Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/why-facebook-is-the-junk-food-of-socializing <comment><USER2> These articles ignore people's real alternatives. I'm in my 30s and have a small child. While I love to fly into Chicago or New York for a night of drinking with my still-single friends, that's not really something I get to do more than once every couple of months. Seeing my wife's extended family (3,000 miles away in the west coast) is a once every year thing, and seeing my extended family (7,000 miles away in Asia) is maybe a once a decade thing. But Facebook lets me see the woodworking project my Chicago friend is working on, the delicious things my father in law is making for the holidays, and at least know what my cousins' kids look like these days. Far from being junk food, Facebook lets me maintain the most basic and important human relationships.

What did people in my situation do before Facebook? My parents, like most baby boomers I suspect, weren't going out in the evenings to see friends in person. They'd sit down in front of the TV after work. Their social lives were narrow, focused heavily on home life and the kids. That's what Facebook is replacing, and it's a huge improvement.

<comment><USER3> Having quit Facebook some 4+ years ago, I think about these things too and have come to the conclusion that:

a) I don't need to know about the project my distant friend is working on, or the food anyone is making or eating* .

b) A solution that existed before Facebook were X-Mas cards. So, I think that's what I'll be doing when I no longer see my parents and close friends daily.

* On a side note, my mom calls my grandma for an hour or so weekly and they frequently talk about what they cooked and exchange recipes, but that's more personal than a Facebook/Instagram post.

<comment><USER4> This isn't helpful. Fine, you don't care about your distant friends/relatives daily activities, but that's no help to _those of us who do_. I live in California and some people who are personally important to me live in florida. I talk to them at least once a day but on an ad-hoc basis, so email isn't that suitable.

Edit: corrected geographic confusion

Really, what is the point of a post like yours other than to negate the post that came before it by articulating why you don't care about the issue raised?

<comment><USER5> I think the point of his/her post is to show that from his/her perspective, the "connection" you get to friends and family via facebook isn't valuable. Although it may be to some, it isn't to everyone.

I have to agree, as someone that quit many years ago and hasn't looked back since. I still communicate with my long distance relatives, just not publicly. I use a combination of Google Hangouts, email, and just plain old phone calls to keep up to date with their lives. I share photos daily, via google photos, directly to those that I want to see them. And my family, who happen to use Facebook, know to send me photos using other methods.

This way, I only get information/photos that is meant for me to see. Not just every day stuff that's going on in everyone's life. To me, that's not important to my relationships, and is really a waste of my time that I can be using with my family in my house. The interactions I do share, though, is extremely important to me.

<comment><USER2> > I use a combination of Google Hangouts, email, and just plain old phone > calls to keep up to date with their lives. I share photos daily, via google > photos, directly to those that I want to see them. And my family, who happen > to use Facebook, know to send me photos using other methods.

This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively.

<comment> 2-4-Flinching > This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things > Facebook handles natively.

If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you. Inconvenience is when they don't care enough to keep in contact with you. While in a perfect world everyone would accept your impose line of communication, in your case Facebook, everyones preference is different.

<comment><USER6> I'd add that the relationships where you're willing to go the extra distance are the only ones that matter. Quality not quantity.

<comment><USER7> so... you could also be the one to go the extra mile and use facebook...

don't misunderstand i log in about once a month but because i have other platform (and because i'm terrible at keeping in touch), but other than political or idelogical reasons why not use it for your family convenience?

<comment><USER8> I think you've kind of missed the point the posters above are making. Facebook is _impersonal_. That's why it's convenient - it takes no effort whatsoever to share everything with everyone. As a result, the value of shared information to people who care about quality relationships is much lower than if two people deliberately communicate with only each other about something.

Put another way, if your family/friends can't be bothered to actually communicate with you one-on-one about things in their lives because it's less convenient than posting to everyone, then those relationships must not be very valuable. To those of us who care about maintaining quality relationships, convenience is a non-factor. I would much rather have lunch with a friend a few times a year than read their stream-of-life facebook posts on any kind of regular basis, even though the former is several orders of magnitude less convenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> surrey-fringe Ever since deleting facebook I've felt so much ___. It's only once I quit the site I was able to take a long hard look at my perception of ____ and realized that everyone else does ____ while I should do _____. I realized that I'm actually ____, not ____. I started handling my _____ relationships in a healthier, more ____ manner.

<comment><USER9> I deleted my Facebook in 2010 and it stayed deleted until the end of 2016. Now I get invited to more events, my friends no longer feel like distant strangers when I see them for the first time in months and I know how all my family is doing. It really sucks seeing how much more of a life some people have through facebook but research is a lifestyle and I knew what I signed up for. Your miles may vary though as I have the discipline to not look at it every hour(not because I'm intrinsically any better than you but because I got used to running mental marathons for 6 years).

<comment><USER10> As someone toying with the idea of "getting back into" social media, how did you go about making your profile "normal"? I'm not the type to take tons of selfies, so do I just start out with a shitty profile picture? I feel like it'll look like a fake account, or me like a weird dude, compared to my friends who all have amazing profiles.

^^^ And this is the type of mentality that makes me not want to use social media :tm:.

<comment><USER11> I'm the complete opposite. I want to get back into facebook because I want other people to see all the cool stuff I'm doing and feed my ego, but I know that doing it would be inconsistent with my desire for a more free society, and I hate most people anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I confess, most of what I consume via the internet is of little use to me. Sure, some of it might be interesting; some of it my present itself as relevant; but most of it (the truth is) life would go on without it.

Don't take this the wrong way, but push come to shove, HN falls into this low truly impactful life nutrition as well. This is not a critique. It's just that despite my semi-best attempts the signal to noice ratio remains suboptimal.

<comment><USER13> Don't be so apologetic, HN shouldn't care if you think it's trash.

<comment><USER12> Please don't put words in my mouth. It said nothing of the sort.

The message is this: What so often (read: too often) masquerades as meaningful and of substance - in the grand scheme of things - really isn't. It creates a self-serving blind-spot. And thus reactions such as yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So as a girl working in tech, all I remember about facebook back when I had one was everytime a new girl started working at our company, all the guys flocked to one guys computer and they stalked the crap out of her one Facebook, and by the time she walked through the door they knew who she was dating, had already decided he wasn't good enough for her and were already in competition to date her and trying to woo her by pretending to have all the same interest and the poor girl is like first day on the job and she thinks shes going to have a normal life.

I've seen this happen at three tech companies multiple times at each so I'm not willing to entertain the group of guys who I KNOW are going to comment on this and say "well not every guy is like that". True, but it only takes a few at every company to make a girl feel like a targeted object more than an employee.

Once the facebook search came out (way after I got rid of it) I was a manager managing about 25 guys in my tech firm and they used to use the facebook search to search by age, relationship status of all the females in the company constantly on the prowl.

Was so gross and terrifying and made me happy I didnt have one.

Another time about three years after college a guy I had never seen or met before came up to me at a restaurant and started blabbing on about my life, asking me if I was still dating that deuschbag from college and openly admitted who knew all of this from my facebook back in college and asked me what I was up to now. I mean wow, couldn't possible be more happy that people DON't know what I'm up to.

Not to mention old guys are creepy and use it to stare at all the bikini pics of their friends daughters.

I wish I could be ignorant and dumb enough to not know all this but unfortunately I work with a bunch of creepy men twice my age in tech for years now and they assume I don't notice these things.

If you are a girl in tech, youre better off not having a facebook, you honestly cannot even begin to fathom how many men are keeping tabs on you.

and here come the downvotes....

<comment><USER15> > and here come the downvotes....

I'm not a mod but I'll still say that this is frowned upon. Wrt the downvote itself, I promptly rewarded you with mine for your representing of stalking as a male only phenomenon. This blanket statements blaming men for everything really grosses me out and does not help at all with the feminist cause. Saying "hey you're all nasty pigs" is not persuasive at all, especially when I at the receiving end of the attack am not at all guilty of what you blame every single person with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting article, and I'm usually a fan of Nautilus pieces, but isn't this a bit obvious? Almost like 2017 is getting to be the year it's fashionable to poo poo social media (and Facebook in particular). Haven't used the site since about 2010 'cause the rank smell of the Skinner box made my nose curl from afar.

I'm baffled that psych studies have to be referenced for people to see the obvious; and I'm certainly not on a higher plane of self-aware existence, either.

<comment><USER17> It's not obvious.

The fact that sugar and refined carbs (pasta/rice/bread) is bad for you is not even obvious to most people.

<comment><USER18> Life is bad for you.

Did you know oxygen was once a terrible, toxic substance that was "bad for you"? [0]

It still is, to some degree. But cheap sources of energy always win in the end.

My point is that we (as humans) suck at processing some things and appreciating the true _timescale_ of optimization. Our bodies fight old cargo cult wars, an exercise in wanton complexity. Hardly an argument against change.

I suspect the same applies to the "badness" of junk food and social media, except it has accumulated less baggage and hence can steer faster.

_[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event) _

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Suggestion: go to church.

It's a built in community of people who are likely there because of ritual and tradition (am Catholic) and do not care about talking about startups or entrepreneurship (a breathtaking relief sometimes).

Church and religion has gotten a lot well-justified complaints over the years, but by liberal and moderately-conservative people abandoning it in droves, it only made it more conservative and dogmatic sadly.

