I originally posted this on my blog about two years ago. If it's interesting to you, I post new content on daedtech.com roughly weekly.
I won't bo...
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"you should probably stop arguing on the internet altogether."
Yup. I had noticed that I was increasingly angry, tired and depressed in the past few months. I realized that all that online crap had been taking a toll, to the point of being dangerously close to the tipping point from a health perspective.
On my birthday (50th, ugh) two weeks ago I decided to get out of some social media platforms such as Reddit. I would like to get rid of Facebook, but I do use it to keep in touch with friends and appraised of upcoming metal shows, so that wasn't an option. Instead I unliked or unfollowed a bunch of pages - especially those where the comments section could get ugly (that includes all news outlets). My Facebook news feed now takes about two minutes to scroll through daily and it's only my friends, some funny meme pages and, of course, a few sponsored posts. I still have two Twitter accounts, but those are for specific purpose (posting links to updates to my site and to keep up with things like tech and developer news), so nothing to deal with there.
Web sites: I try to steer clear of the comments section. Even if I did not participate, I knew I was getting angry at some of the stuff I read there. It takes a toll on your health after a while, especially with all the online content we don't realize we consume daily. Same for online forums. Unless I could block the usual suspects, then, boom, I won't be visiting any longer.
Anyway, somewhat different reasons for stopping, perhaps, but ultimately all the arguing and even just reading nonsense was just a major waste of time and a health hazard. I've been using that newly-found time for better things - Exercise, reading, etc.
Dev.to is one of a handful of places I still post at and read comments, which are usually well thought out or funny.
Different paths, perhaps, but same result and same benefits, in a sense. If I zoom out a bit, it's all about time management and asking yourself "is arguing with this person on X media really the most valuable use of my time?"
Whether you could spend your time (in my case) writing content for your site or (in your case) exercise and reading the revelation is finding more constructive ways to spend your time.
Glad you found your way away from the toxic back and forth, and I'm with you on dev.to. It's a remarkably positive oasis in the sometimes-negative-desert of forums for people in our industry.
Working on redesigning my site is on the todo list, but for the past few weeks I've felt a need to take a break outside work hours. Or maybe I'm just stalling. Yep, let's go with that. lol
Thanks for this article, Erik. And your wife's sketches are indeed cool!
I have a question. Do you think it's not worth for Bob to have a strong profile on landscape overflow which shows a certain type of mastery and expertise or the problem is more with his style there?
I'll have to beg your pardon in advance because the metaphor gets a little thin from "Bob the landscaper" to "Bob the developer."
In short, my opinion is that building a strong profile like that is a waste of Bob's time. It's a way to impress his competitors/peers -- not his buyers. Landscaping buyers will go to Angies List or Facebook and read reviews from other buyers. They don't care whether his peers are impressed enough by his property grading skills to give him a silver badge.
It's a little more nuanced in the programming world, though. You can hang out your shingle as a freelance programmer, but continue to find work the way employees do: resume alphabet soup, strong Stack Overflow profile, job (er, gig, I guess) interviews.
In this world, I think the strong Stack Overflow profile is still not a good use of time, but for different reasons. It's not a bad use of time because it won't work. It's a bad use of time because it will work... to keep you applying for jobs as a laboring resource to be plugged into a team, rather than as a standalone expert.
In other words, if you go independent, this isn't how you want to be evaluated: with the actual buyer of your services delegating evaluation of you to one of your peers. You want to appeal to the actual buyer: the CIO/VP of Software Engineering/etc. And that person, like the landscaping service buyer, isn't going to drill into Stack Overflow to browse your answers tagged Postgres or whatever.
Thanks for your detailed answer, Erik!
Thank you for sharing, I certainly enjoyed the pictures!
Reminds me a lot of "How to win friends and Influence People", and the message I got about you can only change people's mind when they want it changed.
I can't draw worth a lick; those are my wife's sketches. I'll pass on the compliments, though.
I've never actually read that book, though I should probably get around to it.
Sounds like you already know a lot of what the book has to teach, still you might get something out of it. Modern psychology has covered most of what the book covers, however having it framed in a direct interpersonal perspective helped me internalise it.
I want to argue with you so bad right now!
Nicely said Erik.
:)
Thanks!
It's funny. When I posted/promoted it on my site, I kind of remember people in comments or social media replying with arguments. And I remember wondering if they were earnestly, unironically wanting to reply to that post by arguing, or if their goal was just to bait me into making a hypocrite of myself. I never solved that mystery.