And since you're reading this, you might as well have them too.
I can't help it. Ever since I was introduced to Hive, I have been slowly but steadily hovering towards web3 and everything that comes along, and I have slowly drifting away from traditional social media, and I am already almost out of that scene completely.
I still used Facebook once every month or so in order to stay in touch with some friends or family, I still open Instagram once a day while I'm on the toilet (yeah) to watch whatever relatable story my girflriend sends me, and I still use whatsapp because I need to be in contact with the outside world, but I just open that app early in the morning and very late at night.
Apart from that, I don't use traditional social media anymore. Compare this activity to the several hours per day I used to be active on these ecosystems and well, you can imagine how much better I feel by not wasting time there, and how it has positively affected my mindset and efficiency.
The problem is, I just got rid of that obsession I had with traditional social media, and replaced it with an obsession with web3 and Hive and Leo Finance as the main dapp I use in this ecosystem. And the even bigger issue is that this obsession is now a way of living and I am now a fully functional person with an 8 hr/day addiction.
I have been part of Hive for 5 years, and over the course of that time I've been involved with the blockchain at different rates, some times involved as fuck, some others just as part of the content creation community, but I've always been involved.
At one point in my life I was doing Hive related stuff 16 hours a day and I hit a burn-out stage where I had to constantly take one day or two off to restart my brain, get some rest and stop my mind from going crazy.
Right now, I spend around 8 hours a day doing Hive related stuff, mainly regarding Leo Finance and the business development. It's like a full time job, but one that I like and enjoy doing, and one that actually aligns with my mindset and way of looking at life and society, which is already a win considering how many people have jobs they hate and how even more people just simply hate their lives. I'm at a good spot right now.
The problem is, and I think you might agree with me, it is very easy to fall into an echo chamber scenario whenever you get your content consumption, read to relax, get informed, learn about crypto or finance, play some games, write your thoughts, speak to people, and pretty much 80% of what goes on around in your life happens within one single ecosystem.
Hive has become the only ecosystem I need, and as the image above pictures, I believe it is a good thing, but that doesn't mean it is not something I should thread carefully with, mainly because as I said, the possibility of falling in an echo chamber is huge, and we know how echo chambers can hurt one's mindset - we have the best example with alt-right or far-left individuals in US politics.
The Hive blockchain is huge, and it's potential is gigantic
The net positive I get from the Hive and Leo ecosystem, is that it is by default a place for everyone, where people from completely opposite mindsets, political affiliations, lifestyles, traditions, culture, and pretty much everything else, can coexist and thrive in the same place. That's why the communities* feature was such a huge win, because Hive can now host tons of people that have nothing to do with each other, and if one user like me wants a breath of fresh air and to get other takes in one topic, or to just get out of a possible echo chamber in creation, all they have to do is visit another community and get involved with the people there.
Granted, the overal echo chamber is still there as the Hive Ecosystem, but given how different the people form each community are from each other, the dangers of surrounding yourself with only like minded people is minimal to null.
Danger avoided, I am not part of an echo chamber.
But I still have Hive issues. My daily life nowadays depends too much on the Hive ecosystem interaction and my Leo Fam, so much that the first thing I do when I wake up is not checking how my portfolio is doing by checking coingecko from bed, but I check my discord messages and my leofinance.io profile.
I can't spend one single day without going on Leo, reading something on Hive, replying to a message on discord or casting a few votes on ecency.
That's borderline dependent, and while I don't see anything wrong with it, this situation could get out of hand very easily and incredibly fast if I am not careful with how I treat it and how I look at it.
Everyone speaks of the metaverse and how it will be the future. I believe we already have some sort of metaverse - without the VR - here on Hive, where someone could spend every day, 16 hours a day, for ten years, and they wouldn't have explored everything there is to explore in the Hive ecosystem. That's both amazing and scary, and it's even a bit dangerous considering we are not a big a blockchain and we are definitely not one with a ton of users. What we are, is perhaps the biggest one in terms of active dapps built on top of it, and the one that has the biggest panorama in terms of sub-communities and active users - real active users, not just transacting users.
I like where Hive is going, and I love where Leo Finance is moving forward to. I don't really think I have Hive issues, it was just a figure of speech, but I think you get my point. The truth is, once Hive keeps scaling up and growing, and when Leo Finance is the huge universe I know it will be, I think my imaginary issues will become real ones, but until that day, all I can do is enjoy the ride.
Until that day, all I can do is stay active here blogging and consuming content on an obscure, digital money-generating, anti-establishment fighting, pseudo-anarchy supporting, deep-web-money-laundering relating, taxation-is-theft promulgating, inflation-kills-economies believing, conspiracy-theories accepting, self-definition living, off-grid-mentality acquiring, revolutionary-mindset thinking, ecosystem.