy.

Agree! Addiction is compulsive use and the need to continually engage. My HN use is subject to a max of 15m a day with a browser extension that enforces it. I can at least try to curb it from blossoming into something more disruptive.