Don't you all get tired of the constant negativity?

Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 448 points –

Despite not subscribing to political communities and having a large number of content filters based on keywords, my feed here is still for a large part all negative articles and ragebait. Elon Musk this and Israel that. Microsoft ruining windows, AI ruining internet, right wingers and capitalism ruining the world, police being racist and shooting innocent people, companies demanding workers into offices, privacy being under constant attack from all sides.. And all this despite the effort I go thru to block that from my view. I can only imagine what the unfiltered feed is like.

I get that this is all important stuff but holy shit it's depressing when that's all I read here every day. Sure, some of it is legitimately news worthy but lets be real here; much of it isn't. It's just to get you riled up and engaging with the post. It's the exact same thing all major social media recommendation algorithms are doing; feeding you content that causes outrage to keep you on the platform for as long as possible. Do we really need to know about every stupid thing Elon says or every police shooting where the victim is black?

It's no wonder so many people, especially younger ones feel absolutely miserable from day to day. It can't be healthy to live like this. I feel like this kind of media diet is pretty much equivalent to eating fast food every single day.

241

That’s why I post pictures of opossums, bats, and raccoons…

Your work is appreciated

And suddenly I found several more communities to sub to.

Thank you sir…

This is the way. I personally don't really resonate with OPs problem but the solution is definitely to become the poster you want to see on Lemmy. Most of us are here for scrolling and maybe dropping a comment here or there, theres tonnnnns of space for more link posting.

Hey! We talked on your scarf post the other day, but I didn't notice that you're the one posting all those opossums and raccoons. Thank you!

Tenth person to say it… but thank you :)

I am tired of living in a world with all of these problems. Whether or not I have the luxury to ignore them is besides the point.

Nobody is making the world a better place by paying daily attention to every possible thing that's wrong with it.

This sounds like the "don't make everything political" rhetoric which is naively hilarious. If you're encouraging moderation for the sake of mental well-being, sure - but that is just that, like many other things.

Information is a well; people will come and go. How much any one person consumes, like food and drink, is their choice regardless of consequence. You can argue diet, drugs, alcohol, entertainment, masturbation all the same.

Personally, I'd rather take on the mental burden of being informed over being as clueless as some. Ignorance leads to many problems, higher costs when you're not much of a problem solver etc.

2 more...

A counterpoint here, if people don’t talk about a problem, or in this case share, then the problem may go unresolved or intensify.

Multiply that by how many problems affect masses of people.

Imo the problem is that social media is one of the worst possible places to foment political change, yet is by far the most popular.

If people actually have a shit about this stuff, they'd be out campaigning for it, or helping people affected by it, instead of just clicking a button and patting themselves on the back.

Not to say social media can't bring change of course, but I mean, the people posting the most are pretty much by definition doing the least.

Part of the problem is the atomization of society. We've have vanishingly few truly public spaces to build the kind of connections with people necessary to form shared political causes. People spend most of their lives either:

  • In their private homes, suspicious of anyone who tries to interact with them there.

  • In private workplaces where management surveils employees and tries to stop organized activity.

  • In private businesses where you are only welcome as individual consumers.

  • Online on platforms that are privately owned and designed to manipulate behavior and social interactions towards interacting with more advertising. Controversy is only allowed to the extent that it gets more eyeballs on ads and doesn't upset advertisers.

Back when I was more involved in electoral politics, I found it extraordinarily difficult to reach out to people to organize them, either because they were in spaces where political campaigning wasn't allowed or because they have become distrustful of strangers.

It's suffocating any kind of broader public consciousness and I don't really know what to do about it.

I completely agree that "third places" have been all but eradicated in favor of revenue-generating spaces. This trend alone has lead to the death of a lot of things, including a sense of community and local engagement. (Edit: Worth noting that I also agree with your point about atomization)

I think it also has a lot to do with how abstracted we are from reality. We've built all these systems to replace actual face-to-face communities, and people would rather surround themselves in that than to expose themselves to the unpredictability of real life - for better and worse.

It's a hard sell to get people to reverse course because it's so much more painless/numbing to engage with these systems. (Not to even mention AI promising to give every person their own personal Yes-Man.)

Seriously. I wonder how many of those doomers actually volunteer in their community, or are active in their local politics. If the answer was any more than "basically none," I don't think we would have most of these issues.

It almost seems like people want to feel enraged. There's a difference between activism and slacktivism. Complaining about things on social media has next to none effect on the real world. If one wants to make the world a better place, then choosing an issue and actually doings something concrete about it seems more productive.

The idea is that you spread the knowledge to others and occasionally do something about some of them, even if it's only a small contribution.

2 more...

You doing anything to change those problems ?

Admittedly not much anymore. It's hard organizing people in the face of systemic opposition under the best of circumstances, but I'm also incredibly unhealthy. Socially awkward and anxious is only the tip of the iceberg of the personal problems I have that make it hard for me to engage in real life activism anymore. I've tried, but it's not really something I can do at the moment. I can barely do anything at the moment for that matter.

That said, there is some small value in trying to convince others to think about these problems and develop class consciousness. I'm not claiming it's much and it's stressful/depressing knowing I'm not doing more, but at least I'm not trying to get people to stick their heads in the sand. I'm not actively making things worse.

You don't like 'owe' me an explanation of your personal ect ect I can empathize. We all literally have shit going on in our lives myself included so I get that shit is just fucking really tough sometimes. Life is not always the way we want it and we face challenges everyday.

But that is just the very reality though for the entire human race. No one is exempt from that. Challenges go hand in hand with life in general.

Don't make excuses. Take ownership.

You don't need to 'gather' a group of people to do x y and z. You don't and can't force/entice/convince/ whatever anyone to what you think needs to be done.

That's up to you and you only. You start by setting an example not making excuses.

Agreed that it's something I need to overcome. But I still think collective action is the only way forward. Half our problems stem from everyone acting as individuals divorced from community.

2 more...

Even if you ditched the internet for a while, the real world is fucked and getting more so every day and the only way you still wouldn't notice is if you live in a little bubble completely isolated from the rest of existence.

I live in a country with multiple problems right now, but I've grown to be aware that the more I actively look at negative commentary on the current situation (most are online given anonymity), the more I get into panic mode, which clouds my longterm thinking of trying to get into a better situation (whether it's self-soothing, changing state policies by any measure, relocation, etc)

I disagree. On the internet it seems like the world is burning (and it kind of is) but outside in the real world sun is shining, birds are singing and people are being polite to eachother. Those two places are in no way equivalent.

