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Friday, Dec. 8th 2017

Social networks are bad for your brain

Here is why.

Let's start with some illustrations.

twitter

facebook

These are obvious targets.

github (a place where people can host their free software)

Some people in the "free" culture are also trapped in this madness.

framasphere (a "free" alternative to facebook, pretending to respect the privacy of users, as if it was the most important thing)

And no, github is not a member of the "free" culture. It's a private company, intending to get money from their activity, not help people around the world to share their stuff.

The wrong is obvious but just to be clear let's elaborate a little more.

The counters, yes, the counters. How many people "follow" me. How many people "like" me. How many people comment on what I say. How many people duplicate my software.

A big ego-bad-trip is going on. And your brain wants more, always more. It's a drug. Your brain is not protected against drugs. Actually your brain loves drugs.

That's why you should stay away from any website where counters are the most visible information offered to you, the user. Unless you are ready to pay the price, which is to live the life of a drug-addict. Is it what you want? I doubt it.

Those things are new, that's why it's easy to be fooled. Someone selling you heroin in the street won't last long. It's illegal (maybe not everywhere on this planet, to be checked). But selling you, what? egoin? is still legal, and may be legal forever.

Sure, the effect seems less dangerous than heroin. It's just some time wasted and a bit of depressive feelings when something goes wrong because of those social networks.

But still.

Some people killed themselves after some bad time on a social network. (References needed here.)

So, be warned.

Stay away from social networks.

How to share then? How to use the internet?

Dig in your "real" life. Look for what activities lead to pleasure and what activities lead to bad feelings. And try to have the same on the internet. It's just a place, like in "real" life. The contact is different, but it's the same also. So what is good in "real" life is also good on the internet.

Well, to be honest, I don't know. I would say that if you want social interactions on the internet, go for mailing lists. But even there you find some ego-wars, so I don't know. Maybe we can't avoid those things.

Maybe. But it's almost certain that promoting those ego-counters are not a step in the right direction.

A few decades ago, there were BBS (dig the web). People using it were saying it was a place without judgment, as opposed to "real" life. You can be young or old, you can be of a different culture, your face or skin color may look different, you may be male or female, no one cares. That's what the internet can do. It can remove all those differences so we can share using what we have in common.

Well, maybe. Or maybe not. You need something to connect to the internet. You need electricity. You need to speak english. This is already a lot.

Anyway, stay away from social networks, it's the best you can do for your mental health.

Comments (1)

From:
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 21:24:09 +0100

I like it!:)

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Contact: sed@free.fr

Created: Fri, 08 Dec 2017 15:37:55 +0100
Last update: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 21:24:09 +0100
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