Deleted my account last weekend after about 9 years of pretty much daily use. Mental health has taken a beating lately and I just couldn't stand the toxicity there anymore. Nothing brought out the worst in me like FB did. I've kept Messenger so I can stay in touch with friends who don't use WhatsApp etc... I do have a Twitter account, but it's purely to keep track of artists and industry peeps I like. Going to try sticking to direct contact as much as I can from now on.
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Your Facebook usage and feedback
- Thread starter Rivenblade
- Start date
I hate that it's THE way to communicate with people. I don't like logging on and people would rather FB message me than text. I refuse to download a seperate Messenger app off of principle.
The Cambridge Analytica 'breach' was the last straw for me. I deleted my account, and it has had 0 impact on my life.
Fuck Facebook.
Fuck Facebook.
I used to check a few times a day, but for the last three years or so I've only posted a handful of times, and I practically never check it. I had it deactivated for a long stretch, but I keep it open now just because it's effectively the white pages. I had concerns about security and Facebook's usage of user data for a while, but the biggest factor in stopping was just being unhappy with the effect it had on my mood. I guess it didn't spark joy, lol
I do keep Messenger turned on because it was the main way many of my college friends occasionally kept in touch, but most of them have moved to other messaging platforms by now.
I do keep Messenger turned on because it was the main way many of my college friends occasionally kept in touch, but most of them have moved to other messaging platforms by now.
Didn't realize their Messenger app had its own site. That's all I use Facebook for.
The day after Trump took office I joined hundreds of guitar groups on Facebook and now all I see are hundreds and hundreds of photos and videos of guitars and bands on my feed. Not one political bullshit post or baby pictures from friends. Best decision I ever made and it actually made Facebook more enjoyable.
Deleting -- not just deactivating, but unliking everything + going through the whole deletion process was one of the best things I've ever done.
Resetera is essentially the only social media I use beside Discord, and even then I'm just a member of some close friends' personal servers.
I have a Twitter that I don't use often strictly to post translation updates and an occasional funny thing I run into at work. I always fully log out when I'm done so I don't get the urge to engage more.
Social Media, unless heavily regulated in usage, is extremely taxing emotionally even if you don't realize it. So glad I scrubbed all my other accounts and deleted which ones I could.
Resetera is essentially the only social media I use beside Discord, and even then I'm just a member of some close friends' personal servers.
I have a Twitter that I don't use often strictly to post translation updates and an occasional funny thing I run into at work. I always fully log out when I'm done so I don't get the urge to engage more.
Social Media, unless heavily regulated in usage, is extremely taxing emotionally even if you don't realize it. So glad I scrubbed all my other accounts and deleted which ones I could.
Quit Facebook about 2.5 years ago. Deleted my account sometime in 2017 or so.
I don't use Instagram, WhatsApp, or their other products either.
As a software developer, though, React is my preferred web application framework. React emerged from Facebook and Facebook contributes a ton to the open source software that I use to make a living. I really like React and the React ecosystem, and I really credit the Facebook engineers for their contribution to web application development.
I quit Facebook because it was detrimental to my social life and how I perceived people, adding negative value to my life. I didn't really care that my data was shared with partners, or my personal information was packaged and sold as an incentive to advertisers... I always knew that's how it worked and wasn't naive to that. What I didn't like about Facebook was the actual product itself. It made me like people less. I found myself getting frustrated and mad at people who I used to like, who I hadn't seen in years, and then I'd think to mysself like "ugh, that girl is so annoying" or "ugh, that guy is such a fucking idiot" or "dude just shut the fuck up..." and it really changed my opinion about people who I liked "in real life." I found myself getting a sense of light anxiety when using the network, or when not using the network. Am I posting the highlights of my life? Am I pithy enough or witty enough? Do I need to worry about someone posting a photo of me that's embarrassing? Did I upload something stupid 10 years ago? Will my spouse, new friend, or employer/co-worker find something about me that I forgot about that embarrasses me? Am I a social media try hard? Yes. Am I still? Maybe not. Was I before? Absolutely. Should I be embarrassed about that...? Maybe... etc. It was social media anxiety as an adult. The new "keeping up with the Joneses" and the white picket fence, except you were keeping up with ... what beer you drank, what concerts you went to, what places you visited, what great times you were having... and... most of them are bull shit. The photo of the exotic vacation? You spent 60% of that vacation scrolling through your phone looking at people you didn't like writing things that made you anxious. The beer? Who cares. The concert? You missed your favorite song trying to post the perfect photo and forgot what the concert was like, save for your fake representation of it. SUre, these are exaggerations, but the anxiety of it is real.
