The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

Any way you cut it, "feeds" are more addictive. Your family and friends only post a couple times a day, but you have all day at work to look for some quick stimulation.

I watch my girlfriend devolve into this stuff. Waking up and scrolling endless feeds from reddit and insta; it's her entertainment. It's not so much worse than me waking up and scrolling Google News...maybe it's better, in that she gets less depressed about it. But it's fake. It's all fake.

In real life, it took me a whole year to figure out that the people at one particular local pub actually hate me and talk shit about me whenever I'm not around. I only figured out why they were so hostile because the people at my other pub told me. (It's that I'm Jewish, with Israeli family. Ironically, the nice people at the other pub who told me are Lebanese. We get along a lot better than I do with my old antifa "friends") This was a hard-to-get real world experience in how fucked up people can be for no reason. It's not something you can understand properly, ever, on any kind of social media. The media format just gets in the way of understanding other people as people; of understanding truth and factual reality; of differentiating between opinion and fact.

Feeds are garbage, optimized for chaos.

If the people in the pub don't show they hate you, they don't hate you. It might as well be the people in the other pub that are making stuff up about the others.

> actually hate me and talk shit about me whenever I'm not around.

This happens virtually everywhere. It is extremely rampant. I have yet to find a place where there are humans and it does not happen, excl. friend circles.

Yeh, I know. It's a kinda sad fact about humans. You can handle it a few ways. The most tempting and easiest is to compete on the same level, sniping at other people. More difficult but similar is to take it a step further and be the biggest guy at the pub, deal some drugs, fuck more girls, act like a friend and then talk shit. Every bar has one... it's just a method. They learned it from the internet, or possibly from being abused as a child. My method in all cases, everywhere, is to be extremely honest and see what comes out of people. What I find respectable is someone who tells you honestly what they think, even if they're not your friend. The people who tell you the unfiltered truth as they see it. Those are the good humans. Making other people reveal themselves, so you know what you're dealing with. That's actually understanding the world.

I am mostly just a listener, and at times a mediator. It worked well for me in cases where I was liked by most. Sadly it does not work well even when it comes to family, they talk shit about me behind my back to people and so forth.

> What I find respectable is someone who tells you honestly what they think

Agreed.

I think. Hear me out. To be a good mediator is also to be brutally honest with everyone. And your takeaway isn't them liking you. If either side liked you, you'd be a shit mediator. lol

The good news is they'll respect you for something they can't get anywhere else.

Friend circles can be just as bad at excluding or ostracising others in the group for the pettiest of reasons.

There’s always going to be a shot caller or instigator behind it and everyone else who is weak willed will get on board with it.

Had a long-time friend group explode last year over this. Years of behind-their-backs shit-stirring lies by a couple members of the group finally got figured out and called out, publicly, which lit the fuse. Exact same behavior that was called out was immediately employed to try to spin that and get these people's "enemies" pushed out of the group, which was the bomb going off. About half the group survived with some scarring, the rest just shattered.

Toxic people gonna toxic.

> There’s always going to be a shot caller or instigator behind it and everyone else who is weak willed will get on board with it.

Yeah, a major factor was lots of people putting up with some real bullshit for years to try to keep the peace. That, and the ones who did try to do something about it approached the problem-people one-on-one, which just led to them being lied to ("oh no, there's no problem between us") and then smeared even harder to others, and marginalized, having no idea why any of it was happening.

I try to keep quiet when they trashtalk each other. :D

I've gotten in the habit of straight out calling out these people, including throwing them out of my house when they start down this road.

They tend to have some form of serious mental illness and/or a major substance problem they're not interested in addressing, which leads to emotional dysregulation. So not exactly great people to have around anyway.

Have I lost friends over it? Yes. But that's fine, having no friends is better than having fake friends who undermine you.

I would not punish them for having a mental illness, I am understanding of it as I have, too, but it is completely fine if you, yourself, do not want to handle or deal with it.

I tend to call people out, too. I keep the ones that take it gracefully.

Quality > quantity. :)

Yeah, I try to give people some grace but if their behavior is repeatedly disruptive over a period of months to years, eventually something has to give. Everyone needs to have some boundaries.

>Ironically, the nice people at the other pub who told me are Lebanese.

Why is it ironic that an Arab would be nice to you? Ignoring the racial/national assumption here, political views from diasporic Arabs, especially older ones who immigrated many years ago, are incredibly diverse and often more contingent on their local issues than world politics. People make the same mistake when assuming political views towards Mexico from Latinos (both Tejano and Mexican) in Texas, for example.

>my old antifa "friends"

Most antifa folks are gonna have a very clear cut moral stance on the state of Israel, even before Hamas' military began the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. Be honest now, have they distanced themselves from you because of your identity, or is it because of your opinions on the actions of the state of Israel? Because even the most hardline "antifa" types I know are more than happy to organize with the likes of SJP and similar organizations of Jewish and Israeli people.

