I'm really ashamed to admit it, but I am addicted to Facebook. As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it.
I've always explained the phenomenon of gossip rags as a surrogate for our innate need to be social. Rather than engaging in actual social scenarios (which can carry social risks), many people have fulfilled our social needs with television shows and gossip rags. Celebrities have become a surrogate community members for many people, and I suspect Facebook ups that by one by creating a platform where you can interact with friends, celebrities and strangers in an environment that mitigates most (not all) risks.
I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other.
Maybe it's only a matter of bandwidth, transistors and time.
Facebook is the social equivalent of fast food. They've tuned the menu to make it addictive.
> I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other.
It's called a coffee shop.
We need to get off the curated online experiences and back to interacting with people physically. It's vital. A therapist friend of mine says that most of the clients he sees that are teens or in their 20s have poor interaction skills in person and social phobia. Those lead to incredible rejection anxiety. I know from my own experience that some of the best conversations I've had with strangers have been people in their 50s and above who know how to engage in casual conversation and find joy in it rather than angst.
Go to a coffee shop and talk to a stranger. We should all do more of that. It's healthy.
It's not just you or your therapist friend. According to a study[1]: Empathy Dropped 40% in College Students between 2000 to 2010.
And now everything is much more addictive, and mobile wasn't even that common in 2010. And now we have virtual reality, which when you read the research some scary side effects surface - stuff like "derealization" - basically having a consistent feeling that real life isn't real. Or stuff about ads having deep brainwashing like power.
And almost nobody is working to solve those issues.
BTW, I'm actually a very social person. I've literally spent years in coffee shops socializing in the days before cell phones, the World Wide Web and Facebook. In the mid 2000's, I discovered Meetup and spent 4-5 nights a week going to or organizing my own meetups. I have no social phobias or rejection anxiety and I'm very comfortable speaking in public.
I think you underestimate the anxiety people experience when they go out. I see it when people come out to my meetups, so I make it a point to introduce myself and introduce them to other people.
When I say I wish I had a clever idea to offset the effects of Facebook, I really mean to say, I wish I had a clever idea encouraged people to go out, talk to strangers and make lifelong friends on a Facebook scale.
Uhhhh... what's the status if I find it easy and enjoyable to interact with other people in-the-flesh, but they find me extremely weird and not a little abrasive because they expect everyone to view the world the same way as them?
Facebook has a large disincentive to connecting people in the real world. If you're at a watching movies, camping in the woods, or just hanging out then you're not online.
Worse, the more you connect in the real world the less interesting passive browsing becomes. Sure, you can still use FB to IM, but that's far less profitable for them.
Another issue I've found since leaving the 'Facebook family' a few years back; there's a large disincentive for members you leave behind to contact you. You fall out of their habitual communication methods.
The onus is on you to call them, which is already hard enough when both people could initiate the call. It becomes a much rarer event unless concerted effort is made.
So until 'the next big social thing' comes along, I'm essentially out in the cold in many respects. But it's a price I'm willing to pay. I simply can't bring myself to support them in any way. The veneer of goodwill is very easy to see through with their constant manipulation tactics. And besides, it's not all bad; it hasn't stopped me from being invited to major events in my social circle. It's nice not to feel beholden to a website, which was the case when I was a member.
The psychological effects are yet to be studied in depth, I'm sure.
Facebook is beholden to its shareholders first and foremost, then it's customers (advertisers, not you). Lastly, they want to make the inventory happy (that's you), so they can dish up ads.
Now, if Facebook manages to release a successful augmented reality platform, they will have no qualms with you going out in the real world. If you're camping in the woods, that's just a nice opportunity for a singalong app to place an ad for you and your buddies. If you're going to the movies, that's an opportunity for Coke to subtly remind you that you can get Coke points on your way.
It would be that Facebook has an incentive to get you out into the real world if they can influence where you go and spend your money. There are many ways you can do that without augmented reality.
While you are correct, and on the face of it i would agree because I am cynical, they can never really lose that battle. I doubt a normal Facebook user can ever be in the same place as all of their Facebook friends. So family, college friends, high school friends, etc, will always be accessible online at the expense of the other parties real life presence.
Based on eating out, I can say that groups of people still use their phones to connect to Facebook, even with large groups of "Friends" IRL.
