No Stupid Questions

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

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

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.

Good post. Cheers.

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 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

Yeah I do, but I also seem to gravitate towards it so I guess that says something about us as a species.

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.

It's worse than eating fast food everyday lol

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.

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

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?

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.

No

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 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... 😅😢

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

We talk about positive things.

Like Linux.

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.

No

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.

Unfortunately news hasn’t been news for 100 years. It’s entertainment now and the way to drive viewership is ragebait or bad news.