The world is actually burning though, and there are fewer birds, and people are tired and stressed all the time, and money is tight, and this is all in the real world, no internet required to experience any of that. The internet may expose you to others struggles that don't affect your real world, but it still affects theirs. The ability to commiserate is what helps a lot of people cope with their real world, and might even invite insight on how to end some of those struggles.

In the real world your bubble is super small and it tends to be pleasant that is because you intake a lot less information and data about what is going on.

The internet and global community has TONS of information that someone focused on their life won't exactly notice. There is ways even on the internet to surround yourself with just positivity and fun. But the fact of the matter making people feel negative gets more clicks and drives more money.

Take a break enjoy your life. Check in on the internet occasionally.

The horrible things we see on the news, whether through traditional or Internet consumption, are being experienced by real people. The kids starving in Gaza aren't ai generated.

Believe it or not, I do try to think of this as a positive. Not the things that are happening obviously, but they’ve always been happening. It’s a positive thing that people are so much more aware and engaged with the world. It may be a huge hit for the individual’s mental health, but this awareness and engagement is the way such things will eventually be prevented. So, congrats to being more aware and engaged with global atrocities compared to previous generations?

In this sense, the issue in Ukraine has especially hit me. I thought imperialism was a thing of the past. All those deaths and injuries from both sides, disregard for lives, all caused by one person’s imperialist ambitions and his ego.

And what are we meant to do about that?

If you're in a country that is providing the bombs. You can try to stop that from happening.

Worth noting I agree with the general point of this thread. I just disagree with people saying problems like Israel's genocide are none of our business and that nothing we do can have an impact (again assuming you're in somewhere like the US or UK that provides bombs and diplomatic cover)

Do you live in the country far from a city. In the UK where I live there's been a rise in homelessness, roads are packed full of cars, the water treatment companies are poisoning our rivers and beaches, I saw the environmental agency destroying a habitat that was home to several birds, old victory buildings getting knocked down in anticipation of student accommodation, high street in my city has betting shops and casinos, local shops can't compete with the corporations. Its grim

Here’s your moment of zen …..

Sometime during the last school year, my state enacted a new financial aid program for instate college tuition. On April 29, we got a big surprise refund of most of the tuition we paid for the last school year for my son! College costs are finally getting attention!

the real world is fucked and getting more so every day

Okay I know we have climate change and that is seriously bad.

But the world today is vastly, vastly better than the world 50 years ago. I agree that the world is still fucked but it was more fucked yesterday. Let's not let the doom newsfeed turn us blind to the fact that the world has in fact gotten better over the last many decades.

What do you expect? You're on lemmy. Half the userbase is doomers, dude.

let's look at this in a positive way: "half of them are not!"

So you're a "glass half empty" kind of person, which now means you're a positive thinker.

IMO the issue isn't that there's too much negative content, but that there isn't enough of everything else. I'd encourage people to post, engage with and signal boost other kinds of content they're interested in. May just be that politics and social issues are some of the most popular interests in the community.

Yes! I agree, and I just stated a similar point of view. I think we need more positive distractions during this US election cycle.

Thank you for putting how I feel browsing Lemmy into words. I really hope that more wholesome communities can gain more traction soon.

One thing I've tried to take to heart on lemmy: On reddit I nearly never posted articles. But here, I try to post any article I find interesting. I think with such a small space we've gotta be the change we see. Every time you read something worthwhile, try to remember to find somewhere to post it here.

You are so on point. I come here mainly for chuckles, some light hearted discussion and memes but what do is see most? Rage, rage and more rage.

Politics are dumb but very, very important. I'm exhausted, but I can't let that stop me.

Politics are dumb but very, very important

I know that saying well.

And I agree. You are not learning to understand politics because you think you're going to run for office and change the world, you learn so you understand what's actually going on and so you can help educate others.

Seriously, everyone out there who rather just block out anything to do with politics and society and are overwhelmed by the idea of finding the path to least harm, you are only going to make your insecurity and anxiety around politics worse by ignoring it or condemning it when you see it. Forming strong values around your axioms is politics, and when you find a confident stance like "Do good things, don't do bad things" and learn what consequences are of different attitudes and actions, you become a LOT more complete and confident and less likely to be absolutely railroaded by the very real forces out there who will exploit your apathy. It doesn't mean you have to preach or lecture anyone, just know how things work.

Sitting it out, ignoring it, hiding from it... that feels like you're escaping, but you are just playing into the plans of those who need you to be apathetic. You don't get out of taking a side here, so start learning.

What is consuming everything actually doing for you? Like, how is it benefiting? What positive actions does it inspire that lead you to creating a better world?

If you aren't informed, your choices are more likely to cause harm

Personal insecurity comes from lack of understanding of systems that impact you.

Everyone has different needs and wants out of their society, but we all have the same axioms. Learning how to connect your axioms to your political identity is a very strong way to feel more connected to your community and the people you care about. Learning how the world works can help guide choices and support others who may also be struggling. Understanding how politics and sociology work gives you a window into how people are motivated and you will make better decisions.

And more than anything, the MOST important part of learning how the world functions and how science, politics, religion, emotion and relationships are all tied to each other, is that it defends you against bullshit and lies.

You and I are very vulnerable to the way others can trigger emotional responses and then use those feelings to explain an agenda. People do this all day long, every day, on every side of the political spectrum, and it's VERY easy to get pulled into these clubs and communities, most of which are either scams or grifts trying to sell you something or trying to get you to become a walking advertisement for what they're selling.

The problem with politics on lemmy is that it isn't a discussion at all, but a one-sided circle jerk. Almost every post is some flavor of Right Wing Bad, and any attempt at nuance or calling out hypocrisy results in a sea of downvotes and what appears to be shadow bans. There are no dissenting opinions allowed. If you spend your time consuming heavily moderated and filters content, it's going to produce anxiety. But more importantly, it isn't even reality.

i get this way sometimes. the answer is easy; dont read it. its just that simple. if its only the headline in a list giving you angst, it feels like you might have other issues.

you said it yourself.. its a diet you feed yourself. its all in your own hands. dont read it.