Also if you think "hey I can't go to church they don't believe in XYZ" just know that something like 40%+ of priests believe that gay marriage is possibly within the church's right to support (again citing Catholic stuff here), so there is a lot more support than you think but political change is hard and it's harder if you stay home.

Also I will say that it's almost "cool" to go to church now. It's been, again for good reasons such as pointless cultural battles in the 90's that American churches waged, cool to not do religious stuff but now it's so passé. Whenever I see a person railing against religion on Reddit I can't help but think they are exactly the person we could have used in the 1920s at the Snopes Trial, but otherwise their viewpoint is entirely unhelpful and conformist today.

<comment><USER20> > Also if you think "hey I can't go to church they don't believe in XYZ"

What if that "XYZ" is the god that the church believes in? Or no god at all? I really wish there was an alternative to "go to church", because I do agree with you on the community aspect. To me it's just a shame that probably the most efficient way of connecting with people is still via religious beliefs.

<comment><USER19> There is an old joke that Wikipedia doesn't work in theory but it does in reality. In the same way, Church's don't make a lot of sense but they've worked for thousands of years. I kind of think of it as a thing like the family, which also doesn't make sense in some regards, but it's proven its "value". I hate using that argument because you could argue for a lot of stupid things that way, but it's one way of looking at the situation.

Also I noticed you used the word "efficient". What if meeting people is supposed to be inefficient, what if "efficiency" in meeting people is the worst possible thing to "optimize" for. Sometimes when meeting people is slow, when you're forced to get along because "oh man this guy goes to the same church and could tell on me if I'm rude and whatever he's the most interesting person I've met so far" you force yourself to discover better understandings and deeper connections with people. Maybe that in the end is what religion is about.

EDIT: Also something beautiful about being connected to the humans of thousands of years ago and doing similar rituals as them. The connection to human ancestry, sometimes more so than god, is another beautiful thing about religion. Even among the Chinese, which is not a very theistic society, this is noted in their traditions of ancestor shrines and worship

<comment><USER21> I feel like you didn't answer the main question. What if I recognize the potential value in all of the things you mention, but don't believe in God and don't want to lie to people about it?

<comment><USER22> You don't have to lie to people. You can go to church and not believe. I know several people that do that.

So, I'm assuming that you also have some qualms about how Facebook or Google does business?

Does that mean you refuse to use Facebook or Google?

By using commercial services, you are actually supporting them financially. You can go to most any church without donating anything at all.

<comment><USER21> It's not really a question of the church's "business". It's that I do not believe in God, and lying to people about something that central to their identity seems like a bad thing to do. I'm skeptical that I'd be accepted in the _vast_ majority of churches as an open nonbeliever without continual attempts to "convert" me [1], particularly in the area where I live. I've heard of churchgoers and even priests/pastors who are atheists, but very few ones who are actually open about it to their congregation.

[1] Incidentally, it's not that I'm not open to changing my beliefs, it's that (in my experience) believers are _aggressively awful_ at converting nonbelievers. In many cases they don't even accept that it's possible to be a nonbeliever, immediately falling into "angry at God" tropes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Facebook shouldn't be used to replace social interactions, it should be used to augment them.

It is easy to make facebook bad, and that's a problem, but its a problem that all social sites have. If you go to a message board and that message board has frequent posters who pride themselves in stirring the pot to increase activity, it might be good short term, but long term its a poor habit for those posters and its a miserable experience for other users.

If you use facebook as an outlet for negativity you'll find that misery loves company. If you use facebook to interact with people in comments, but don't interact in real life it will turn hollow at some point.

I feel like there are two problems. First is that people prefer to vilify facebook than to offer solutions to whatever problem they are facing. Second is that there is no roadmap to steering one's own facebook experience into a positive one once it has gone south.

For instance... if in 2016 you were active in politics because of the election, it's likely that you still have a bunch of political discussion and news within your news feed and ads. And all of that is increasingly negative and polarizing as those businesses and interests try desperately to maintain your mindshare. If you want to get rid of it, there is no preference. You have to train it with your newfound lack of interest. You have to fix your own behavior, facebook doesn't have a way of fixing it for you.

The same kind of thing applies to real social interactions. If you isolated yourself into online-only interaction or online-centric interaction, you have to change. But how? Well, it's not that hard if you put thought into it, but few people actually put any thought into it.

I don't know what facebok or any platform can do to resolve this problem. Maybe there's a secondary niche market for online social coaching or profile fixing.

</comment><comment><USER24> I use the [http://www.fbpurity.com/](http://www.fbpurity.com/) extension to micro-manage what shows up on my newsfeed.

"Junk food" is probably putting it nicely, many skip straight to comparing to one of various illicit drugs.

<comment><USER25> I think cigarettes are a great comparison. I heard it a few years back.

When popular, a huge amount of the population used cigarettes despite growing research showing that it had a slight but consistent harmful effect. A hooked individual is unlikely to stop using even when given this evidence, as the product is addictive and gets stronger with network effects. Younger generations understood the harm better and had to avoid regular temptation to engage.

Comparisons to heroin are overblown. Nobody is losing their identity, money or life due to facebook. It's just a little bad and very addictive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Google Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nautil....](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nautil.us/blog/why- facebook-is-the-junk-food-of-socializing)

</comment><comment><USER27> Would you use an alternative to facebook if...?

* It was free of advertisements

* Posts were fully encrypted so even facebook couldn't see read them

      Meaning:

        * There's no public posting

        * They can't data mine

        * They can't sell your data

* You could create different user groups to post to

* Everyone in a group had their own server side and/or local copy of all posts to that group

* You could unfriend or ignore users

* You could create filters by users or groups and keep them off your main "timeline" (also complex filters based on attributes like title, content, photos)

* You could delete your copy of posts but not other people's copy

* You could easily download all the data including posts and pictures any time you want

* You could easily set up internal or private "facebooks" on your own servers

* If you forget your password, there's no recovering anything.

* You don't need a separate app for private messaging

<comment><USER28> I don't want user groups where people can discuss.

I'm extrovert and I'm drawn to comment sections of everything. As a result I get stuck on facebook comment sections. And this kills the time I would use for face to face socializing.

Here I am, writing to comment section...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have deactivated FB since last Jan. Never felt any urge to return. But Reddit seems to be hard to quit as the majority of the time it delivers the garbage disguised as information. As a person who was on FB only for news feeds, Reddit seems to be the perfect shelter for me.

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone who choses to use FB is just not thinking. I could get joining Instagram, Snapchat, etc b/c of friends. But even if you don't care about privacy, don;t care about algorithms censoring human expression, and don't care about unauthorized physiological experiments to influence your emotions, why would you choose a platform with tons of ads, a terrible UI that fills up timelines with every time someone uploads a new profile, is slow as hell, and is a haphazard mess of sloppily assembled groups with all-caps titles. It's not attractive. It's not addictive. It's both morally and graphically disgusting at every level.

I'm beginning to think the latter is intentional, just like scam email with copious misspellings.

<comment><USER31> > Anyone who choses to use FB is just not thinking.

One of the answers to your implied question is events. I belong to one of many, many subcultures who organize almost exclusively through facebook. This one happens to be related to dancing.

There are around 5 weekly events held regularly, along with a number regular of monthly-ish classes and around one special event per month held locally. Facebook is just way better than the alternative (meetup), and better than the old way (email lists).

<comment><USER32> How it's better than email list? Getting an email event invitation once in a while looks way better than checking Facebook's spammy notifications every day to see if something is coming up.

<comment><USER31> > How it's better than email list?

1\. Organizers can update events instead of sending a new message

2\. Organizers get to see a list of people who claim they're going

3\. The message thread and images associated with events are much easier to deal with instead of throwing everything into one big slush pile that is an email list.

4\. It makes much more sense to create events way ahead of time (think a year out).

5\. It's easier for participants to see which events their friends are going to.

Ultimately, email just isn't very good for a number of use cases and events is one of them. These are also some of the same reasons why people started using wikis or sharepoint instead of email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I also dont get all that hate either. Just use it as a tool for what its good for. For me that is mainly to stay in the know about (1) events hosted by friends, (2) activities in common interest groups, (3) the life of friends and family overseas.

\- Dont use your real name, gender, nationality, etc. Just create a random identity.

\- Dont post pictures, ask friends to not post pics of you. Remove all tags. NEVER EVER POST PICS OF YOUR KIDS.

\- tailor your news feed: Aggressivly remove/unfollow people/groups that add only trivial noise and no interesting content. In doing so, I actually started to enjoy my thinned out feed.

\- comb through your friend list once a year (I always do after New Years) and clean house. Some people collect friends like trophys and are proud of their 1254 contacts. Instead, do the opposite: Try to keep it as small as possible. Ask yourself, do I really need and care for this contact? Remove people that do not add value to your life.

\- Dont use the messanger app. Turn off all notifications.

EDIT: Why jump through all these hoops? FB gives me a unique value. The trick is to fold all the virtual social network back into real life. This is especially useful when you are in multiple disjunct groups. Most of my social activities are organized through FB:

\- arrange the next casual soccer kick

\- see when is the next social dance and who is going

\- friend organizes a christmas dinner party

\- other friend goes to a science slam, I might join

\- who wants to go bouldering this weekend?

