It's amazing how deleting my account gave me a sense of autonomy over my own thoughts. It took a while, but after some time I didn't care about what other people liked and didn't like.
It's amazing what original thought can do for a person. That little button has more power than most people think.
This isn't facebook specific power. Need for validation is deeply rooted in our psychology.
Keep in mind, that you're posting that on a different social network (with different rules, but still - social network), that also has exactly the same system, with upvoting.
I second this. I deleted my account four years ago because I kept getting in arguments with people, and I genuinely feel that deleting it made me a less insecure person.
I sort of find myself in the same boat, but now I have very few high quality arguments.
Reddit and Facebook and Twitter are chalk full of people ready to have a low quality debate, but there are some rare instances where you'll get some genuine insight from interlocutors.
HN seems to be a good source, but in general on any given subject it's very difficult to find a good faith, intellectually honest, substance-based disagreement on the Internet.
As you say, it seems better for one's IQ and eIQ to lose Reddit and Facebook and Twitter, but it'd still be nice to have a place to sanity-check new ideas.
Agree 100%. This is quite literally the only place I post anything online anymore, and it's been that way for some years now. I never had accounts with Twitter, Instagram, etc. Only Facebook because it was new when I was in college and a bunch of people suggested I sign up. I never really gave a shit about it, honestly. Didn't post that much. Commented on a few things. Never posted pictures. Gave it up many years ago.
But, I did have a tendency to get into arguments on forums of other sites, including YouTube of all places. Most were news/political sites, though. I stopped commenting on any sites other than this one for many of the same reasons. It's just not worth it and is a giant time suck to comment elsewhere. I absolutely love not seeing asinine responses to my comments where I get enraged and then feel obligated to respond to counter that idiocy. I hated that feeling but was obsessed with proving myself. I do not miss that at all whatsoever.
It's amazing what original thought can do for a person. That little button has more power than most people think.