Don't you all get tired of the constant negativity?
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.
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've noticed this to especially be a problem on Lemmy when I first migrated from Reddit. I know everyone here is a Reddit hater but I've been highly considering creating a new Reddit account again just because I am so tired of the constant negative news on Lemmy. 80% of Lemmy is world news about everything that you just stated. There are practically no active communities here for any hobbies outside of Linux, which is the only place you can find neutral and/or positive things. Reddit you had thousands of active communities from all sorts of hobbies whether its a specific niche game, or playing a musical instrument, theres a community for it there.
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.
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.
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.
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 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."
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.
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.
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.
Yes. There's a widespread mental health crisis featuring anxiety, depression, narcissism, and more. Make good use of the ability to block, avoid, unsubscribe, etc. You just can't help everybody and you need to help yourself.
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 🫂
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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... 😅😢
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Honestly i hate people like you who just wanna bury their head in the sand like an ostrich and ignore whats happening in the world. Ya it’s depressing but id rather be angry than ignorant of whats going on in the world because i live it in.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.