\- see this neat trick in the "Upcycling" group how to reuse an old ...

\- oh, this old cafe in my borough is getting kicked out. Friends are organizing a solidarity march.

Since almost everybody is on it, organizing/getting this info would be so much harder without FB.

I also like to keep people in my feed that have a contrairian view point to mine. Keeps you sharp and sometimes you learn that your viewpoint might not have the best argument...

<comment> git-pull > Ask yourself, do I really need and care for this contact? Remove people that > do not add value to your life.

I do a different test. It's called "Do you care about me?"

If I got in a car crash over the weekend, would you even know? If you found out, would you visit me in the hospital?

If the answer is yes: but they're family, I already have their contact info. For non-family, that group fluctuates, and more often than not, it's zero. I'm fine with the number staying there. Benefits include: Less drama, breakups, regrets, and more time to get work done.

If the answer is no, which it mostly is: I feel I save time and am more self- honest not connecting with them.

But as I get closer to 30 I feel less interest in connecting with others. The only exception is when I travel abroad and the surroundings are more intriguing.

On the other hand: Social media is a great marketing tool. I'm fine if people use Facebook however they choose. And I also agree with pruning boring content in favor of subscribing / liking manually.

<comment><USER34> Organizing your life to minimize "drama, breakups, [and] regrets" and maximize "time to get work done" is a good way to end up unhappy and lonely.

Work is important, but your work can't love you back.

<comment><USER35> > Work is important, but your work can't love you back.

Work is where we spend the majority of our time and I suspect that >50% of adult friendship originates at work. It is important to think of work as a social activity and put some effort. Even if you are very much a "work to live" person, it is worth knowing your co-workers well enough to decide if you want to pursue them as friends.

<comment><USER36> I am awake for approximately 112 hours a week, only 40 is spent at work. That's only 36% of my time spent at work, that's not even including vacations. Very far from the majority of my time.

If you consider time spent at work as a "social activity" I would suggest spending more time working while at work.

Most people do not meet their _good, actual, lasting_ friends at work, usually work friendships are pretty superficial. Most fade once you aren't required to see each other every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Thank you for sharing - just deleted the app off my phone. I hope one day, I can go without Facebook for a long period of time.

</comment><comment><USER38> Facebook has become something I absolutely can't stand. I have an account, but I very rarely even log in anymore. With ads, 'features stories', etc., the signal-to-noise ratio is just too low. Just perusing the news feed has become a chore, not to mention the privacy concerns.

I'd be willing to pay a small subscription fee for a social network that respects my privacy, doesn't track everything I do, and doesn't constantly bombard me with crap. Problem is, I'm in the minority. People everywhere claim to care about privacy but they actually don't :)

</comment><comment><USER39> I just use Facebook as a public directory, to find people and exchange email ID's/numbers so that I can message them on, say, WhatsApp.

I find it better than connecting with people though Facebook. Facebook chooses what I get to see and not see, and I really don't care about the "news" or the memes from pages my friends and family like.

</comment><comment><USER40> As with a lot of other issues these days, it feels like that people forget there is usually a middle ground between the extremes. FB like any other tool can be a good or bad thing.

I spent a bit of time thinking about what I want to get out of Facebook.

\- Social pulse - What are people talking about these days?

\- Interesting/new content/new perspective/taking advantage of the echo chamber etc

\- Keeping track of the very few physically-distant people that I care about

\- Share some content that I think people would benefit from and wouldn't come across otherwise

\- Buying/selling rarely in the marketplace

\- Quick diary where I can store stuff that I found interesting

I took a few steps to get what I wanted out of the platform.

\- Follow only the people that post content I might be interested in. It includes people that somewhat think like me and some that have very different opinions.

\- Follow some of the content aggregation sites

\- I only post content that is fit for public consumption except when I rarely share a photo of my kids/family

\- Moved the FB app from the first screen to the last

How it has helped me.

\- Cut down my usage by about 90%

\- I am less concerned about privacy issues when it comes to FB as there isn't much on there that I wouldn't say out loud in public

\- I kinda get a broad spectrum of how people are feeling about an issue

\- More quality content than I used to get before. One of my favourite features on FB is "Save post". When I have a few minutes, I find stuff from my saved list or Pocket to read/watch.

\- I see more photos of the people that I actually like rather than memes and quotes

I am pretty okay with how social media is involved in my life now.

</comment><comment><USER41> There are different types of social interaction on Facebook between different generations, it seems. There are those who use it to keep up with other people and what they're doing, and then there's my generation (the 90s), where everyone tags each other in memes, and it isn't a very personal website.

Whereas there are points in this article that make sense, I don't really understand why they're singling out Facebook as toxic. For many, Facebook is just another feed and not necessarily for social media posts.

</comment><comment><USER42> These anti Facebook and anti social media articles are so ubiquitous on hn now, that is starting to feel like a campaign. All too sudden, there is too many of them.

<comment><USER43> Anti-facebook articles have been common on HN for years, and it's particularly ubiquitous right now because of all the powerful negative influence it's having in politics.

<comment><USER44> > negative influence it's having in politics

Read, negative toward my side of the politics.

<comment><USER45> Media sources designed to target confirmation biases, echo chambers, and viral fake news are a negative influence in all politics.

Why do you think they mean only negative towards their side?

<comment><USER44> > Media sources designed to target confirmation biases, echo chambers, and > viral fake news

So you mean basically every political campaigns? Not sure how in touch you are with local politics, but the local political TV ads I see every night have been like this for years

<comment><USER45> You're right, I mean (many) of those too. People have been discussing negative and positive effects (on all sides of the political spectrum) of television and TV ads for a long time.

Now we're discussing Facebook, because it just recently gained so much of this power, and it seems to be uniquely good at causing these negative symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Several times a day, I spend 5-15 minutes writing a facebook post, and 9/10 times I don't post them. They all seem like too "look at me", or I think the person won't think it's funny or clever. It's a giant waste of time, but I feel better than if I post them(or less bad). Help?

<comment><USER47> I used to do the same thing over and over, wasting extraordinary amount of time trying to come up with something memetic and charming that would somehow make other people think better of me. I have never been able to pin down why, how or in what way had I wanted them to "think better of me", it was like I had been made to believe in some mandatory social currency that everyone else had and I lacked which could only be gained on Facebook. Also, I was a socially-awkward 17 year old at that time so add in the usual teenage insecurities and vulnerability too.

The only solution I came up with was to quit cold turkey. Fortunately, I also moved to a different city at the same time; so, it was easy psychologically to say good bye to all those _connections_. It's been more than 5 years and I haven't used Facebook or Twitter since.

It might not be easy for you to do depending on your circumstances and honestly, some times it does lead to trouble when people use Facebook to plan or announce things that I get left out of. I did manage to find a few like minded friends though who don't use it either, so usually it's not that bad.

If you are really serious about this, quitting is the only solution I know of that works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> One can only imagine the damage that is yet to be done by applying machine learning to junk food design ...

</comment><comment><USER49> Its a bad habit that I am still trying to quit: [https://medium.com/@lifeinafolder/facebook-is-the- cigarette-...](https://medium.com/@lifeinafolder/facebook-is-the-cigarette-of- my-generation-51ed60e4225d)

</comment><comment><USER50> Why do people pay articles like this any mind? It's just yet another moral panic over a technology that wound up not doing what the elite wanted. You could replace the subject with television or video games and the article wouldn't change all that much.

</comment><comment><USER51> I have this year deleted FB, but not my account. This after noticing trends of tailoring the exact news that stimulates you the most from what it knows about you. I'm thinking most of this junk quite useless to me and is eating up a lot of valuable time.

</comment><comment><USER52> Don't delete FB, juat understand what FB is designed for (releasing dopamine) and learn to deal with software which triggers dopamine release (best is to avoid them most of the day) and use its best parts: Messenger, birthday reminders and events.

</comment><comment><USER53> Fast food serves a lot of purposes though. It's not healthy, but it feeds people, it's cheap and it lets you spend your time on something else.

Facebook really has few reasons to be around anymore outside the fact that it has a lot of users.

<comment><USER54> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert)

<comment><USER55> One thing conspicuously missing from that article is _why_ there are food deserts to begin with. People love to decry food deserts but nothing will actually be done to solve them on a large scale without addressing the causes as to why they arise.

In my town the cause of the food deserts was the theft rates. There used to be groceries in the poor parts of town... It simply wasn't economical to keep them open because they couldn't make money doing so. I'm not blaming poor people for stealing per se (it's at least partly a symptom of poverty) but people make food deserts out to be some grand conspiracy on behalf of food companies when it's really caused by more emergent phenomena that are very hard to fix

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> > But it's the visual equivalent of empty calories—delicious but not > nutritious.

modern life #someta

</comment><comment><USER57> Might I suggest a new alternative to Facebook, called "Path"? Path is a simple and beautiful space to capture and share everyday moments of your life with 5̶0̶ 1̶5̶0̶ any people who matter most to y̶o̶u̶ investors.

</comment><comment><USER58> What are people even doing on facebook?

My friends at best post holiday photos or food... The rest is just spam, games, or those stupid quizzes things.

For more personal contact we have telegram and whatsapp groups.

