I’m the same, and I’ve been struggling with it for a couple of years. I’ve even addressed it in therapy, and it hasn’t helped. The only thing that has helped at all is a site blocker.
Twitter and HN mostly fill me with frustration, loathing, and angst. Like the cigarettes I smoke fill me with tar and carcinogens. Reddit at least I occasionally find something interesting, due to carefully curated subs.
For me, reddit is the one that gets me angry. It's addicting, but also seems like teenagers and bots arguing with it each other. Instagram is increasingly inundated with ads, but at least I get to see thirst traps and cute animals.
Youtube is the only social media site that I think is a net positive on my life, because I learn so much, but I've started going for runs again because I really need time away from a screen and the constant dopamine hits.
> seems like teenagers and bots arguing with it each other
Yeah that helped me with getting over the addiction. Most people dont care about your opinion, you aren't going to change anything, if some dumb teenager thinks they're smart (even though they're wrong) just let them be.
There are a lot of incredibly frustrating, problematic, and exasperating opinions and personality types to be found on HN. The particular members of any of those sets will differ based on the eyes of the beholder.
There's no shortage of passive aggression, angst, oneupsmanship,virtue signaling, dogwhistling, etc. It just so happens that there's a sufficient about of incredibly useful opinions and comments from subject matter experts that make it worth consuming in spite of the fact that it's a forum on the internet, and all of the baggage that entails.
(side note: this isn't intended as a dig on HN moderation - you probably all do a better job than most other venues. kudos.)
100% agree, which I do not take for granted. Niche communities in reddit used to be that way. Not it's an overwhelming abundance of low effort content like "me too", "tree fiddy", "and then I took an arrow to the knee"
Twitter and HN mostly fill me with frustration, loathing, and angst. Like the cigarettes I smoke fill me with tar and carcinogens. Reddit at least I occasionally find something interesting, due to carefully curated subs.
It’s just addiction, nothing more.