Eventually, I realized that the social network was adding negative value to my life. I've always justified sharing my private information with Google, Apple, Microsoft, ResetEra (Etc), and others, because those products add some value to my life... I can say "Without Google, I'd have X, Y, and Z less value in these day to day activities..." and so I consider the quid pro quo worth it. For Facebook, I realized that their primary product made me unhappy, gave me anxiety, and that I got nothing from it. I used to get value from event invites when I was young, especially after college when my friends split up and moved all over, but once I was in my 30s that didn't seem as necessary anymore, and so that single hook was gone.
Stopped using it, and I became a happier person. I liked people more. I didn't have this jaded opinion about somebody based on their fake social media profile anymore. I still kept my account "just incase," and then around January 2017 I realized that I don't want to give stock value to a corporation that makes negative value in my life, and I deleted my account. I know they're still profiting off of that old data and I'm sure fresh data still comes in from my relationships to other people that the social graph has captured, but I can't control a lot of that, and so I've just got to be at peace with it.
I'm happier now.
I don't use Instagram, WhatsApp, or their other products either.
As a software developer, though, React is my preferred web application framework. React emerged from Facebook and Facebook contributes a ton to the open source software that I use to make a living. I really like React and the React ecosystem, and I really credit the Facebook engineers for their contribution to web application development.
I quit Facebook because it was detrimental to my social life and how I perceived people, adding negative value to my life. I didn't really care that my data was shared with partners, or my personal information was packaged and sold as an incentive to advertisers... I always knew that's how it worked and wasn't naive to that. What I didn't like about Facebook was the actual product itself. It made me like people less. I found myself getting frustrated and mad at people who I used to like, who I hadn't seen in years, and then I'd think to mysself like "ugh, that girl is so annoying" or "ugh, that guy is such a fucking idiot" or "dude just shut the fuck up..." and it really changed my opinion about people who I liked "in real life." I found myself getting a sense of light anxiety when using the network, or when not using the network. Am I posting the highlights of my life? Am I pithy enough or witty enough? Do I need to worry about someone posting a photo of me that's embarrassing? Did I upload something stupid 10 years ago? Will my spouse, new friend, or employer/co-worker find something about me that I forgot about that embarrasses me? Am I a social media try hard? Yes. Am I still? Maybe not. Was I before? Absolutely. Should I be embarrassed about that...? Maybe... etc. It was social media anxiety as an adult. The new "keeping up with the Joneses" and the white picket fence, except you were keeping up with ... what beer you drank, what concerts you went to, what places you visited, what great times you were having... and... most of them are bull shit. The photo of the exotic vacation? You spent 60% of that vacation scrolling through your phone looking at people you didn't like writing things that made you anxious. The beer? Who cares. The concert? You missed your favorite song trying to post the perfect photo and forgot what the concert was like, save for your fake representation of it. SUre, these are exaggerations, but the anxiety of it is real.
Eventually, I realized that the social network was adding negative value to my life. I've always justified sharing my private information with Google, Apple, Microsoft, ResetEra (Etc), and others, because those products add some value to my life... I can say "Without Google, I'd have X, Y, and Z less value in these day to day activities..." and so I consider the quid pro quo worth it. For Facebook, I realized that their primary product made me unhappy, gave me anxiety, and that I got nothing from it. I used to get value from event invites when I was young, especially after college when my friends split up and moved all over, but once I was in my 30s that didn't seem as necessary anymore, and so that single hook was gone.
Stopped using it, and I became a happier person. I liked people more. I didn't have this jaded opinion about somebody based on their fake social media profile anymore. I still kept my account "just incase," and then around January 2017 I realized that I don't want to give stock value to a corporation that makes negative value in my life, and I deleted my account. I know they're still profiting off of that old data and I'm sure fresh data still comes in from my relationships to other people that the social graph has captured, but I can't control a lot of that, and so I've just got to be at peace with it.