I agree with this 100%

I used to love wallowing in bad news, but it just got to the point it was having more of a negative impact than it's worth. I still pay attention to what's going on, it just doesn't need to be via an IV bag all day so I filter most of it out now.

We talk about positive things.

Like Linux.

There's a genocide going on with what appears to be more or less the full support of the countries that make up the defence union my country is a part of.

There's war in Europe.

I find those topics worthy of discussion, and any social media where this is not actively discussed seems to me to be a smokescreen more than anything.

Of course tragic realities like the genocide we are complacent in, climate change, war in Europe, Russian propaganda and the rise of the far right is going to be actively discussed. It concerns more or less everyone who uses this platform, and they are the most important issues of our time. It's not about negativity, it's about coming to terms with reality and seeking to understand it.

That said, the communities I follow are largely apolitical stuff that interests me. Woodworking, knitting, gardening, owls, art, and the Fediverse. With the exception of !europe@feddit.de and !energy@slrpnk.net, I let the political stuff come through the cracks rather than actively following it.

I also have a Piefed account on which I follow news communities but actively filter out Trump and Musk. I can see how Amercians still feel the need to talk about these men, but at the end of the day they're just fascist attention whores.

In short: Yes. It's dragging me down, too.

I'd like to focus on positivity. I mean negativity comes with strong emotions and I don't want to get rid of it. But I'd like to see more positive things, too. People sharing side projects and nice things they've done and created. There needs to be a better balance. Because this doesn't depict life or the entire perspective.

I don't have that problem, especially on lemmy. My feed here is mostly about taking action, not doomerism.

I don't mind when bad news is posted. It's important to know these things. What bothers me is how the top comment is always some low-effort defeatest bullshit like "and there will never be consequences."

I'm finding that some really bizarre ideas around persecution are embraced on lemmy.

In some other thread someone is trying to convince me that wealthy people hate e-bikes because they don't want poor people to be free.

There is some evidence for the bizarre ideas: Social dominance theory - Wikipedia

Many Differences between Liberals and Conservatives May Boil Down to One Belief - Scientific American

People who score high in hierarchical world belief see the world as full of differences that matter because they usually reflect something real, inherent and significant. Such individuals often separate things of greater value from things of lesser value.

Holy shit why have I not been reading sociology all these years?

Does anyone know of a good intro to sociology textbook I can read to get started?

YES good point. This is truly where I feel the most disgust.

Honestly if you wanted to demoralize a nation and had either some GPT bots or rooms full of foreign operatives, this kind of defeatist top comment would be a pretty effective way of doing it.

You can just influence the culture of their people. Make them think through social proof that the right way to act is to be defeatist and pessimistic and negative.

The world is depressing, and if we just stick our heads in the sand and ignore it all because that feels better nothing's going to fucking change.

Sure, focus on positivity so you don't collapse into a depressive blob, but the idea that we should ignore the state of the world because it's unpleasant is terrible.

There's probably a healthy middle ground somewhere between the two extreme ends. "Sticking your head in the sand" is harder than you'd think. I go out of my way to try and avoid seeing these articles but I bet you couldn't name a single current event I haven't heard of.

I think it's fair to say that the world was on a steady course of getting better for decades since WWII, but then had quite a strong dip after 2016. I think things have been picking up again lately, but the reason we see so much negativity is kust because there is more of it.

Don't forget though, the "best" news is negative news that is what people always talk about. Good things are simply expected and so not really talked about.

It'll all be fine, try to indeed focus on the more positive elements for now

One of Lemmy's most toxic communities are the Linux people. I'm actually a huge fan of Linux, but the simple fact I use Windows as well constantly earns me personal attacks and extremely negative responses.

My solution (to this and many other issues you describe) is honestly to not read the replies any longer... I just say my bit, and I leave.

I've also taken to watching comedy shows that touch upon numerous topics of all the crazy shit going on. The Daily show has been a great outlet for me, and I'm not even a Democrat (I'm independent). It's just nice to see a popular form of media clearly states "yes, this is crazy. You're not crazy, THIS is just f*king crazy."

Edit: For example, Trump recently claimed he never said "lock her up" the other day to Hillary. I saw this on Lemmy first. John Stewart's reaction a day or two later was perfect, and pointed out the gaslighting taking place.

I just feel like you have to find ways to laugh at all this crazy stuff... So comedy shows help. Just keep your guard up whenever consuming politically charged media, of course.

I just don't see this toxic linux user thing at all.

Every second post is a meme about Linux users telling people they're idiots for using Windows, but I've never seen Linux users abusing Windows users.

I'm sure that it happens to some extent, but it seems entirely possible to be active on lemmy without encountering a toxic Linux user.

Hey you might not read this since it's a reply, but John Oliver does a pretty good job also! Last Week Tonight on HBO but they also post all their main stories on youtube.

I've unsubscribed from worldnews and technology yesterday. I couldn't bare to read yet another scareporn article pretending to be tech news.

The posts and comments were making me feel worse faster than the interesting information were making me happier.

I'll probably take a short brake and try to sort the news from clickbate and propaganda later, possibly creating a new, properly moderated community.

Yes I get tired of constant negativity, even though I myself do what I can to not contribute to it.

It’s exhausting

I think it's because a lot of things are bad (and many are getting worse) yet the only power most people have to do anything about them is to raise awareness of the issues, which means engaging with negative news. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what's real news and what's rage bait; sometimes non-news can seem like news when it's part of an ongoing pattern (such as "Elon's dumb take of the day"). I think there's also some degree of trying to maintain one's sense of reality. To the previous example, despite being a massive fuckwit, Elon is still among the wealthiest people in the world, is incredibly influential, and has maintained some degree of fanboy army; posting/reading/discussing/upvoting an article about what dumb thing he said today is grounding for some folks because it reinforces reality by demonstrating that yes, he is still a fuckwit, even though somehow everything still hasn't come crashing down around him like it karmically should.

Yes, it's tiring. A lot of people and communities on various platforms are cultivating negativity, focusing on bad things. Even a simple meme about a cat can produce a comment section dominated by replies about how dangerous cats are for wild animals. Okay? Can we have a laugh because the cat did something silly?

I read that our brains are more likely to react to negativity, as that was a defensive mechanism in the past. But today, the internet can mess up our stimulus very, very badly. I don't even open most of these posts you've mentioned, I ignore them like white noise. You can't constantly bathe in that information and be mentally fine.

