Yesterday I watched The Social Dilemma, and I just wanted to share some of my experiences: I quit FB as a user in 2011. In 2013, when I was 25, I received a high paying job offer to work at FB. Going to SV was a long-time dream, but in the end I took the hard decision not to take the offer. Ultimately I really don't like what FB does. The perks and salary don't compensate for that.
I'm still on HN, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Every time I open LinkedIn I'm shocked at how addictive the feed is. I go there to message someone and before you know it 10 minutes have gone by and I forgot what I went to do in the first place. WhatsApp is really great, except that is owned by FB and they still extract value from me.
In 2015 I turned off all notifications on my phone. Quiting FB and no notifications have really improved my state of mind.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how I use social media, but I'm very worried about how my kids will be able to handle it in their teens.
Facebook recruiters periodically contact me. I've considered interviewing with them in the past, but there's no way in hell I'd do it now. As far as I'm concerned, they produce a toxic product, and their sludge is infecting all of society in ways that no one fully understands.
I wonder how many other engineers feel similarly. It feels increasingly like having "Facebook" on your resume is a badge of shame. Sure, you can make good money working there, but you also have to be able to sleep at night.
> I'm very worried about how my kids will be able to handle it in their teens.
The biggest factor after education would be the ability to be non conformist. That requires you have some leverage in the group. If you don't, you will quickly become target for exclusion and bullying.
In school, it's not easy to avoid bad apples and many parents are/will be negligent. So you will have few students using social media and trying to influence others into it even if the current situation changes.
Teens also want to prove themselves and the dynamics of social media provides cheap validation. You need intrinsic motivation about something to fight it as well as support or acknowledgement from adults.
Thank you! I already notice how very different my three kids are, and being non conformist is going to be easier for some than for others for sure. The link you've added seem mostly for software tools that block social media, I think fostering a resilient / non confirmist personality is going to be the toughest challenge.
> The link you've added seem mostly for software tools that block social media
There are articles, communities linked on privacy, surveillance, etc issues.
I think the first step would be to self host your own social media and other stuff (next cloud?) with the family. Although, not every kid will be interested but I presume at least one would be curious in your case. Start it as a hobby on a weekend and invite them. Get s raspberry Pi and it will be a fun tinkering experience.
I went through the process. They reached out to me, and at first I was very excited and I just wanted to see how good I was. Honestly I didn't think I'd make it far. When I reached the offer stage after 2 months I took a long time to think if this is what I really wanted, and the fact that it was FB was one of the deciding factors.
Oh, and high paying: it was like 3x my previous salary, but not high for SV standards.
I'm still on HN, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Every time I open LinkedIn I'm shocked at how addictive the feed is. I go there to message someone and before you know it 10 minutes have gone by and I forgot what I went to do in the first place. WhatsApp is really great, except that is owned by FB and they still extract value from me.
In 2015 I turned off all notifications on my phone. Quiting FB and no notifications have really improved my state of mind.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how I use social media, but I'm very worried about how my kids will be able to handle it in their teens.