I'm happier now.
Yeah, discovering this was a revelation for me. I genuinely never visit Facebook anymore but can still keep up with my friends very easily.
I use it for groups, friends/family and site models. I don't see the toxic bs because I curate who I follow. I have a post complaining about the Black Eyed Peas that still gets comments like 7 years later.
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I can't speak for all people. I think letting go of "fear of missing out" weakness can improve one's overall mood in this attention driven economy. This includes other social networks as you mentioned, and people can benefit taking a break from it completely (say one year). Come back to real life. Talk to real people in person. Physically participate in your local community like city hall meetings. Joining a Facebook political group seems to be the only action people do, and that doesn't accomplish anything as you're just contributing to society's increasing reliance on perception (PR) rather than actually taking initiative.
Facebook is arguably the biggest growing social network out there, and they actually don't care that you leave since they are behind internet.org and Free Basics, building barebones internet access in developing countries to get people hooked on Facebook. If you've heard stories like John Oliver's piece on Facebook, you would know how disastrous this initiative has become.
Targeted ads exploit selection bias (confirmation, annecdotal), so mistruth and misinformation are rampant. You can easily dissuade and manipulate large amounts of people with a little bit of ad money. Facebook/Instagram/Twitter mix ads as posts. With information overload and daily life's problems, people get tired of filtering and just take any information in. In fact, social media is only as good as the fuel you put in it. If everyone is eating garbage, pretty soon they will be spilling it out, too.
People tend to be tribal, which is why we have fans of all sorts (sports teams, brands). AI filter bubbles put people in tribal groups to get you hooked and use it more. In the online world, you have to be 100% polarized one side or the other or else no one will pay attention. There is no room for nuance because that doesn't excite anyone or requires too much thinking. Non-verbal cues don't exist online. People in a sedentary state of reading tend to want to get excited about something, and the fastest path to getting there is reading about outrage or abnormal (horrible) things. This kind of behavior doesn't bode well for society as being offensive is society's way of getting noticed. What does that say about the future for society?
Social media has one goal: Spend more time on site as much as possible by exploiting your fear of missing out on something. Whether it's what colors catch your attention or nudging notifications. Trending topics. After a lot of user A/B testing for past decade, these sites are getting very good at controlling how you lose yourself of time.
When I read topics here, I see people are working marketing for free unless that's their job. Do people not value their personal time any more or is it just "free"?
Increasingly, I think these devices are turning us into some real life version of the Truman Show. Someone (or rather some AI) is out there in the background every day knowing when you wake up and go to bed and how to engage you to use your smartphone or computer. Whatever happened to using a computer out of necessity rather than addiction? People are relying too much on online interactions to replace real life ones, and that belief can stretch towards other activities (porn).
I don't like Twitter's trending features and who to follow (aka wtf module).
You can do yourself a favor and disable them with a script blocker:
Code:
twitter.com##*.trends-inner
twitter.com##*.wtf-modulePerhaps that will make your Twitter experience healthier.
ERA is like the only public forum I participate in. I have Discord and WhatsApp for keeping in touch with people and gaming communities.
I have an account with FB and never use it. I've never had a personal account for even a single one of all the others out there. I was social media manager for a couple smallish places for a while though.
I have an account with FB and never use it. I've never had a personal account for even a single one of all the others out there. I was social media manager for a couple smallish places for a while though.
Use it less and less, but don't want to completely get rid of it because I have a lot of family and friends who live abroad or in other parts of the country and it's an easy way to keep up with them.
I uninstalled Facebook's app from my phone 6 months ago, and Messenger maybe 3 months ago. I still use FB/Messenger on my PC daily, checking it a few times a day mainly to continue conversations with friends via Messenger. I don't really post to FB often, maybe a status update once every month or two. I never upload pictures or share stories on there anymore and mainly just use FB for its Messenger service.
Mine's been dormant for a couple years, I just keep folks worth having around in my personal contacts in my phone. It's great when meeting up with folks, because you can actually spend a lot of time chatting about stuff that happened in-between the last time you chatted to them and now! Don't have your every thought and events broadcasted every day so you actually have shit to talk about.