When you are a pessimist, your entire world view is negative. So, it's not really possible to get tired of that.

I think you can also see something fundamentally positive in the critical attitude of many Lemmy users: namely the fact that criticism of undesirable developments in politics, society, the economy and so on is practiced here at all. In my opinion, this is important and should not be taken for granted. If only because it is impossible for so many people in numerous countries around the world to express their opinions freely and criticize their governments or powerful people in their society.

In any case, I think that a certain fundamental skepticism towards the existing power structures in politics, media and business is something of a unifying element that motivates many people to participate in Fediverse, after all, this platform is an alternative to the centrally managed social media providers and their functional logics.

Nevertheless, I think your post is important because it shows that all the negativity that goes hand in hand with a critical examination of the numerous problems in the real world is extremely off-putting for many users. This is of course problematic both for the mass appeal of the Fediverse and to a certain degree probably also for the mental health of the user base.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer as to how to deal with this in a meaningful way. However, I try to stay positive and hope for the best.

I'm not focusing on the things that don't affect me in some way, and I'm still miserable.

I agree that staying informed is extremely depressing. But what would you have me do, stick my head in the sand and ignore what my government it's doing? Ignore the growing control and power the rich capitalist ruling class have over us all year by year? Or ignore what the growing fascist powers within my nation and other important places like the USA are doing? Or how the global climate for humans is collapsing and what's causing it?

Most of these things directly impact me right now, and will continue to have an even greater impact as time goes on.

I'm not focusing on news stories that have no impact on me. I don't care what Elon Musk had for breakfast, what the latest hot celebrity is doing, or what the Royal family is up to. Even so, only focusing on what affects me and my family is a huge, deeply depressing weight that is ever growing.

I agree, it's awful. But the world, for all the beauty it also contains, is growing ever more awful day by day. I just can't find it in me to bury my head in the sand and hope it'll all turn out fine, so instead I stay informed and stay miserable :-(

We can't fight back if we don't understand our enemy and what they're doing to us. We can't make informed decisions about who to vote for, for example, if we don't follow those political parties and politicians track records, their history of decisions and statements and so on.

People who ignore the day to day stuff and then show up to do 10 minutes of bullet point blurb research to figure out who to vote for are not likely to gain a clear understanding of the parties or candidates true beliefs and intentions. The same is true for companies, we need to stay informed on what they say, what they actually do, so we can be informed on whether we want to work for them, or use their products and services, etc etc.

We must stay informed. They want us uninformed so they can manipulate us with ease. Ignorance is bliss, but at what price?

Anyway, it's a quandary, and a sad one, I agree for sure 🫂

But what would you have me do, stick my head in the sand and ignore what my government it’s doing? Ignore the growing control and power the rich capitalist ruling class have over us all year by year?

Believe it or not, yes. You can do this. You can still stay informed. Just don't be online 7 days a week. Fight off that FOMO feeling.

I think you're vastly underestimating how difficult it is to avoid the news to the point that you have no clue of what's going on in the world. If you knew the lenghts I go to to try and curate my news diet you'd think I'd be completely ignorant but I bet you couldn't name a single important current event I haven't heard of. If you spend any time on the internet and with other people you're going to hear about it and if not, then it wasn't important. Pretty much the only topic I've near perfectly managed to seclude myself from is celebrity gossip.

I try to remind myself that social media, and yes, that includes Lemmy, does not reflect the rest of the aspects of my life - which is overall positive.

Subscribe to the communities you like, and stick to your subscriptions' newsfeed. Much, much better experience.

Of course.

I just turn off my socials for a bit and it's all good.

Yes you can, and should, ignore how crummy the world is sometimes. Outside of the good you can do with your own two hands, there's nothing you can do to change it unless you're a billionaire and a legislator will actually take your phone calls.

I've never had any other social media (aside from reddit and now lemmy) and I don't spend hours a day doomscrolling here. I'm thinking if I did that, I'd go crazy.

Everything in moderation. This definitely includes doomscrolling. Not good for your mental health.

We need to be informed, and unfortunately a lot of things like orange man and Gaza are depressing. But I try to just get the important details and not dwell on things that I can't change.

There are a lot of people writing articles and a whole lot more people commenting, but that doesn't mean I need to read even 1% of it.

Reporting on negative stuff is one thing. Reporting on mundane news, with 10 reasons why it's literally killing us, is entirely different thing.

That’s the problem. Everyone’s like "THIS IS BAAAD! THAT IS GETTING WORSE!! HURR DURR!“ - but no one is actually reflecting multiple sources. No info, just rage.

"Welcome to the desert of the real" --Morpheus, "The Matrix"

But I agree, it would be nice if Lemmy could be a haven of intelligence, logic, and reason. But the cockroaches simply move from one infestation site to another, impossible to eradicate.

The only way you will get what you want is to unplug. Stop browsing the internet, get outside, and enjoy the sunshine.

Many of us long for the internet of the 90s -- even with its slow dialup speeds and loud modem sounds. It was fresh, exciting, fun, and unencumbered by the weight of millions of trolls who either hadn't yet discovered it, or hadn't yet been born. Now, it is littered with such trolls who have what they perceive as their intelligence spoon-fed to them by the very few major news outlets -- and mistakenly think that their confirmation bias found in their search results is somehow proof of their intelligence. Critical thought is all but gone, replaced by a terrible version of the telephone game, where facts get lost, or worse, purposefully outright removed.

Yes, the problem to me is manly the feeling (or fact) that we are running into an existential crisis that can and probably will decimate large amounts of the global population and instead of pulling together, people are running into the arms of demagogues and extremists that tell them we are great it's the others that are bad and we don't have to change anything about our way of life. Plus every other nation claims little islands or other countries areas... we won't get anywhere if this won't change

It's exhausting. Lemmy isn't so bad. Threads is absolutely terrible. It's like the MIL subs on Reddit, only for every negative topic imaginable. I just stopped opening the app because all it shows me is content on sexual assaults and rapes and people being victimized and having all sorts of troubles.

I dont want to read or see negative news, but it feels i have to be aware of them so things dont hit me blindsided. I'm so tired of this world

Part of the purpose of any media is to illicit a reaction. In print media especially news, the "art" of writing has been distilled down to this because it is a easy way to garner views which in turn drives advertising/product sales. It's been shown that even negative publicity drives engagement without long-term consequences.