</comment><comment><USER59> Note that the only explicit mention of Facebook is in the title.

</comment><comment><USER60> To like someone, stop reading their feeds.

</comment><comment><USER61> Hmm, half of the links on nautil.us are currently broken.

<comment><USER62> Think the site is down

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> The title is a perfect metaphor.

</comment><comment><USER64> what platforms fulfill the need for intellectual socializing? medium.com?

<comment><USER65> Give Metafilter a shot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Says the article with a "Facebook" share button front-and-center at the top of the page.

</comment><comment><USER67> But I like junk food.

</comment><comment><USER68> Nah the problem with Facebook is not that it makes it easy to socialize, it's that people aren't using it for that. Instead, all my friends keep sharing countless shit they find cool and posting their opinions on current events like anyone asked. Instead of posting about their actual lives. And then there's the sponsored shit you see on the feed no matter what.

</comment><comment><USER69> The past 3 months, there hasn't been a single day on HN without a post attacking FB specifically or social media in general by news organizations or other "journalists/writers". Not only that, we get the same generic "I deleted facebook and I feel great" comments.

Certainly this isn't the work of the russian trolls. Then who or what is behind the constant "I hate social media" spam.

<comment><USER70> What if a lot of us actually hate social media.

<comment><USER69> Then why are you on hacker news - a social media site?

I've never had a facebook account. Not a fan of facebook or zuck. But doesn't mean I going to spam social media with "I hate social media" articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> I agree that FB can be a big time sink. Every time I consider removing FB from my phone, I realize how much I learn about _marketing on FB_ from the ads I see and the groups to which I belong.

If your job involves online marketing, being on Facebook is almost like research for one's job. And without maintaining a connection to this world, it's easy to lose touch with what other marketers are doing and rely on blog articles -- which are, oftentimes, out of date and common knowledge by the time one comes across them organically.

</comment><comment><USER72> In my experience, i tried to join facebook a couple of months ago and: a) It asked me for a lot of private information. I submit all of them. b) Then i entered. Facebook suggested me, a list of contacts. All of them are ugly people. c) And finally, facebook asked me for a real photo. I used a real photo the first time but i think facebook is a bit faulty.. d) The interface is a real mess.

Conclusion: i am seasoned with linkedin, where everybody is a "winner", may be not but they try to do that. In facebook its the opposite, everybody show the worst.

<comment><USER73> I'm confused about b)

Were you expecting Facebook to only suggest attractive people, if so why?

<comment><USER30> It's a reasonable assumption, given that their objective is to hook users for as long as possible.</comment></comment></comment>


Guardian may face terror charges over stolen secrets (see comments) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517561/Alan-Rusbridger-says-love-Britain-defends-Snowden-leaks.html#comments

<comment><AUTHOR> Although the Daily Mail is known to be a hotbed of right winger view, I found that the comments against this article to be quite fascinating.

This is the side of the UK that deeply believes that Snowden is a traitor, and that the Guardian (and the BBC) have a dangerous communist agenda.

I have previously discussed the anti-Snowden sentiment within the UK here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6610513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6610513)

<comment><USER2> Incidentally all those comments seeking shut down of the 'left wing rag' are anonymous. Ah, the irony.

</comment></comment><comment> Kilo-byte journalists reporting widespread abuse of anti-terror laws are being charged for terrorist offences. /irony</comment>


The Reality of Developer Burnout - <AUTHOR> https://www.kennethreitz.org/essays/the-reality-of-developer-burnout <comment><USER2> > Not only that, but I found myself censoring my own private thought > processes, in the silent comfort of my own home, because of the public > opinion of people I follow on Twitter.

I deleted my Twitter account because of this. I realized it was an empty echo chamber of inaction. If anything you say can be interpreted in a way that the hivemind can destroy you over, they will do it, even with incomplete information and little to no proof.

I've determined that the key for me is to limit the inputs. My inputs now are a few cultivated social sites (this one, one or two tech sites), books, and podcasts.

In my opinion, feeding my mind properly has lessened my feelings of burnout. If you have the choice to feed your brain digital junk food, don't be too alarmed when it starts taking of too much space, like fat.

<comment><USER3> It takes 10x the amount of energy to refute bs than to create it

<comment><USER4> It took me the same (1x) amount of energy to refute your comment as it did for you to create it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER5> Your comment however contains very little in the way of actual refutation, as you missed the point and did not engage it in the least.

It is easy (1x) to create meaningless content, it is harder however to address it and to explain properly why the point was missed.

Building a sound argument, clearly and in a straightforward manner is hard. Understanding the non-sequitur of your interlocutor is hard. Extirping the salient part of the inconsistency will force you to shave off the useless fluff around it.

Adding that fluff is easier, as it only takes intellectual laziness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > It happens to everyone that writes code all day long

More like "It happens to everyone."

I know this is a developer-focused site, but this isn't a problem unique to people in software.

An old joke, "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar."

<comment><USER7> It's different in software, people can't do their jobs when this happens. Otherwise it shouldn't be called a burnout.

<comment><USER6> You can say this about any field. A ditch digger loses "intrinsic motivation" and chooses to not dig a ditch. The ditch digger can't do their job because of burnout.

But somehow it is different in software development?

<comment><USER8> You can whip a tired ditch-digger until they dig more.

You can't whip a tired programmer until they write working code. You'll only get broken code.

A good analogy might be to the division between rank-and-file soldiers in the military, and military officers. You don't need to think to shoot a gun. You _do_ need to think to decide where to send people to shoot their guns.

<comment> proto-n I think it's all about creativity. When you burn out, your creativity dries up. Most of programming (and generally thinking) is done by your subconscious, and when it says 'I've had enough of this, I'm not helping any more', you are SOL, no amount of willpower will help with that. That's why digging ditches is different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I speculate that burnout is more psychological than physical. Ultimately, I think it stems from the shame arising out of the realization that giving 110% instead of 70% at your job accomplishes little but making things harder for yourself. A software engineer doesn't get more money giving 110%, and if they work to finish something quicker they're just rewarded with more work.

Often engineers (being human) will want to do a good job, give 110% on an important project, and when its over and their pay and work hours are exactly the same, they get angry with themselves for giving 110% instead of the bare minimum. They have this "I just wasted a month of my life because I'm a fool" feeling that completely zaps their motivation to do anything.

<comment><USER10> It is starts psychologically, but psychological problems can then turn into physical illnesses. A burnout can be stressful and slowly consume you life away with stress and anxiety until you hit rock bottom.

<comment><USER11> A million times this. Anything from ulcers, headaches, to heart attacks and even cancer can manifest if you are over-stressed and psychologically malnourished.

Getting enough or too little sleep is also huge so if you're reading this, make sure you get your (average of) 8 hours tonight. Think of it as a small way to unsure you live long enough to enjoy retirement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The worst part for me was going from being a "rockstar developer" on the team to having to explain why I suddenly can't meet the overly ambitious deadlines handed down from above due to anxiety, depression, panic attacks and extreme insomnia.

<comment><USER13> Wait till you hit 35 and you have an actual life and you can absolutely still jump through flaming hoops but you just don't care as much. It's one thing to 'step back a little' \- it's another thing to have people who've been coding for for only 18 months, but willing to work 14-hour days and lick the testes of the bosses move into 'status' position, because in the most short-sighted version of a project, they can actually developed something resembling code a little bit faster.

Sorry for the crude metaphor. :)

One option is to find an enclave that is not a fast-paced startup.

Do you know how many big dumb companies out there are starving for actual talent? A lot! If you don't mind working with mediocre people and moving slowly, you can find a job in 'not hot' industries where the pace is not so fast. You might feel a little numb though :)

<comment><USER14> >You might feel a little numb though :)

Isn't that exactly what hobbies and fun side projects are for though?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been burned out twice. The first and deeper of the two was right after I graduated years ago. It made the whole process of going straight into the workforce bittersweet, as I was mentally not ready to muster the energy to endure the rigors of professional development on-boarding for a new grad. I managed, but no where near at a potential I could of been. A brutal semester of final projects and endless nights had left me somewhat poisoned, so to speak. It caused the recuperation of my mental and physical state to be much longer (over a year) than if I took a 2-3 week vacation like I should have done, I imagine. I've always taken this as a likely scenario for a new grad when being brought on within a company.

The second, like the author, was when I was gung-ho into a new technology and went at personal projects endlessly for a solid 12 months before I came up for air and took a breather, with similar but more superficial effects than the first burnout.

I regret these mistakes, and I've learned the hard way to do work in moderation. However, I am not an entrepreneur for these very reasons, and I simply don't want that lifestyle for the long-term. I'm hoping my health will thank me 30 years from now.

<comment><USER16> You know the one about entering the workforce hits home for me, I feel like this is about to happen to me, but I feel sort of powerless to stop it.

<comment><USER17> It's much easier to back away and recharge when you're close to the edge than after you've already fallen off. So you should try and stop falling off if you can. Take a real break after you graduate, if you can, it'll help. Otherwise consider if you can last a few months at a new gig, that ought to supply you with enough savings to take the same amount of time off if not more and then look for a new gig.