I deleted my facebook account last year. So much more free time to do other things than check other people's status every other day or week. They're designed to keep you hooked on for as long as possible. Lost so many days checking FB over the years. They're also preying on the fear of missing out. You can always catch up with friends when you meet with them. I find it when you're constantly posting your thoughts to your feed. There's hardly anything to talk about when you meet them in person. Its a little awkward.
I have friends who check FB multiple times a day. They're addicted to it. You shouldn't use it to replace human interaction.
It was different when it was a college exclusive social network.
I have friends who check FB multiple times a day. They're addicted to it. You shouldn't use it to replace human interaction.
It was different when it was a college exclusive social network.
Incorrect. Progressively seed your profile with bullshit likes in which you have no real interest if you really want to obscure your actual data profile. Deleting and avoiding just cuts off new input, but they still have a pretty idea what you like based on what was there before.
That advice wasn't to say that it "cleans" your profile. However, that does clean your facebook feed on the occassions when you would still check it. Facebook has no idea what to put in your feed at that point, so the times I do check it, I see only posts from friends/family, and then the feed will say "sorry nothing else to show you right now".
I use Facebook for the buy/sell groups that I'm in. So yes, I do check a decent amount of times or else I could be missing a great deal!
I check it maybe once or twice a week, it's useful for keeping track of concerts and events and stay in touch with family and friends who live far away. It doesn't get more than 10 minutes of my week.
Twitter, on the other hand, is pure cancer and closing it is one of the best things I did last year.
Twitter, on the other hand, is pure cancer and closing it is one of the best things I did last year.
I used to scroll for a few minutes a day sitting on the toilet out of habit but I stopped caring about it long ago. Only kept it because my girlfriend liked tagging me in shit but we recently broke up so it seemed like a good time to deactivate it. Still have the messenger active, but I don't miss it a bit. No one I was friends with ever posted anything interesting and I was sick of going back and unfollowing pages I followed years ago because they've devolved into yet another meme sharing machine.
A few times per day, and decreasing.
It has been very useful for finding and keeping in touch with people from my past, but its current value is insignificant.
In my country (Argentina), it transformed into a virtual battlefield between the supporters of the political models that clashed in 2015. As much as I am interested in sociology and politics, as a platform I feel it is a waste of time.
I don´t use Twitter or Instagram, either, for different reasons.
It has been very useful for finding and keeping in touch with people from my past, but its current value is insignificant.
In my country (Argentina), it transformed into a virtual battlefield between the supporters of the political models that clashed in 2015. As much as I am interested in sociology and politics, as a platform I feel it is a waste of time.
I don´t use Twitter or Instagram, either, for different reasons.
I check it maybe once every two or three weeks. I never post to my own wall. I occasionally comment on other people during my check-in. This has been my ritual since about 2015, maybe earlier.
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You know what, you just inspired me to get Twitter off my phone too. Fuck it. Thanks.
Glad I could help! I find it very useful for reducing the usage of all this crap to never instal apps, whether it´s Twitter, Facebook or even Amazon. Using the browser is much more uncomfortable, which means that you´ll only use them when you need to. The amount of time wasted to this endless scroll apps is insane.
I've been having constant issues with Facebook lately. It's just refusing to load my timeline and front page, and constantly redirects me to the initial set up pages, asking me to add friends and groups "for the first time". Mobile and desktop.
Honestly though, I'm sorta done with it anyway. I can't post anything without it turning into a long argument with right wingers, and I don't really share my personal life on it. I sorta just use it like Twitter. Only I have actual people on my Facebook, instead of the 8 bots following me on bird site.
Honestly though, I'm sorta done with it anyway. I can't post anything without it turning into a long argument with right wingers, and I don't really share my personal life on it. I sorta just use it like Twitter. Only I have actual people on my Facebook, instead of the 8 bots following me on bird site.
I've completely deleted my facebook profile. I used to have it and update pictures of the baby and etc for family i dont see often. I do use the messenger lite app on my phone to keep in touch with family and friends long distance / video chat.
Haven't logged in since January of last year. Once I download all my pictures I'm going to make a post telling Mark Zuckerberg to go fuck himself and delete my account.
I deleted it today. I had a bunch of childhood friends on there but I never spoke to them, I wasn't really using it anyway. Bye bye facebook!
you dont have the option for, i check a few times a month where i can bet most people fall under.