With content-engagement algorithms our monkey-brain doesn't stand much of a chance. Multiple of your favourite interests dispensing serotonin shots minute after minute. With the scroll confirmation giving basic feedback, let's not even get into the camera. I'll put money on pro versions not needing scrolling soon enough. Then doom scrolling will just become....

Yes, very tired of this and I've noticed the fediverse in particular is especially terrible at it. Mastodon or Lemmy, doesn't matter, I see much less optimism and good news compared to twitter or hackernews. I don't remember Reddit because it's been a year since I deleted my account there.

I think I might start scaling back my fediverse usage a little because as much as everyone says I have to build my own feed, it doesn't matter because there's like 15 total users on here that keep postings the same bad news from the same 2 accounts that get related by the remaining 12 users. And if you mute the bad accounts then your feed is the void.

I can't believe we are at a point where twitter which has an incentive to enrage their users and especially now that they encourage people to post engagement bait (by paying users), I see less bad news and negativity there than on here.

I noticed the fediverse tends to be extremely left-biased, with things like on mastodon you get blocked because you didn't put a content warning on a post showing a recipe because someone could be offended by chopped apples or something like that. I think generally the way the left tends to work is by showing the evils of the right (and the right by outright lying of course) to push for change. This can work but the downside is that you just only see this shit all the time and it is very heavy to take in every day.

It honestly feels like the good news never get relayed on here, and when they do, they are rarely popular. France has put the right to abortion in their constitution, but on here everything we hear about is how one clinic refused an abortion some time 2 years ago for some reason and they are getting sued for it.

One other thing I just thought of, is that the somewhat positive news, are mostly about someone or something losing a case. Just now I saw an article posted about how a big Russian company is having trouble because of the war, and that's considered good news. Even the positivity on here is based on negativity (or at the detriment of someone else). And to get the records straight, I think it is somewhat good that big companies are not doing so well, I just don't give a shit and I would prefer to see what next technology will make my life easier or what law got passed that will make other people's lives better.

One other thing I just thought of, is that the somewhat positive news, are mostly about someone or something losing a case.

I've noticed this aswell. Good news is when reddit is losing users, Teslas are rusting, a company get sued, corrupt cop is convicted etc. To me that just seems awfully cynical way of looking at the world.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Contribute positively... By the way, this is not it.

The thing is if you want content, people feeding you it are a small minority doing most of the work.

Help them and maybe they'll post happier stuff.

This is a great way to contribute. It’s so heartening to me to see so many other people feeling the same way I am about the negativity.

But I’ll take your suggestion and start posting my own content.

I block tons of subs and I have a lot of words on my ban list as well.

A ban list? For words? So I can ban 'literally' forever? Don't tempt me with a good day!

I use boost and it has a block/ban list of words in titles of posts. I have maybe 50 or 60 words in there and it really helps.

Only 45 here but adding more almost daily

Based on this list, maybe you need a niche and cozier community instead of a link aggregator. Have you considered starting your own community? Or maybe only subbing to communities which match your hobbies?

Lemmy has such a small user base that the niche communities I do sub to get almost no new content at all. Lemmy is literally the only platform I can browse on my phone when I'm bored. I don't have any other social media, games or anything. It takes about 3 minutes for me to scroll thru my subscribed feed after which I start browsing all where I'm blocking several uninteresting communities a day to make my feed even remotely interesting.

I have created a community on another account but it quiets down immediately when I stop posting. The equivalent one on reddit gets probably 30 new threads each day.

I gotta ask what's with the Kermit, Sailor Moon, Heathcliff filters?

People were posting a ton of Kermit and Sailor Moon AI content a while back and I wasn't interested in seeing it. Same applies to the Heathcliff comic.

Why helldivers? I haven't even heard that game talked about in like, over a month.

Many of the filters are outdated but I just don't remove them. Lemmy has these certain topics that start trending and then there's constant articles being posted about them because people notice it's a popular topic. If it's something I'm not interested in I'll just pre-emptively block it after seeing few similar threads in a row. Same as with the Kermit/Sailor moon AI content for example.

I mean I remember doing this as far as I can remember even before the World Wide Web. Funnily I got little healthier when I discovered Reddit.

My real life teenage company was definitely this of depressed rebellion sinking in litres of vodka and drugs every other day.

Reddit made me see better people than the shit company of assholes and total cunts from this eastern block post soviet brutalist architecture neighbourhood.

This is how my primary and middle school looked like

Does that look like a fucking happy place?

Some classes were more… normal than others ours was possibly the worst. They figured out it would be a fun idea to put delinquent misfits and mildly intellectually challenged and like 3 average students together into one class and call it integration or smh.

It went about as well as any sane person could expect. The troubled ones terrorised the hell out of the challenged ones. It was like fallout vault experiment.

This class sucked so much that they tried to enroll me into some math competition contest because no one else could do basic stuff or gave a fuck.

I don't follow any sort of news for this reason. No tech news, no car news, no nation news. Show me only cat pictures and stuff people with their hands, thank you very much.

Yes, which is why I have every politics and politics-adjacent community, and entire instances blocked.

Yes I've noticed this. For the sake of my mental health, I don't mull over such issues for too long. I used to be angry at injustices I saw, but now I can't be bothered (I stopped caring to be angry).

I've reached a point in my life where I can be against something without getting mad about it. Sure, sometimes you get a revolution (with all the problems that come with that), but in everyday life, people just aren't productive when they're angry. A person living a happy, fulfilled life is more likely to contribute to making the world a better place.

I'm probably going to make a thread about this very topic some day. I find it curious how many people seem to be getting visibly angry when dealing with these topics and that's interesting because it's not how I feel at all. I'm not personally involved with most of these events. I can observe things from a distance, look at the available facts and then try and form an educated opinion on it. At no point do I feel any strong emotions about it and I don't see why I should. It just clouds our judgement. If one is primed to get angry every time they encounter a certain topic then I wouldn't put too much weight on their opinion about it because it comes from biased and emotionally loaded perspective. Doesn't mean they're wrong but I don't trust the reasoning of that kind of person.

I think the reason I've gotten to this point is that I've been angry at things before and I've very strongly expressed an opinion that I later on found I disagreed with.

