this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
329 points (100.0% liked)

Chat

7498 readers
22 users here now

Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
329
Anyone else enjoying the Internet better, now that they’re off Reddit? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by SemioticStandard@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org
91 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hadn’t realized how reliant upon Reddit I’d become for news and interesting things until after it turned to shit and I quit it. I’ve rediscovered RSS for ex., using reader apps to scan sources directly and read without all the noise—that actually came from someone’s recommendation here in the comments. I’ve found several new sites with deep, knowledgeable articles and discussions, like https://theconversation.com/us (free! No ads! Also discovered through the comments here), and my engagement with articles and their sources has gone WAY up. I’ve stopped reading garbage comment sections, too, and I’m just feeling better mentally as a result, disengaging from the endless, low effort memes/jokes and the mean, toxic comments*. Anyone else?

(Thanks again, admins—really enjoying and appreciating how Beehaw is run!)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] it_is_soup_time@techhub.social 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@SemioticStandard I’ve felt a similar way since I’ve stopped using Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter over the last few years. I feel like those websites have so much petty drama that feels like it’s desperately trying to persuade you to be on the website all day for the next brief burst of satisfaction, and it unfortunately works on a lot of people. I’ve seen people run back to Twitter because people aren’t constantly arguing with each other on the Fediverse alternatives.

[–] speck@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

You know, I never quite realized that, in fact, reddit does front-load lots of petty drama to keep me on there. I've basically been little better than someone watching the Kardashians or something.

Crap.

[–] ALDR@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

You're right - I was one of those people (Not running back though) I sometimes fell into the trap of just going to Reddit /r/popular and scrolling. After many attempts of telling myself "No, I will just have a nice curated feed on home instead, with only hobbies and interests, and I'll only look at the end of the day"

Next thing I know I've gone and clicked /r/Popular again and I'm scrolling down. And it was bad because while, sure, I sometimes saw some cool or wholesome stuff, I also saw a lot of bad. People being cruel, drama nonsense, even more extreme stuff like death and gore. It all bubbles up there in some way. It was not healthy for me to keep visiting it.

Once I ditched those platforms - things started looking up, and I've even gotten way more productive too.