That sounds extremely toxic. I would not even consider such people friends to begin with.

> It's that I'm Jewish, with Israeli family... This was a hard-to-get real world experience in how fucked up people can be for no reason.

Don't be too discouraged. IMHO it's as simple as there being a significant portion of the population who tend to talk shit about other people in their circle when those people aren't around. If asked, they'll often attribute this oddly unmotivated malice to some conveniently proximate reason but, in most cases, if that reason didn't exist they'd still talk some slightly different shit about that same person.

In my experience, these kind of people will, at various times and in various contexts, talk shit about around half the people in their relevant circle. And who's in the half varies over time and each shit-talker can have different individuals in their half. So how does one end up in a given talker's shit-talked half? It can seem almost random but definite contributing factors include the talker perceiving you as better than them in any way (even if you never imply that - and even if it's not remotely correct). It's enough that their insecurity gets triggered even if it's over something 100% imaginary. Heaven help you if you actually are slightly more attractive in some way, have a slightly better job, spouse, education, hobby, hairdo, car - it can be anything or nothing. It's them - not you. And if it wasn't that one thing, it would be about something else.

The truly strange thing is, in my experience, when many of these people shit-talk about their friend group it's unconsciously triggered behavior that relieves some internal psychological stressor. It's almost like some kind of bizarre Tourette syndrome. On another day, in another context, that same shit-talker would tell someone you're their friend, that you're a great person - and, strangely, in that moment they would sincerely mean it. In some ways, I'd almost prefer it if these people were two-faced liars who spend every moment secretly hating me but act nice to my face. While unpleasant, that's at least easy to understand. The reality that they're just socially schizophrenic and almost randomly acting out triggered emotional stress but without harboring any deep rooted animosity toward me is much harder to mentally model.

Once I gained an understanding of this. I learned to avoid not only the shit-talkers, but the people close to them who don't shit talk but listen to their shit talk passively. While the shit-talkers are flawed, insecure people, the regular shit-listeners are just weak and unprincipled. I decided I don't have time to waste on either type. It's also a good reminder to myself to avoid ever slipping into passive shit-listening. Whenever I'd hear shit-talk about someone else, I'd usually politely question the shit-talker on their inconsistent behavior. This pretty quickly ensures no one shit-talks about anyone when I'm around - and it often leads to being excluded from the group entirely. Which I consider an excellent outcome.

Note: Based on the broad circumstances you related, I'll also add a general reminder to always consider the motivations of whoever told you about the shit-talking. Obviously, that's an all-to-common way to stir up drama and/or deepen their relationship with you. Always remember, if they weren't considered a 'safe' shit-listener by the shit-talker, they wouldn't have heard the shit-talk about you. And, of course, exaggerating (or entirely fabricating) the supposed shit-talk they reported to you is another level of shit-stirring.

It’s not necessarily punishment, e.g. leaving an abusive partner is in most cases about self-preservation, and if intended as a punishment, very ineffective at that. That said, I think a lot of people who end up at the receiving end of it do tend to try to spin it as a punishment due to self-centered thinking and in order to frame themselves as the victim.

<3 Sorry about your experience with the far-left lot. Their behaviour is unacceptable, and they aren't your friends.

Am Yisrael Chai.

I think "punish" was the wrong word of choice here. I agree with what you said though.

I think it's a mistake beliving you can judge each persons character accurately from the beginning when entering a new social context.

I agree, although I had luck with that in my life. I know who my real friends are. I do not have many, but I feel blessed with the friends I have.

If OP's opinions on Israel include it having a right to exist, a leftie group would absolutely throw him out.

Unfortunately most people seem allergic to nuance on this topic, which really sucks for both Palestinians and Israelis.

I do have a similar experience and it's almost impossible to find groups of people that value honesty above everything else. That's because truth hurts and is hard to accept (it can also cause all kinds of emotional reactions that may not be desirable).

I think you are attributing too much psychology nonsense on the matter; it's a pretty bad tendency of our times to try to make every behavior some sort of mental illness.

While part of the behavior might look schizophrenic, the reality is that it is that way for plenty of reasons, you being unable to understand/sense them doesn't mean they doesn't exist. Before even going too deep, you can always assume it's some kind of power play or a cheap way to grab attention and support. The people doing this are always working "from behind", because the whole point of it is to gain power without risking a direct confrontation (that could in theory lead into physical altercation or have them loose much more than what they want to bargain for).

I don't like this behavior for many reasons but you can't go around and pretend its mental illness or some nonsense like that; summarizing it as shit talking is a mistake. It's actually the whole point of politics and while you may have an autistic view of the world (no offense intended, I am one) it's how regular people work things out. Not everything can be a perfect competition or a science project with pure facts...