I was excited to start working properly after school, regardless of what I worked on, it would be something that mattered enough that I'd be paid for it instead of paying myself. I started interviewing mostly after graduation and while it was stressful (must find a job soon to pay bills, and start paying student loans) I landed one after not too long. I was fortunate that my start date wasn't until a month after acceptance so I was able to chill for that whole month and really unwind after the stress of years of school. Looking back I was telling people during interviews that I was basically available to start "immediately" (because I wanted more money immediately) but I really should have pushed for at least a few weeks lead time before starting in all cases instead of lucking into it.

I recently came back from a 2 week vacation of just chilling, it's lifted a lot of work stress that has been accumulating. But some times I've entertained myself with calculations about how long I could go financially if I quit tomorrow. I even did that at the start more for fun than stress relief, since suddenly every two weeks you're getting a paycheck that covers 3-6 months of expenses if you keep your college lifestyle. It doesn't take long to save up for a year of goofing off and then a couple months of runway to find a job after that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you are developing software as a life, you don't have one; if on the other hand you are developing software for fun, you are having it; if you are just developing software for money; leave it at work. It's hard to be buried 100% in software and realize the rest of life is more important.

<comment><USER19> The best thing I ever did for my professional life was acquiring new interests that had nothing to do with software but were still intellectually and/or physically stimulating.

Weightlifting is cheap, has proven physical and psychological benefits, and is eventually fun (sucks for the first few weeks/months though). I just recently starting taking lessons to get a private pilot's license. GA is expensive (relatively - anyone on here who isn't a student can afford it) but it's no more dangerous than riding a motorcycle and is a fairly rare skill. And it has the added benefit of being pretty mentally taxing as I am still very new to it.

<comment><USER20> What is GA?

<comment><USER15> General aviation I imagine.

<comment><USER21> Makes a lot more sense to read it that way. Auto-pilot (...I guess I just did that) caused me to read it as Google Analytics.

<comment><USER22> That's expensive, but it's also pretty dangerous :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> TL;DR I experienced massive burnout after ridiculous working hours and a broken contract

I experienced terrible burnout around a year ago that I'm still working to get over.

I had taken a pay cut to join a startup with the promise (contractually) that I receive a raise to market value + bonus after 12 months. The latter 6 of those months were spent working 16 hour days ramping up to a massive launch. There were multiple times were I was in the office for 40 hours straight. Throughout this entire period I was locked in and producing top quality code.

A few months after launch I approached my boss about the contractual raise + bonus. After blowing me off for a few weeks I had a meeting with the president and CEO where I was told that I would not be receiving either because I was not coming into the office by 10 AM. Not only that, but they told me they didn't appreciate the amount of work I put in, nor the fact that I had barely seen my family and friends in that the period because "no one asked you to do that." Mind you, our CTO had quit with 4 months to go until launch so I had taken some of his responsibilities, and I was the sole developer on Android, and one of two for the backend. All the while the feature requests kept pouring in.

Within a week I was bedridden, and I stayed that way for the next 3 months. I've been slowly recovering since then, but I'm not sure I'll ever be the same again.

I know I could've sued for the money, but it was the lack of even a basic appreciation that did me in.

Some people have told me that I have no one to blame but myself. I sort of agree with them, however, I know that if I would've gotten my raise and bonus I would've been fine.

<comment><USER24> nah, you definitely have some other folks to blame, like the ones who reneged on contractual obligations. yikers. and there's a lot to unpack, but I'd definitely talk to a lawyer, and some kind of therapist/counselor. now go to [http://thenicestplaceontheinter.net/](http://thenicestplaceontheinter.net/)

<comment><USER23> I eventually got the money (a few months later), and they had enough decency to keep me on payroll while I was incapacitated. I believe they learned their lesson, and have made serious gestures to show that. But the damage is still done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A lot of my friends working in the industry have limited interest in coding (or computer science), but look at it solely as a job... something that guarantees decent financial freedom to pursue other goals.

For me, it's the opposite. Since I first played Super Mario on the NES and wrote my first line of C a decade ago, I've wanted to have a career with computers. But that means I never get to switch off. If I'm not working on something cool at work (and no, I'm not in a dead end job... In fact love my job and team), then I'm at home trying to code something awesome (Was just setting up a DCGAN when I saw this post).

I have no financial worries and should technically be living the good life, but I always feel that if one day all computers in the world shut down abruptly, I have absolutely nothing to do... for work OR for fun. And when I got close to burning out a year ago, the hardest thing was to find something to do.

The route back involved calling people I hadn't spoken to in years, Reading (and smelling) a dozen books, Quizzing and quite a bit of travel. It was hard at first, but since getting back, has provided a much clearer view of life!

So please, plug off for a bit. Don't wait till you start hating yourself/your life. Life is about so much more. :)

</comment><comment><USER26> I think the key is to not put pressure on yourself, and don't allow other people to do so. One person can only do so much, you can't make a baby in 5 months. Work a stable amount each day, on tasks in descending order of priority. I never work past 6 pm, and never work on weekends. If a deadline isn't met, it's the fault of the people that set the deadline.

<comment><USER27> You are right on. I learned a long time ago there is always more work and it always needs to be done last week. I work hard, but there is only so much a person can do. I'll put in extra time, but only when it really counts. Some deadlines were meant to be blown by and when you quit stressing yourself over things that are out of your control and focus on what you can do - life is better.

<comment><USER26> True true. With deadlines, if they're unrealistic, you've just got to compromise and either

a) reduce the scope

b) fail to meet the deadline

c) compromise the quality by frantically hacking things together over long nights and weekends.

Always go for option a), if you can't extend or get rid of the deadline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A few years back I had a short interaction with Kenneth Reitz. I sent an email about some issue in requests and got a reply within a minute telling me that the issue had been fixed in a release published a few hours prior.

Considering how hugely popular requests is I imagine my message was just one of so many he answered on day to day basis and he did all this without really needing to do any of it.

I guess I understand how he and other people in similar situations get tired of it all after a while. For whatever its worth requests is an amazing project and has made my life easier in my personal and professional hacking.

</comment><comment><USER29> One of the amazing things about software that we all write is how well it integrates with many other aspects of life, particularly (though without a doubt not exclusively) intellectual pursuits.

This is, of course, why it pays what it does: Software for software's sake pays about like math for math's sake, with the same people paying.

But unfortunately it seems that despite the deep integration with other facets of work and life, most professional developers seem to basically write code 80-100% of their time (including associated activities like meetings etc.). Far fewer developers are also domain experts (or at least domain enthusiasts) and spend, say, 30-50% of their time coding and the remainder working within the domain or on integration.

I wonder if this separation between the coders and the domains contributes to burnout. Maybe it's more economically efficient (specialization and all that) and we all like our abstractions. But having a lack of meaningful contexts to switch to, i.e. eating ice cream for every meal for lack of broccoli, can't be great. Directly gaining the benefit of the software should also help with perspective, motivation and an appreciation of the work invested.

But maybe it's too hard to find people who can fill what are effectively 2(+) roles in given field? In what areas other than science/engineering do people actually do this?

<comment><USER30> I really can't make sense of this post. Perhaps you should re-read it and try to type it out in a more fluid manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not sure how I should feel about this, reading a post about no longer reading posts, while I should be writing code.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is not developer burnout. This is Twitter burnout. "So, I unfollowed everyone on Twitter" he writes, which apparently fixed his problem. That has nothing to do with development.

<comment><USER32> IMHO not exactly. I feel the same and decreased list of following people couple times. Couple days ago I've thought about switch to HackerNews & Publish only mode because I feel like everybody around has great life, skills, projects and work for awesome companies.

There's too many successful stories around that sometimes can cause depression more than stories about failures. It's a bit hard to explain properly in single HN comment. I'll try to blog about it during the weekend. If You're interested - follow me on twitter (@lukaszkups), cheers!

<comment><USER33> When you're depressed, the last thing you want to see is happy people. They are infuriating and depressing. It is much better to see other people with problems, because it makes your own look less terrible in comparison, and because you're not an odd beast in their eyes, that one should pity or avoid as if you could be contagious. The problem, then, is not to stay locked in this circle forever.

It's like all the suicides in springtime: that's the time when the people and the nature are full of energy and joy and life and everything. And you are not, so the contrast is extremely painful and hopeless.

<comment><USER32> Yes, exactly - not only depressed but also just in 'bad mood' or something - in my case it is often caused by feeling that I have too less time and want too much to do (and partly because of reading lots of social media news, so it is somehow related).

Very often I catch myself of being angry because of lack of time, but instead do something with that I mindlessly scroll through my news feeds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > So, I unfollowed everyone on Twitter. Every single person. I stopped paying > attention to tech trends and reading hacker news. I went into publish-only > mode.

The "publish-only mode" is a great, pragmatic solution to this problem. We need some sort of revision to the Tao of the IETF: "Be conservative in what you send. If you have time and energy, be liberal in what you accept."

</comment><comment><USER35> I solve developer burnout by playing videos games and paying for hookers. Alcohol only causes more depression.

<comment><USER36> Not sure "solve" is the right term there. ;)

<comment><USER32> yeah, not sure about hookers, because I've never met any (and I think it actually CAN cause depression in some way IMHO), but playing games can help - especially multiplayer ones.