This is probably just an age thing, but I could only do that so many times before I stopped to think maybe it's worth reevaluating how I look at things.

I love it! It's freaking awesome, peeps expressing themselves and all. More of that please

I just block all the trolls and idiotic communities I see. Yes, it's tiresome, but that's the price of a federated platform.

Or just learn to ignore it, like advertising : when I see a troll I just think "allright this is bullshit" and move on

I try to filter out most of this negative stuff, but it has a downside. You become disconnected from the raw information feed if you don't occasionally just look at it. For short periods, it's tolerable, but then I just re-enable all filtering to reduce my cognitive load.

If I need to be cheered up, I prefer to look for science articles or news since these are generally about unbiased progress.

  • You're using an app that has filtering
  • You know how to use the filtering feature
  • You have not installed an elon, trump, israel and a gaza filter
  • You see lots of elon, trump, israel and a gaza content
  • You wonder what to do next

I think I see a way out of this.

You can figure it out, I believe in you.

It's actually pretty amazing how much slips through the filters. If that much is slipping through the filters, then how much overall is there? Billions, and billions, and billions, and billions.

There's always going to be important issues that are going to be difficult to debate without some level of emotion, especially when talking about politics or the environment, you have to remember that this personally affects people's lives.

However it can get overwhelming and it's important that you have the self-awareness to know when you need to step away.

I know it's easy to judge the Internet by its worst actors but you have to remember that everyone needs to learn and be part of the discourse it's not just the internet, that's humanity.

Mastodon has very nice keyword based filter system.

For example, I have the filter "idiot did a thing", and the keywords are a number of names of... popular people that news don't get tired of talking about, even though the thing isn't actually newsworthy.

So if I'm in the mood, I can check out what they did that day, and if I'm not in the mood, I'm aware that they did something again, but I don't have to get angry over the specifics.

Same for other "ongoing" hot topics, that I already am informed about, where I don't need the 24/7 doomscroll effect shoving negativity into my face.

Of course we're fucking tired of the constant negativity! But that's because the reality is negative, so WTF is the alternative? Are you suggesting we should be delusional instead?

He's suggesting balancing the content. If all you read is terrible, outrage inducing news, yes, you're life is far worse off. It's outside our your sphere of influence and reading the same news for the third time won't make you more informed.

The only thing it will do is make you feel angry, helpless, and less understanding of nuance. Keep it going for longer enough and, congratulations, you've radicalized yourself.

Keep it going for longer enough and, congratulations, you’ve radicalized yourself.

That's some ironically-"negative" spin for "breaking you out of your complacency."

Objectively the world is a much better place than it was even 30 years ago. Child mortality rate, global education, life expectancy, extreme poverty and many more are subjects that have seen drastic improvements and will continue to get better. The reality is, apart from a few cases, that the world is much better than it was and it will keep getting better. And unless a new world war comes in, nothing will stop this progress.

Most of those things were built on cheap oil and a stable climate, which means they were borrowed and now the bill is coming due.

We have to pivot to sustainable technologies ASAP -- fighting the entrenched business interests all the way, mind you -- or all of those advancements will be lost.

Climate change will destroy our civilisation unless we act quickly enough (and some of the damage is already baked in). So it's simply not a given that society will continue to get better, that's really up to governments and their people to make it happen.

Most things in the world are better than they ever have been and they are still constantly improving. Internet and social media just points a huge spotlight on the things we still need to work on and ironically social media itself is one of those things. We'll never run out of negative things to pay attention to. Never. Doomscrolling to the point of mental exhaustion and sense of helplessnes is only making things worse. We all need to touch grass. The real world is not like social media tries to convince us.

This is mostly a you problem though. The world has always been fucked and will always be fucked. That's life, but not your life. You need to worry more about you, your happiness, your mental well being. You need to let go of the thought that your happiness depends on the world. You could literally be living in a warzone and be happy. People do that. Sure there will be rough days, maybe more than happy days, but people will find happiness no matter what. They find it in themselves or in eachother or in the work they do. You need to find the things that matter to you.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw

Well yes, but you don't have to feel shit while doing it, is what I'm trying to say. If you are capable of doing something to change the world, than that fits into the "you" perspective. If you aren't capable to do anything, it doesn't fit in the "you" perspective. But if you feel personally involved with the world problems and are not able to influence it. You need to change something so you either get some influence somehow or feel less involved, if not, you're gonna feel a lot of shittyness for nothing.

And it foesn't really matter which side you go. Both will have a positive effect on your wellbeing.

Well yes, but you don’t have to feel shit while doing it, is what I’m trying to say.

I don't, though. Not everybody reacts to the negativity in the same way, in terms of letting it affect their mood.

A controversial character that shall remain unnamed once said:

Clean up your own room before you go out fixing the world.

being delusional is better than being mentally ill.

What does being mentally ill have to do with anything? That's a false dichotomy.

What the "constant negativity" should be doing is galvanizing you into action to try to fucking fix shit!

What the “constant negativity” should be doing is galvanizing you into action to try to fucking fix shit!

Should. But is it? I don't think so. It's just paralyzing and making us all feel miserable.

Hold the door open for a granny. Pick up a trash from the street. Look the cashier into eyes, smile and say thank you. Now you've already had a bigger positive impact in the world than a year worth of complaining and doomscrolling online does.

Should. But is it? I don’t think so. It’s just paralyzing and making us all feel miserable.

Speak for yourself. Outside of Lemmy, my biggest hobby is bike/ped/transit and zoning reform activism.

I was going to say subscribe to more creative or hobbiest communities, but then there's still news about Adobe or something fucking shit up in those spaces too... 😅😢

Find the communities you like. There will be communities based around wholesome memes and positivity if that's what you want.

The other thing is to use filter lists extensively. I use Lemmy in the Boost Android app. My filter list is constantly being added to (Elon, Biden, Trump, Superbowl, Covid, etc). You're in charge of making or finding the experience you want.

If the content is affecting you then find something else entirely. If detached from the live news cycle and watch science based YouTube channels, listen to podcasts of interest, read books and follow websites via RSS. If you don't like it here then you don't have to be here.

