Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now
by Jaron Lanier · first published 2018
56% recommend33% neutral11% critical
Why HN recommends it
A short, accessible case against social media, covering how the platforms shape behavior, attention, and social life. Recommended to readers weighing whether to step away who want a clear argument.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that were better off without them. In Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Lanier, who participates in no social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for all of us to leave these dangerous online platforms. Laniers reasons for freeing ourselves from social medias poisonous grip include its tendency to bring out the worst in us, to make politics terrifying, to trick us with illusions of popularity and success, to twist our relationsh
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…Becomes Air: Paul Kalanithi - On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century: Timothy Snyder - Requiem for the American Dream: The Principles of Concentrated Wealth and Power: Noam Chomsky - Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now: Jaron Lanier [edit: linebreaks]
on “Ask HN: Good non-fiction books without filler?” ↗Good movie overall. I also suggest Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now , by Jaron Lanier Jaron is in the documentary and makes additional points. Social Media is making you a jerk is a great one. While he doesn't directly critique Online Dating, he does mention Catfishing…
on “Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?” ↗…news consumption. The more I’ve come to stand outside of it, the sillier and more crazed the culture has seemed. We really need a collective break and some wisdom building work. Laron Lanier’s book, Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now, is still a great read and one I often recommend to my friends. I think now that we’re mostly dealing with socially acceptable forms of addiction, and the sooner we realize that and start treating it…
on “Is modern mass media a mind prison?” ↗…you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Worth reading Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now book: https://www.amazon.com/Arguments-Deleting-Social-Media-Accou...
on “Study: Social media probably can't be fixed” ↗Well you've been living under a rock I guess. Try reading all the recent WSJ articles. Many of us who despise Facebook deleted our accounts long ago. Books to read: - "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" - "Surveillance Capitalism" - "The Attention Merchants" And those aren't even the most scathing ones about Facebook.
I think the idea was coalesced in Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now: if there are no micropayments, there's no middle class. If there's no middle class, we're essentially doomed. So it feels logical that there has to be a marketplace for "ideas" and "thoughts", not just…
on “Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments?” ↗Just when I was getting irritated reading a rather PR-like wikipedia entry I hit this gem of a title: > Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (2018) The irony of posting this on HN isn't lost on me (though hopefully HN avoids many of Lanier's criticisms.)
on “You can't argue with a zombie (1995)” ↗…portrayed in the interest of “connecting people from around the world”. I’ll often hear something along the lines of these services being engineered to pin us all against each other. Jaron Lanier’s “ Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now” likes to claim this, but I never see any actual evidence. Either way, when I visit social media site these days, people are definitely nastier. There’s more snark, a need to ridicule others for not…
on “Attention Media ≠ Social Networks” ↗…Weyl is Founder and Chair of the RadicalxChange Foundation and Microsoft’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer Political Economist and Social Technologist (OCTOPEST). Jaron Lanier is the author of Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now and Dawn of the New Everything. He (and Glen) are researchers at Microsoft but do not speak for the company. The statement that Lanier and Weyl "do not speak for the company" includes an unacknowledged…
on “AI Is an Ideology, Not a Technology” ↗