<comment><USER35> > not sure about hookers, because I've never met any

WHAT? 2017 and you haven't met or saw a hooker in your life? you are kidding right? well if you want to meet some without leaving your room you could just search escorts in your area, it's pretty much the same as an a hooker just more expensive, don't be afraid to try! just remember to paid them after not before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I work in software and also run some pretty active open source projects, so I worry about this happening to me. I've felt somewhat burned out, or felt close to a more serious burn out, on a few occasions. What has helped me is to remind myself that ultimately I don't _owe_ the open source community anything. I do it because I enjoy it, and want to create things for people to use. But if it's creating stress, I take some time off, spend a few weeks playing video games or spending more time with my partner, and that in turn reminds me that the world does not end when I stop programming for a few days. In other words, I haven't stopped, I've just slowed down, and participated in free time open source development with better moderation.

</comment><comment><USER38> This describes me well, today, right now. I have dev'd software my whole life, chucked it in to dev apps, have been successful, I _love_ developing apps but for the last 4 or 5 months I can't do it, sit and write code - I don't want to do anything to do with writing code. I can't stand that I have to sit in front of a keyboard to do anything these days - even research a non computer related activity! So this is a real thing and I'm happy that others experience it too. I interviewed for a casual customer service related role yesterday simply because there are no keyboards involved and I have the time!

</comment><comment><USER39> I've had several periods in my career where I "felt" like I just couldn't get things done. Some weeks ago, I faced panic attacks and anxiety for the first time of my life due to unmanageable workload combine with nastiest politics going on a my workplace.

This actually changed it for me. I still feel fear that I'm broken permanently.

So, yes, another anecdote. Everyone just needs to really take care by managing themselfes. Working fixed hours __only __instead of trying to get features by the end of the day / week has done did it for me.

</comment><comment><USER40> Last spring we had a few developers leave from my student development team at my university and I had to do 30 hour weeks on top of school in order to finish our projects.

My summer internship was a much needed break but even now it's hard to go back to work.

</comment><comment><USER41> Its much easier to avoid burnout when your projects are popular. Whats really hard is to avoid burnout when you put hundreds of hours of effort into a project that only you yourself uses.

</comment><comment><USER42> Does the Gary Bernhardt quote about ice cream come from one of his talks or something? (I thought I'd seen them all.)

</comment><comment><USER43> It was an interesting read but the solution reminds me of pyramidal "scams" (of course the scam part is where the analogy breaks): the way you avoid burn out, is by delegating it to others and once they too get burned out they have to delegate too. Or they quit and you have to find someone else or let the project die. I'm not disagreeing nor judging, just sharing the thought.

<comment><USER44> In a reasonable setup, going from 1 dev to 3 devs will alleviate the workload. A more apt analogy would be with a load balancer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> am I the only one who read this and didn't really take anything new away? yeah social media, like anything else is not always a good thing. okay, sure... but i'm sorry developer burnout happens for a lot more reasons then stated in the write-up.

</comment><comment><USER46> Huh? This sound more like _social media_ burnout than _developer_ burnout.

I expected something more like maintaining a big ball of mud or dealing with unrealistic expectations or struggling against the inertia of a large company.

</comment><comment><USER47> If we all just listen to Epicurus. And of course, Marx too.

</comment><comment> q-base In my experience a huge part of burnout also comes from deriving all your sense of identity from one source. If you only identity yourself as a developer then you will probably sooner or later start questioning whether what you do is all that meaningful. You will also be seriously exposed to criticism as questioning your abilities becomes questioning of your worth as a human being.

You are also someones child, maybe a father or mother and only one step away from being a pianist, boardgamer, hiker, traveller or whatever.

Identity diversification.

</comment><comment><USER48> Interesting subject. When WWII was over women in the UK and Europe who had lost their husbands often had to rebuild their homes, look after their children and had to put food on the table each day. All that after having lived/suffered through 6 years of war. However, none ever mentioned burnout except perhaps when referring to their homes...just saying

<comment><USER49> This is a provocative piece of information, but I think there's some truth in it.

When I burned hard out at my last job, I resigned and decided to take some time off. Writing code felt disgusting. I had a timeline when I was going to get back in to work and the hope was that I'd be good.

Welp, the one month I gave myself turned in to two, and that turned into three and I still felt just like garbage. I normally work as hard as anyone and yet the inertia to write even the simplest code was insane.

My cat got sick and was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and the vet trips and treatment obliterated my savings. Within _two_ days of this starting I found the mental blocks removed. This is fortunate because I was starting to get pretty scared I'd end up homeless and starve to death.

Necessity caused by crisis seems to have cured my burnout. I've paid the rent on GARBAGE upwork jobs, most of them have paid minimum wage or worse while looking for full time work. All my clients have given me 5 stars and, while it's not fun, rewarding work, it's necessary and I can do it. I can say with 100% honesty that I physically could not have done it back in September when I was flush with cash and still reeling from my last work experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> > Burnout is, unfortunately, a very real phenomena in software development

These people sound like they are bomb technicians not software developers...

> "I'd rather do anything else than this right now" — even though writing > software is one of your favorite activities in the world.

So? Does this mean you have burnt out? How does this compare to jobs like algorithmic trading or mission critical software?

Burning out over stress of writing a web site? I call BS on all these burn out blog posts.

You have other problems in your life that make you depress, coding might be little part of it but I don't see what levels of stress can you be under while doing mostly non interesting jobs.

<comment><USER51> You are calling bullshit based some vague feelings of "job difficulty"?

Do you have a robust mental model of the day to day experiences of these people who you are calling bullshit on? If not, I would be careful with your words. It can come off as fairly snide, ignorant, and callous.</comment></comment>


The science of helping out: 'To help yourself, start by helping others' - <AUTHOR> https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/wellness/the-science-of-helping-out-during-a-crisis-12632408 <comment><USER2> Having dealt with people in the animal rescue world I think there is another aspect to this. First make sure you are stable and taking care of before you try to help others. I have seen plenty of people who completely neglected their own physical and financial health while helping others. This works for a while but if you don't take care of yourself eventually others will have to take care of you. I think subconsciously these people believe they are doing good but they can cause a lot of stress to the people around them.

<comment><USER3> A scene from Baywatch I saw when I was 12 or 13 stayed with me forever. In the scene, a rescue goes bad. Swimmer is unresponsive in the water next to a peer, waves are sloshing, and the swimmer is about to get smashed to bits on the peers.

Rescuer jumps in and tries to save the stranded swimmer. All goes well until the rescuer gets smashed into the peer and injures his back. More rescuers jump in and save the lives of both the swimmer and rescuer.

Then a stark lesson is delivered to the novice lifeguard who got hurt: This is why we train you to use the victim as a cushion agains the peer. They're already hurt and we don't need another victim.

That stuck with me. Rescue yourself first, then help others. Otherwise we just end up with 2 people to rescue.

<comment><USER4> Your story has an extra dimension - Bravery.

Some people will just jump on the grenade, run into a burning house etc. It's an instinct baked into some small part of the population. No thinking involved.

Helping others day to day doesn't always require bravery (physical strength/low fear of physical danger) or courage (mental/moral strength). Situations where its required (as with the lifeguard) training definitely helps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've always thought there should be an "other help" movement alongside "self help."

Some of the content could include guidelines for being available while setting firm boundaries, dealing with caregiver fatigue, setting up healthy habits that loop another person without annoying them.

I would love to offer a couch to a friend in need, if I knew I could count on them not to abuse it, that they'd make steady progress, and that there's a deadline for when we get our lives back to normal. Unfortunately whenever I do try to help out it usually ends up enabling continuing the problematic behavior.

<comment><USER6> > I would love to offer a couch to a friend in need, if I knew I could count > on them not to abuse it, that they'd make steady progress, and that there's > a deadline for when we get our lives back to normal. Unfortunately whenever > I do try to help out it usually ends up enabling continuing the problematic > behavior.

This sounds like the individualized perception of the issues with a government welfare system. ;)

Very good idea on the "other help" movement though.

<comment><USER7> Are you implying those perceived issues do not really exist?

<comment><USER6> No, I'm implying they are very obvious when considered at an individual level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Key graf:

"One of the best things you can do is call someone else facing a similar problem and talk them through it. When you talk other people through their problems, you come up with wiser perspectives and solutions for yourself." Adam Grant, author of "Give and Take"

<comment><USER9> One of the most infuriating realizations is that we end up giving the advice that we ourselves need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing I remember form working on a crisis line was some people were definitely there because they had their own issues. That didn't make them bad on the phone (AFAIK — we didn't listen in on others's calls but we did discuss them afterwards).

I have been told that quite a few people get into clinical psychiatry or psychology with the hope it will help them with their own issues.

<comment><USER11> To me, that seems like a case of: people get most fascinated with what hits closest to home. And whatever you experience yourself qualifies for that.

<comment><USER10> That doesn't necessarily make you a good candidate for a crisis line btw. E.g. if you have had suicidal thoughts in the past,mor lost a sibling that way, you might have difficulty when that comes up on the phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I was a kid, all I did was give. I gave until I had nothing left to give. When my mother found out about it, she would always yell at me and ask, "what about you? How are you going to survive without X?" Truth is, I never thought about the consequences. I just knew that if I gave someone something they needed, that was all that mattered. And it felt good. I'm 29 now and my mother is late. Things are different. I am the most selfish person I know. I always give less than I want to give. Sometimes, I just outright say NO. But that's because I am trying to build a life for myself. I am saving for marriage, a house and my business; so I hardly have anything to give anyway. I always tell myself, I will help out more once I am all settled but I don't really believe it deep down. And it feels good.

