HN is also social media :)

but let's say friends sending links to group chats (or through direct messages) and you open it, and uh you see you got messages from other people on Instagram, or on Facebook you see that someone had a baby/wedding/whatever, and ...

also I see that people install these limiter apps on their phones, and then just override them many times a day.

and of course if every few days you spend 30 minutes giggling while looking at funny cats/dogs, sure, great. but on bad days you end up doing it for hours and escaping into it, ignoring something else, or using it after stressful meetings to "clear my head" (which becomes a coping mechanism for anxiety)

the problem is obviously (right?) that this happens to everybody. kids are probably more susceptible, but in general we withdrew into our screens and do our flight/fight/fawn/freeze responses online (videogames, outrage porn, porn porn, food porn)

https://www.slowboring.com/p/from-bowling-alone-to-scrolling...

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tintor a day ago | parent [-]

HN is social media only in strictly technical sense of the term.

HN isn't optimized daily for engagement like FB and IG are. There isn't a single image, or video on website. Ads (for YC companies) sometimes show up and are rare. Color scheme-wise it is very plain (and should stay like that). HN is not hidden behind login wall. It is not tracking you. You can access HN fully anonymously, and create throwaway accounts for posting.

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pas a day ago | parent | next [-]

there's no need to "optimize" it already has the basic loop. stochastic reward (interesting news, interesting comments/replies), gamification (points go up!), and no real social interaction. (no connection, some performative elements, ie. comments are written not just to one known person or a small group of people you know.)

the things you mention all exploit this loop for monetization. I agree it's great that HN is not, but that doesn't mean it won't tickle our brains.

	▲	inigyou 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		HN is monetized indirectly by advertising VC stuff, also by removing things that contradict government narratives or billionaire narratives

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grishka a day ago | parent | prev [-]

HN isn't social media at all because it doesn't have a social graph (you can't follow people here).

	▲	e12e a day ago \| parent [-]
		Sure you can. Click a user, see their comments, submissions. I would say hn is in a group of systems that include Facebook. It's true that contemporary commercial social media tends to be associated with these big corporate services that have already been thoroughly enshittified. But they didn't start out that way - and alternatives are possible and desirable (hn, lobste.rs, many niche forums, IRC channels, discord servers[d] etc are proofs by example). Maybe a loose definition would be communication system that leverage the network effect? And good social media aligns with the end-user, and bad aligns with user-hostile forces? [d]: (I don't particularly like discord, but it is much closer to a tool that does what I want: connect with people - than something like tick-tock or Facebook as it exists today)