That’s why I post pictures of opossums, bats, and raccoons…
No Stupid Questions
No such thing. Ask away!
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Thank you for your posts. I love them in my feed.
And suddenly I found several more communities to sub to.
Thank you sir…
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.
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.
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.
What do you expect? You're on lemmy. Half the userbase is doomers, dude.
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.
Thank you for putting how I feel browsing Lemmy into words. I really hope that more wholesome communities can gain more traction soon.
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.
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.
We talk about positive things.
Like Linux.
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."
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 [email protected] and [email protected], 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.
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.
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'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.
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 I get tired of constant negativity, even though I myself do what I can to not contribute to it.
It’s exhausting
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've discovered a way to overcome this: turn off the phone. It's not the content that is bad, it's our addiction to it.
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 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 didn't design it, but it's the face of reality.