Yeah, Facebook is nice. I actually spend about 30 minutes in an entire day (open it in the morning, open it in the evening), catch up on what family & friends are postin', maybe venture into a shared post's comments (I like watching trainwrecks), and then I'm done.
And then once every few months, I decide to dig in to someone's FB page/photos since I haven't thought about them in a long time and what to see what they've been up to.
I get enjoyment out of it. I don't understand why the people who hate it, hate it so much.
Wouldn't it make a little more sense to spread those four hours out over the year? I never spend more than a few minutes at a time on Facebook, because there's never that much new stuff since I looked at it yesterday.
> I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it.
It's a "novelty addiction". They weren't the first, it's just its content is closer and more relevant to you since it's people you know. The feeling when you find something new gives you a pleasurable dopamine hit, so you're constantly looking for more.
Same can be said for people addicted to reddit, HN, Twitter, etc.
One thing that has recently helped me kick the "addiction" is by unfollowing literally everybody I know. It's taken a while, but now when I go back in it literally says something to the effect that "you need to follow friends to get news in your feed".
I'm now placing the onus on going back in and actively going to the feeds of friends and family that I care about; as opposed to the mindless thumbing through the feed.
I am not addicted to facebook or any other social media. In fact, the only reason I use them with any regularity is to take part in social interactions with my immediate family.
However, I still think you're onto something. Social media has figured out how to really, at a deep level, grab our attention and keep it.
But it doesn't work on me because I'm not a very social person. I'm pretty far on the 'recluse' spectrum.
> As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it.
For me the beginning of the end was when Facebook created the Newsfeed and started "optimizing" it based on your behavior. Suddenly, content was no longer chronological (including photos in a single post!), all articles were click-bait, and most posts were "on behalf of the user". For example, "So-and-so has liked Pepsi!", "So-and-so has expressed interest in this local event!", etc. All content seems designed to provide the illusion that everyone is always on Facebook. And you should be too!
Luckily, I've found a workaround that fits my workflow well. I'm still a pretty avid RSS (GNU Emacs / Gnus) user, so I added the people I care about to my "Close Friends" group, subscribed to the RSS feed, and read it on my own time. Posts maintain chronological order and are 100% text (unless I choose to click on them). Most importantly, when I'm done sifting through the notifications, I'm done. Since I'm not on the website, Facebook can't manipulate me into wasting my time.
With my luck, they're shut down this feature in the near future.
Just sign out. Facebook's response is hilarious -- they send you "please come back" emails for a few weeks.
I stopped using it a few months ago, don't really miss it at all. If you find you're missing someone whom you normally interacted with on Facebook, give them a call.
Yeah those messages are hilarious. I got a pathetic new wrinkle on that the other day:
It looks like someone tried to log into your account on April XX at X:XXxm using an unknown device. Your account is safe; we just wanted to make sure it was you who tried to log in from somewhere new.
If you don't think this was you, please log into Facebook so we can walk you through a few steps to keep your account safe.
> "I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other."
So like Meetup but with a stronger online discussion platform?
> I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it.
I strongly agree.
I also believe that it is very easy to disturb their black magic.
Ever since I started using Stylish to customize the interface, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it. My version of Facebook remplaces all the blue for red hues and adds a wallpaper. I find that this makes Facebook more tiring to use.
This must be why Facebook is so against browser apps that change their features even when it's only minimally.
If you are trying to fix this. I started muting everything that came across my feeds, that why I can use it for my groups and only the friends I want to see how things are going.
I wonder if and at what point competition authorities will start requiring Facebook to make these options available with accounts on other social networks. Otherwise, we end up in the same place as Internet Explorer killing Netscape on Windows - a company releasing technically inferior products that squash competition by using their strengths in other irrelevant areas.
I can use Whatsapp and Instagram without a Facebook account, and there's no reason I couldn't use this new video streaming thing in the same way.
As much as I dislike facebook, I've moved around a lot throughout my life, as have a lot of my friends, both from high school and university. So realistically, I just don't see any realistic alternative single platform which allows me to keep in touch with all these people.
If such a platform did exist, and I knew about it, I would switch immediately. Their entire business model revolves around getting users addicted, and their history of abusing user's data means I will never be able to even trust the platform.