The world is going to shit. The idea that you think all the "negativity" is bad and not the fact that the world is a horrible place and getting worse every single day is the reason the world is a horrible place and getting worse every single day. Denial of horrible practices, support for bad corporations, denial of science, logic, and reason, and all of this is what is making things bad, and every time I see someone try to inject some common sense into discussions about anything bad and how these people get downvoted and absolutely flamed is just another sign that there's really little to no hope left in the world.

That's quite unfair to suggest that not wanting to spend all day looking at negativity on the internet means one doesn't care about it or even embraces it. There's a healthy middle ground where you're informed but not spending all day every day thinking about it. No matter how many articles like that you read every single day you're still going to miss the vast majority of them. That's a never ending battle that you're never going to win. If you want to make the world a better place then be the change you want to see in it. Doomerism is just self-harm and making things worse.

But negativity is a way to ignore all that shit, by sitting around complaining about it.

Also being negative about the people working to solve the other things you’re negative about pits all that negative energy against itself and it’s super inefficient.

I do. That's why I'm using lemmy and reddit at the same time, cause at least on reddit there are subreddits that I care about. Both c/all and r/all are depressing to me but I'm still scrolling through both of them. Btw I'm scrolling on lemmy for almost a year and I do follow some communities here but I always use all and I never switch to subscribed, also I'm rarely subscribing to the new ones. Am I the only one who does that?

Hmm, I guess I must have already blocked a decent amount of the places the negative stuff is coming from. I still use /all and I have a pretty good mix of positive stuff and the other stuff.

Simple solution, start your own community with only positive news.

I'm not exactly asking for solutions. I'm wondering how people are dealing with that and why.

I'm wondering how people are dealing with that and why.

Few things.

The negativity here isn't just coming from politics, is lemmy as a whole. That said, when it becomes insessent, I take a break from lemmy from a few days to maybe a week and a half.

I still check reports and dms to address important matters but no commenting or posting or scrolling

When I do come back, I've had a break enough to be able to ignore all the bs enough to participate. You can't consume that toxic shit either.

I already know lemmy is toxic negative and highly political worth little to no engagement in non political stuff. So stick to subscribed communities.

And only look at rage bait when I'm good enough and detached enough to ignore it and have no desire to engage with it. You can't bc its never gunna stop.

Lemmy is mostly toxic. Little fun. Just stick to the 'little fun' and don't deviate from it. If you do it's time to step away and take a break

The ALL feed is never gunna be like reddit. Don't trick yourself thinking it will be because it won't.

People don't participate here with those. Most lemmy ppl only engage with politics

If you look at the most popular communities, 3/5 first ones are not politics.

Star wars memes, anime, and Linux don't count. Come on man -_-

I think you are looking at your local community list.

Uh no. I'm not on Lemmy world as my main instance. Our instance doesn't... like... have those communities. So..

huh, weird, my 5 top communities are: tech, news, lemmy shitpost, science memes, world news.

There's a ton of negativity on all news related communities including tech news. Even a lot of the memes are political.

Yea, but I would that the fast majority of the articles aren't negative. I agree that there is a lot of negativity on Lemmy, but that's something that a lot of people are more interested in. If you only want more positivity you should search communities that fit this, there are loads (more are ofcourse always welcome tho).

When people are content what is there to say? People tend to post about topics that anger or frustrate them. The quality of the post varies on the sincerity of the user. Anything from shitposting to actually articulate arguments. You're unlikely to find the latter on any form of social media. Most constructive conversation happens face to face. It's just too easy to derail an online conversation and there are powers that be that are literally troll farms because it works.

There was a message yesterday about the game werewolf. An informed minority will generally control the uninformed majority. You get a small number of people to troll and that's all it takes to derail conversation around any topic they don't like.

All and probably most Local feeds are negative. If you're looking for a more positive experience, you should change the way you interact with Lemmy and the Fediverse.

First, you should investigate different instances (or consider hosting your own) and find one that sounds like it has a better vibe. Then use the Local feeds instead of All.

Second, look for better communities. Many people complain about there being different iterations of communities but this is where that's a strength of Lemmy's structure. If the news community you're frequenting is too full of downers, then look into different news communities. Or- again- if you're feeling up to it, make your own and advertise it as a light-hearted community, then moderate it as such.

That's a risk of reading the news in general. For many people, it's helpful to log in less frequently. Remember, people write about things important to them, and that includes bad situations, of which there were and will always be tons of.

I think while some of this may be people being people (i.e. tendency to only discuss issues/problems vs accomplishments/solutions), I think there's also a technical element to it as well in Lemmy's case.

Up to the latest release of Lemmy (as of writing this is v0.19.4), admins couldn't adjust the default sort setting, which was Active. Read the docs on the sort setting and Active does what it says, surfaces those posts with recent commenting activity (taking into account score as well).

So you get this unfortunate mix of: people gravitate to discussing negative stuff, people tend not to change default settings (since despite defaults being Active, we can change these if so inclined), and the default sort settings surface whatever is being most discussed/commented on, resulting in this sort of negativity feedback loop you've observed.

I noticed and posted about this a few months ago, have tried to upvote and comment on less negatively-focused posts occasionally, but I think this may be an interesting example of a small scale systemic issue as it takes more of us doing similar to address what's being encountered. However, as more instances update to v0.19.4, I'll be interested in seeing if admins decide to switch away from the Active sort setting to try to address this in their own way.

I don't know what sort setting may be better for instances to run with instead, but I'm glad they now have the option. In the meantime I think it's worth reminding people that they currently have the option to change their default sort settings to something different to try to see different kinds of posts. Personally I switch between New and Scaled to see a variety of posts beyond many of the regular doom and gloom posts.

I don't know how to on desktop, but on the Voyager app, I can block posts that include whatever words I want. My experience on here has noticeably improved since blocking certain words, like Musk, Trump, and Israel.

Yeah, but in life in general, not on here. I’ve been pushing unnecessary negativity out of my life. Even in my own family, I’ve learned how people that love me and are nice to me can still be a total fucking downer and miserable to be around.

If I’m hopping on Lemmy or reading/watching some news, I know I’m going to see negative stuff. But that’s fine. You can’t learn to deal with negative shit by sheltering yourself from it completely. Think of it like your mental health immune system.

My suggestion? Don’t filter out anything because you need to know how other people think and what’s going on.

Yes, there’s lots and lots of disinformation and shilling, but exercise critical thinking (a part of which is knowing when to believe in something and when not to), and become almost stoic (mostly observe and analyze).