<comment><USER13> This reads like Ayn Rand Fanfic.

In particular, I can't think of anything a child could give away that would fit the "X" in "How are you going to survive without X?"

I also doubt that anyone would remember their actions as a child in such terms. A child doesn't decide to altruistically give away their stuff. It does so because it is in their nature. And as with anything that comes naturally, you are unlikely to form explicit memories of such actions.

<comment><USER7> What's the point of this comment? To cast doubt on the personal experience that was shared by another person?

This may sound like an alien situation to you, but I assure you parent is not the only person who's been through this archetype character development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a hard time taking feel good social science results at face value after the replication crisis.

The entire field needs to be torn down and built back up on a better foundation.

</comment><comment><USER15> Please remember to put on YOUR air mask FIRST, before helping children or other people.

<comment><USER16> thanks. Now I know I am not alone in using this metaphor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In my life experience, many Americans tend to be selfish individualists and fail to reciprocate or be concerned about anyone else. For example, a donation barrel at a local hackerspace one recent holiday season was essentially empty. Inequality is also rampant as thousands of homeless people live on highway embankments while millionaires drive past in Ferraris.

In areas without community social ramifications (typically large cities), there's little benefit of helping and minimal risks of not helping others. OTOH, there are bigger risks of not being helpful in rural areas where there might be one general store run by one person and where reputation gossip gets around.

<comment><USER18> While I agree on the inequality, the US does have the highest charitable donations per capita of all countries worldwide by quite a margin [1], which seems to be a good measure of generosity. Although the counterpoint to this might be that said charity is only necessary because of the effects of a kind of systemic selfishness? (I don't know this subject matter very well; more informed perspectives very welcome)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitabl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitable_donation)

<comment><USER19> I wonder how much of that, though, is tithing or other support of religious institutions. I'm not sure how to tease these apart, but Creflo Dollar and Opus Dei seem like they should be in a different category from Oxfam and street beggars.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, you're right.

[https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/758803/Oxfam-scandal- sex-a...](https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/758803/Oxfam-scandal-sex-abuse- corruption-deaths)

[https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/918425/OXFAM-SCANDAL- chari...](https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/918425/OXFAM-SCANDAL-charity- losing-half-a-million-pounds-A-YEAR-fraud)

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2641108/Former- head...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2641108/Former-head-counter- fraud-Oxfam-jailed-stealing-64-000-charity-probing-misconduct-aid-workers- Haiti.html)

[https://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/about-us/plans- reports-a...](https://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/about-us/plans-reports-and- policies/reporting-misconduct)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to market a 2D MMORPG? - <AUTHOR>

A friend of mine has been working on a 2D MMORPG for quite some time that is in the style of Tibia and Ultima Online. It's been around for years now and is quite mature. There are ~120 players online at any time, but we'd like to get the number higher than this. We're thinking of new ways to market the game and I thought to ask HN. Any ideas?<p>You can find the game at http://www.zezeniaonline.com/. <comment> qu4z-2 Not directly marketing, but is there a good reason for requiring 6+ character user names? That was almost a ragequit->close for me.

EDIT: Further, I'd assumed it's a JavaScript game, but you support my platform, so it's not as offputting to discover my error as it would otherwise have been.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not sure what it takes, but have you thought about trying to get on the Steam store?

<comment><USER3> A Steam Greenlight may be along the lines of what you're thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Make sure it has low entry level and when it's easy for him make it even lower because he obviously knows how the game works already.

Ask players to promote the game on sites like reddit and youtube etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Are white-labeling deals ever a good idea? - <AUTHOR> Hi. We had previously posted on HN our startup about mixing Groupon mechanics with Facebook:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1988016
Twice, we had offers from businesses (one retailer and one technology vendor) for white-labeling deals, where we basically hand over our entire systems to them for white-labeling and integration, because they "have the infrastructure to scale" and "want to protect the privacy/security of their data," among other reasons. In return, they propose either a lump sum payment or revenue-sharing arrangement. I don't think that we would later be restricted from continuing to license our app to others, but I was wondering if doing white-labeling deals like this are common for startups (or product companies in general).
Our pricing is currently $9.95/mth, affordable even to the smallest online retailers. We have had sales with this model: low-touch and web-based. Why wouldn't they just pay and use, as opposed to coming up with complicated arrangements that would obviously cost them more? In general, what do you think of this sort of deals? What is in it for them, and for me, if anything? <comment><USER2> When you are first starting out white-label offers can be enticing to say the least. I have not heard of any companies doing them recently though. Most of the time, white label is common in the hosting/web-based service (i.e. email/project management/support companies).

Like ecommando said, don't get sucked into it though, unless you can control every aspect of the deal, code, database, etc... As the white-label grows they will expect the world from you in terms of support/updates/code modifications/etc... They will take away from your time to support your own customers. I would offer a hybrid solution at most where you allow them to change the logo and remove references to your company, but you continue to host and control the code.

To answer your question on why they wouldn't pay/use, well it is all about marketing. They want to be able to offer something different from their competitors and make it look like they are the ones behind it.

As for pricing, NEVER, NEVER take a lump sum payment. Always work something from a revenue-share or monthly fee arrangement. You could even do an annual contract with built-in price increase each year based on percentages of their sales/revenue.

If your product is that good that other companies are approaching you to white-label the solution, the best advice I can give you is to review your marketing/sales strategy. Why can't you sell direct to their market? Why risk losing revenue and allowing them to make money off your product?

<comment><USER3> Jeff is right on target.

THE biggest issue I have with it is that one app never fits. There are ALWAYS an endless number of feature requests, and the license usually never takes these into consideration. Make sure that if you plan on doing it, and making changes, then you (a) charge for time, enough to make it painful ($150/hr or more), (b) are charging for time and that they don't own the code, and (c) limit the number of requests per day/week/month/year, etc, and (d) have the right to terminate the app, hosting, licensing, and support at will, and the only recourse they have is to buy it for a minimum amount decided by you.

If they REALLY want it, they'll be willing to make concessions.

If you go this route, you need to be willing to lose control of the app, and be blocked from the industry for up to three years.

It will happen. Chances are they've looked for the app, even tried to have it written, and now they've found it for license, and a guy that's willing to keep it up. All that stands between them and the app is negotiations.

We're not painting a pleasant picture, but we're holding back. It's worse than it appears.

<comment><AUTHOR> We definitely don't want to lose control of our app, nor do we want to be locked into any particular partner. Thanks for bringing up the potential pitfalls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> No. Don't do it. You will completely undermine any chances of being acquired, the white-label will own you if they grow larger, and you will find yourself losing control of your code and product. Focus on building your brand, your product. Cut costs if you need to make that happen, any way you can.

If they want a white label, tell them "Only if WE run it, we'll code it, and you won't have access to the code or database schemas."

The other option is "buy us out and we'll run it for you internally."

Cheers.

<comment><AUTHOR> But are there any known successful startups that have offered white-labeled versions of their products to partners/customers? We're not desperate for cash, but we just want to know what is common in the industry, i.e. if it's a shit deal.

<comment><USER3> I've done it. PM me your contact info at "me at rwd dot im" and I'll give you a call to discuss.</comment></comment></comment>


Proposed Law Against Apple's 'Walled Garden' Software Approach Sparks Fears of i - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/23/italian-bill-sparks-fears-of-iphone-ban/ <comment><USER2> That's fine, Italians will just go buy their iPhones in a neighboring eurozone country.

Furthermore, I doubt the politicians involved understand the benefit to device security a walled garden can help enforce.

<comment><USER3> You might be wrong about the politicians involved, let me tell you why.

The main politician that proposed the bill, MP Stefano Quintarelli, is the "father" of the Internet in Italy (he founded i.Net, the first ISP in Italy, who was later sold to BT). He is well known in Italy for being one of the smartest, more honest, intellectually bright members of the parliament.

<comment><USER3> The article cited was actually full of errors. See this google-translated article that sheds some light: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fassodigitale.it%2Fdisegno- legge-stefano-quintarelli-iphone-ipad%2F&edit-text=)</comment></comment></comment>


Martin Shkreli denied minimum security camp, sent to federal prison - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-gets-sent-to-federal-prison-in-new-jersey.html <comment><AUTHOR> When the news uses "Pharma Bro" in their headlines and plays into the outrage you know he is not getting a fair deal. Martin is learning a valuable lesson about staying low profile when successful. Shkreli was a scapegoat mostly because of his public/social media persona, cockiness, and arrogance. Bene vixit, qui bene latuit— "He lives well who conceals himself well."

Meanwhile the bankers that led to the financial meltdown get no jail time, many still are executives earning tens of millions in salaries.

