I post to Lemmy a lot and generally try my best to not contribute to the doom and gloom for this reason. I think there’s a difference between wanting to stay informed and getting addicted to the outrage/doom posts.
I’m mostly here to joke around with people and nerd out in a handful of niche interest communities.
And we love you for it.
You’re banned too You’re welcome
Same, I ban all US politic subs as well
Yeah, the doomposting is intense on Lemmy. I’ve taken up a policy of just downvoting any negative posts I see, even if I like the post otherwise, just to tamp down the negativity a bit around here.
The best and worst thing about Lemmy is how niche we are. It keeps out the “mainstream”, but unfortunately we’re easily inundated by perpetually-online doomers.
Also, I would recommend blocking users moreso than communities. Once you start looking for it, you realize that like 90% of these posts are made by just a few people/bots.
-Looks out window. Lawn’s engulfed in flames. Closes window shades.-
“All better.”
Better post about how doomed you are, that’ll fix it.
But for real, some of the communities I’m in have a rule about not posting about negative stories without adding a way to take action, a way to contribute, etc so that it’s not just doom scrolling negativity. Bad news is everywhere and it’s easy to find, anyone can do that.
Taking those bad feelings and channeling them towards something other than wallowing in how bad things are is the important part, not posting and reading. Someone who reads one bad news story a week and calls their representative about it is doing infinitely more than someone who reads every negative story out there to stay “informed”.
I LOVE the idea of including how to take action. As much as Lemmy loves all the guillotine and cranial ventilation comments, they’re not actionable or productive for 99.99% of the user base.
I mean, if there’s not anything I can do beyond dumping a thimble of water on the fire six months from now I’d rather just die happy.
Two things
- Politics is for Power provides a pretty good model for thinking about this https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Politics-Is-for-Power/Eitan-Hersh/9781982116798
There’s a lot of political hobbyism on social media in general and Lemmy is really bad for it. Take for example the constant Elon Musk rage bait. No one is doing anything productive with that information. They’re just getting mad
- Social media, in general, isn’t a good way to get informed. It makes you feel really in touch but when a lot of the time you’re getting biased and polarizing that is often as enraging as it is unproductive
We treat politics like entertainment and it’s making our politics worse. Personally I try to limit my exposure to politics that I don’t think will be productive. It might feel like the most important thing in the moment but it’s often a huge waste of time
I whole heartedly agree, and I’ve added that book to my “To Read” list
Thanks
Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d much rather be happy than right any day.
- Douglas Adams
Great quote, but missing a rather crucial bit at the end:
“And are you?” “No. That’s where it all falls down, of course.” “Pity”, said Arthur. “It sounded like rather a good lifestyle otherwise.”
Tbf, Lemmy is a place to unwind for many people, we have enough boring exhausting shit going on irl.
It’s a link aggregator, if you don’t like politics you’re in the wrong format of social media.
Ah right, because those other forms of social media aren’t also infested with politics.
Yeah the /all feed legitimately seems to be mostly yank politics, and has felt that way for months. Real tired of hearing about them 😴
And you think we’re not sick of hearing y’all cry about sunak and what labor is doing rn???
Plenty of your comments are you crying about seeing America exist. What you’re crying about right now in this comment us yanks have been dealing with while your elections brewed.
Or what about Brexit? Do you realize we don’t give a fuck? We still hear about it. That bitch of a king, I could go on and on.
It’s almost like when you partake in global communities you’ll hear about shit
Y’all yeehaw snickerdoodle double cheeseburger 🤠🤠🤠🤠
lemmy is more US-centric than reddit and twitter combined.
If you came to lemmy to escape the anarchy and chaos that is Trump, you best be turning around.
all of the posts are doom scrolling
That’s not what doom scrolling is dummy