Besides all that, exercise and/or volunteer in your local community. You will feel less shit about things you cannot control.

I filter out a ton of stuff and I still know how other people think and what's going on. You quite literally need to live in a forest alone without internet if you want not to know. I'm not blocking information. Only limiting the amount of it.

Interesting approach. Let me try a thing...

WE SHOULD ALL SWITCH TO NOSTR, USING UNMODERATED RELAY!

ducks

But seriously, though, sometimes less you know about how other people think, the better for your health. During the pandemic, when the IQ was literally visible on everybody's faces, never before was I so disgusted and shocked by people around me.

Absolutely. One thing I miss about Reddit is having an active personalized feed of positive/neutral content.

Except

Elon Musk this

Yep.

and Israel that.

Definitely that.

Microsoft ruining windows,

alwayshasbeen.jpg

AI ruining internet,

Nah. Stupid just has a new source.

right wingers and capitalism ruining the world,

Just for the 99%

police being racist and shooting innocent people,

A painfully bad generalization based on sensationalized news and really badly-trained american muni cops.

companies demanding workers into offices,

See: 'capitalism ruining the world', above.

privacy being under constant attack from all sides…

We need to aggressively shun the worst companies and keep doing it until they evolve.

And all this despite the effort I go thru to block that from my view

I see people writing 'thru' like it's a whatsapp chat with their school-chums. It's okay to dislike what you see, and it's okay to feel overwhelmed at times. Remind people - like people who think 'thru' is appropriate - that they're smarter, they know better, and they can be better, but that it's also okay to be working toward that goal without having achieved it yet.

This will all be fixed, but it feels like a lot, right now. We CAN work on more than one thing at once, too: people can learn the difference between 'the person that I saw' and 'the person whom I saw' (one of them is an insulting objectification) while they also improve how they sort recyclables. Like how your mom would tell you not to shuffle your feet while she reminded you not to slouch while you walk, there will be many cases where we can be improving one thing and it won't impact improvement in another avenue.

Just do your best. That's all anyone can ask, now as it always has been.

You went thru all that effort and still failed to address the question being asked.

I've been alive long enough to tell you this has been going on since long before Lemmy and it also never stops. Newspapers were a thing before social media existed, and they also tended to draw a much more sordid and depressing picture of the world by focusing most of their reporting on negative things instead of positive ones.

I believe this is basically an evolutionary trait in humans – we tend to give far more attention to negative stimuli than positive ones because it used to be necessary for our survival. Those people who missed the sabretooth tiger sneaking up on them while they were having fun simply did not make it long enough. However, in the modern era, this has become somewhat of a problem because it can be exploited to sell newspapers and clicks, and while paying attention to all that negative input probably won't kill you, it'll at least make you extremely depressed.

The only remedy I have is to make it a habit to pay more attention to positive things in life – at least enough to create a solid counterweight to all the negative stuff. Either turn off the computer from time to time and go outside to chill, or do other things that relax you like listening to music or making art. Or you could take a page out of Mr. Roger's book and "look for the helpers" when consuming doom and gloom stories on the web – i.e. make it a habit to look for the good in the bad to avoid losing hope.

HTH

I have multiple accounts and feeds. I have one account with basically everything on my home feed and I either browse that account or Everything when I want to be informed doe just mindlessly doom scroll.

On the other hand, this account's subscribed home feed I put absolutely no news or political stuff on at all, so I just scroll subscribed for this or another account I have when I want to just tune out for a bit lol.

Yeah I feel that way about the Internet as a whole kinda one of the reasons why I've been trying to make my accounts interact with j pop and Japanese studying recently so there's what I've been trying and here specifically im finding a lot of communists and trans people trying to get people to be on their side and like bro I just want to get suggestions on how to make my car faster I suppose at least the atheists on here are pretty jokey and the fuck cars community is pretty chill actually one of the reasons why dispute being a car guy I strongly support infrastructure that doesn't focus on cars over all the star trec meme community here has been pretty good non political community

It might feel pretty dire, but all of this information is critical to understanding and empathizing with the people you might meet in your own society. You can opt out of forums (and should if it's causing you distress). I wouldn't suffer a buffer from the negative information if it meant a lack of information in general.

all of this information is critical to understanding and empathizing with the people you might meet in your own society

No it's not. I already know about the issue with police violence in the USA. I don't need to be reminded about it with daily articles of such individual events. I also know what Elon Musk is like and I don't need to read a new hit piece on him every time he says something stupid again and then go to the comment section to circle-jerk with all the other haters.

This is recreational outrage. Nobody gets more informed because of this masochism. They just get more angry and cynical. It's objectively making the world a worse place. Some old granny without an internet access who goes to pick trash from the side of the road is having a bigger positive impact on the world than the vast majority of people posting and reacting to these rage-bait articles.

Then where do I come from? I hope you're misinterpreting my sentiment, because I feel like we're on the same page.

I think it reflects the point where we are as a society. Everything is crappy and we all come here to vent.

How do I defederate from posts complaining about lemmy.ml admins being tankies? Hasn't the instance required manual signup approval for the whole last year? Complaints about it being a flagship instance and the resulting bad look for the platform are total non-sequitur. The problem is absolutely, totally, without caveat, solved by lemmy's blocking functionality. If you don't like that they created popular communities, tough titties. At the core of the issue is that these complaints are pushing a decentralized platform to conform to their worldview. That just isn't how it works.

/rant

Have you tried unplugging capitalism, and then not plugging it back in?

Yes. This place is a dumpster fire. I actually started using Reddit again. I was super interested in moving from Reddit but the power mod issues combined with the extremist political folks here have absolutely scared away any average user.

That then creates a content problem. So now you just have bots posting news all day. And that news gets reposted to not only subs, but now subs within instances too, so you get 18 mentions of the save exact doomer news.

Edit: Jesus Christ, the answers in this thread....

The world isn't burning unless you're on a border with Russia.

I've had similar feelings about going back to reddit. The additional issue with the negativity and extremist political views is that I don't feel like recommending this place to any of the people I know. I can't imagine any normal person enjoying being here.

this happened after the redditors joined... well I suggest the OG lemmy.ml communites, much better

.ml communities tend to ban me immediately again after my previous ban expires since they prefer their own facts over mine.