<comment><USER2> He got bent over. Perhaps he did not have enough money or influence to overcome this predicament. His punishment seems quite severe considering the scandals and lack of justice over the last few years (e.x Elizabeth Holmes, HSBC, JPM, etc).</comment></comment>


Dopamine Ruins Your Motivation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@fromzerototop1/how-dopamine-ruins-your-motivation-2f476cd96e9a <comment><USER2> Was really hoping there would be more substance to this. It's about as helpful as the solution to depression being "just stop feeling sorry for yourself!" Little better than the Protest Song-- "the world's going to shit, everything is awful, but all you have to do to fix it is...<mumble mumble mumble>."

That said, it's not wrong, just seriously low-effort and underwhelming. The same advice applies to healthy living-- ideally you want to reduce "cheap" dopamine hits (sugars, fats, etc.) and replace them with the rush you'd get from exercise. Some (can't speak for all) rehab clinics put patients to work doing menial physical labor (gardening, etc.) around the grounds for this purpose-- the intent is to replace their synthetic drug-based dopamine cravings with a self-generated and sustainable alternative. If nothing else it gives you something to do for a few weeks to get your mind off of the malaise that comes with withdrawal.

In the end, if you're feeling lazy and bored, no amount of advice from underqualified and overprivileged yahoos on the internet is going to get you off your ass enough to do something about it. There's a reason people end up in these ruts to begin with.

<comment><USER3> > In the end, if you're feeling lazy and bored, no amount of advice from > underqualified and overprivileged yahoos on the internet is going to get you > off your ass enough to do something about it.

I disagree that the content is worthless just because it doesn't have a lot of depth. Everyone knows that sugar is bad for you, but the idea that short-term dopamine - even when the activity doesn't have other obviously-negative side- effects - can be actively harmful to your mental health is a very counterintuitive one that I'd never thought about before, but which makes a lot of sense once presented.

<comment><USER2> > Everyone knows that sugar is bad for you

I'm sure they do, but that's the logic that has led to all manner of ill- advised diets. _Too much_ sugar, especially refined sugar, is bad for you. You _need_ sugar in your diet for quick-burning energy. Avoiding all sugar and only eating proteins is going to leave you lethargic and unmotivated as shit because protein requires more calories than carbs to break down. You may as well be trying to digest a brick. There's a reason every American Thanksgiving ends with a bunch of tired guests.

Hamburgers come with buns. Steak is often served with potatoes. Chicken is often served with rice. Burritos are wrapped in tortillas. The latter in all cases is a serving of carbohydrates...glorified sugar in all cases, and necessary to keep you awake and moving so you can break down all that protein.

> but the idea that short-term dopamine - even when the activity doesn't have > other obviously-negative side effects - can be actively harmful to your > mental health is a very unintuitive one

Why is this unintuitive? Lazy people seek the most-immediate form of gratification available; that's literally the definition of laziness. Doing this repeatedly erodes your neural pathways to the point where your routes to dopamine rewards are artificially limited because longer (and more sustainable) paths simply cease to exist.

The real trick to beating it? Constant mental stimulation through establishment of new neural pathways. Exercise helps. Amphetamines do too (but will permanently ruin your ability to self-correct-- consider it nothing more than a clinically-administrated addiction). Travel. Learn a new language. Learn a new skill. Interest level does not matter; if it's something different than what you're used to and you can derive even the slightest amusement from it, you're creating new routes--even partial ones--to those sweet chemical rewards.

Scheduled/structured activities are greatly underrated-- being dragged into new activities and situations forces you out of your narrowly-defined set of paths and creates new ones that yield new rewards (and anecdotally, I suspect this pattern of constantly-seeking new stimuli may go a long way toward staving off degenerative brain disorders).

But the article doesn't even _try_ to address any of this. It's literally a bunch of fluff culminating in "hey incels, just stop beating off." Yes, sound advice, but for the intended audience advice alone doesn't cut it, otherwise obese people enduring years of shame and torment would be sufficiently motivated to get off the couch. Once you've lost it, _the problem is with finding the motivation to even get off the couch in the first place_ ; it's even more hopeless for those who let this get to the point of clinical depression (and who now have _two_ problems). At some level you end up with such impossibly-diminished returns that it takes external intervention to be able to even _think_ about acting on pithy advice-- either antidepressants, gastic bypass, whatever.

<comment><USER4> Can you elaborate on what you mean by "amphetamines permanently ruin your ability to self correct"? In what way?

<comment><USER2> The anti-drug propaganda you were taught in grade-school was at least somewhat true.

Basically after prolonged stimulant [ab]use, your brain stops "caring" about natural rewards because they're so insubstantial in comparison to synthetic ones. Like a captive-bred animal, your brain no longer appreciates its own procurement of rewards because it has been trained to be hand-fed cocaine- battered filet mignon.

I'm not a psychiatrist or neuroscientist so my understanding is limited and based on anecdote and experience, but I've never met a career meth-or-coke- abuser who found happiness in anything once they went sober. The cravings never go away; they literally need the drugs just to feel anything more than melancholy and they are always irritable and underwhelmed without them.

There is some argument over whether dopamine receptors repair themselves; I don't know if this is true, but if not that then there is _something_ else permanently lost to amphetamine usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find the biggest demotivator for me is alcohol.

<comment><USER6> For me it's cigarettes, I mean smelling cigarettes smoked by people around, not me. There's surely some psyche behind, I've associated this smell and cigarettes with death

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> TLDR: To fix your self-discipline problems, just fix your self-discipline problems.</comment>


How I Get Massive Amounts of Sh*t done - <AUTHOR> http://seanmalarkey.com/massive-amounts-sht

<comment><USER2> Seams like you just made a crappy video about using notepad as a planner and then put oodles of ads on your site.</comment>


Analysis and Plots of Solutions to Complex Powers - <AUTHOR> https://www.alfonsobeato.net/math/analysis-and-plots-of-solutions-to-complex-powers/ <comment><USER2> Great article!</comment>


A water-based religion: how fishing liberates the mind - <AUTHOR> https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/nature/2018/01/water-based-religion-how-fishing-liberates-mind <comment><USER2> In my early years, my dad used to take myself and my brother fishing. What I found to be the best is that it's an excuse be busy doing nothing. Sure, you're waiting on a sign that a fish has taken the bait, but most of the time you're just in a relaxed state, surrounded by nature. The fishing line gives you something simple to focus on, and by doing so it frees up your mind to appreciate your surroundings.

I didn't understand the connection between fishing and meditation when I was younger, all I knew is that it was both relaxing and interesting, and a way to bond with my family, but even though I don't go fishing much now I still feel like I "get it" because of those early experiences.

<comment><USER3> As a son of a dad who loved taking me fishing, I find it all very beautiful and meditative right until the part when an animal gets caught on your meat hook and you have to break its neck and flay it.

<comment><USER4> What wasn't beautiful about that?

<comment><USER3> I don't have a particular theory about it.

Your question seems... not exactly ungrammatical, but somehow strange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Might be an odd question but do any of you have hobbies that are similar to fishing but without, well, fish. Specifically something that doesn't harm any fish/animals.

<comment><USER6> target shooting (either pistol, or long distance rifle with bolt action (like .308, 6.5 Swiss, or other 6.5 calibers).

This requires a lot of preparation

(like re-loading cases with right powder and bullets, calculating ballistic performance of your reloads, projecting weather on the day ahead and optimizing your setup for that weather, etc).

Also very slow an deliberate.

\---

Another one, is bird photography. Also requires preparation, thinking about technology and physical/nature stuff.

Also slow and requires patience.

You can extend bird photography, if you use film -- into subsequent print development, including printing on non-traditional media/canvases.

This works well for folks, like me, who do not have painting skills but would like to express their view of the worlds/ideas through pictures...

That makes into art, producing very unique non-repeatable artifacts (that's probably not possible to achieve with digital).

\--

In both of the above, at the end you have something to show for it (either paper targets, or pictures).

So that creates memories, enables story telling, etc.

<comment><USER7> Second target shooting but suggest Archery instead of guns. Less noise, more walking to retrieve your arrows after each end (round) and you can choose from a range of draw weights to find something that you comfortably sustain.

Like all hobbies you can start affordably then take it to extremes in a variety of ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I fish and hunt for food, but I find catch and release to be the human equivalent of a cat playing with its prey. I don't think putting holes in animals for fun is an ethical use of one's free time, regardless of whatever weird navel-gazing metaphysical ecstasy you might get from it. Hell, even from the perspective of a "sport", fishing is lame: a trot line left for two days has the same effect as sitting on the lake for five hours.

<comment><USER9> We all have our own opinions on that. As a trout fisherman, I do catch and release using barbless hooks. I occasionally will keep a fish for breakfast or dinner when out camping. Careful handling of the fish while reeling it in and while removing the hook then then gently rocking the fish back and forth under water to allow it time to regain its orientation before swimming off seems to be quite successful. Does it survive with holes in its mount? Everything I've read says it will do just fine, again, with gentle treatment.

<comment><USER10> You mean in the same way a human will survive a stab wound as long as you stab them gently and provide good aftercare?

The fish surviving doesn't quite make the whole exercise a net positive on the ethics-scale in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm reminded of _A River Runs Through It_ , whose opening line is:

> In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.

<comment><USER9> And just as meaningful, the very last line is

> I am haunted by waters.

Great story about fishing and about life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's life... I am back into fishing my local river and this is the most relaxing experience I can think of

</comment><comment><USER13> Spearfishing is even better!

<comment><USER14> My kindred spirit</comment></comment>