That being said, I limit my facebook usage to messanger and wishing people happy birthday, so I guess it could be worse.
True, but I also need people I want to talk to to be on the messaging tool, which is the real issue here.
As for email, to me it just doesn't serve the same purpose that IM does. It's analogous to sending letters back and forth as opposed to having a face-to-face conversation -- the increased time lag between replies encouraged by the medium has a huge influence on the nature of conversations that occur through it.
I still use email, for example when I want to send something more in-depth to someone and I don't expect a quick reply. But it's not the right tool if I want a real-time, informal conversation with someone, which is most of my conversations.
At the moment, the frequency of social app turnover is much higher than the rate at which people become old, even for definitions of "old" as low as "30". Facebook is bucking the trend, but it's still not possible to know whether that's a "permanent" situation or just a trend-bucker. There's no guarantee they'll "end up" on Facebook.
I have friends and family scattered all over the place. They're all on Facebook. That makes it really easy to connect with them, which reinforces the loop.
I use Facebook Messenger more often than texts now.
But perhaps more interestingly, I'm neither addicted to Facebook nor worried about this trend. It just fades into the background for me. The real value is the communication I have with other people. And as for the ads... I rarely notice them anymore.
Not sure if it's an Israeli thing, but Facebook groups are probably the biggest value I get out of Facebook (excluding messanger/whatsapp).
We have very active programming groups (Israeli IOS/Android devs, Javascript Israel), neighborhood and city groups (Secret Tel Aviv), social groups (Burning man Israel) and even a large discussion group about politics and economics.
This. I spent 95% of my time on Facebook in groups. Its definitely not a Israeli thing. In Nepal too, we have groups of programming language, groups about all sort of stuffs.
This, for me (in Canada). I now regularly throughout the day check several facebook groups related to my various hobbies. For example a group where serious cyclists from my area are buying/selling parts. Yes, I also check craigslist/kijiji, but the Facebook group is much more responsive, you can ask questions and comment, and I don't have to sift through a bunch of cheap parts I don't want. Also I trust it more because most people are somehow connected.
In fact I hardly ever check my facebook feed anymore, I mostly just go directly to the group I'm interested in.
Not just an Israeli thing. I firmly believe messenger and groups (+ group events) are the only parts of Facebook that actually consistently provide value to users. The rest of it exists for the purpose of turning those users into a sellable product.
I deleted my Facebook sometime ago when I noticed an acute "icky" feeling every time I used it. Whether it was the posts complaining about whatever the latest outrage was (Supreme Court legalizing same sex marriage, etc) or the barrage of games, or whatever else, the signal to noise ratio was awful.
That was about a year ago. I don't miss it, and I don't feel that I'm missing anything. I think there are plenty of niche, high value aggregators of content, and ways to "connect" that are more useful to me. Such as where I am posting now. And I don't have to feel bad about myself when I use them.
No you shouldn't be concerned. Facebook for me personally, turned into just "blocking" everyone on my feed, because all they posted was garbage. It was endless posts of people airing their dirty laundry. Too much drama, so at the end of last year, I closed my account, and haven't logged in since. I do however have a separate developer account with zero connections, so I can get work done.
LinkedIn, I still have an active account. But I really don't "get it". The amount of garbage and spam posted by your connections on there, is quickly approaching Facebook levels. I rarely use it, except to clear out inbox requests from head hunters. It's basically a SpaceBook for business people.
I am "on Facebook", but it's for four specific reasons:
1) So I don't get questions about why I'm not on Facebook.
2) To let friends tag me in pictures (and see what pictures are being posted of me).
3) To let friends invite me to parties through Facebook.
4) See pictures of friends' babies.
I think it's good to have a Facebook account. It lets people push stuff to you, and more often I'm seeing invitations coming exclusively through FB. But I personally don't think you're missing anything by not actively using it.
Likewise, LinkedIn can be nice to keep tabs on past colleagues, not those you were close to obviously, but those on your periphery. You don't need to participate in the community to get the biggest benefit, IMO.
I'm on it, but still get asked all the time why I'm not on it. It seems like if you're not posting and commenting all the time people forget you exist.
Every time I'm asked why I'm not on facebook I just say I don't need it. They usually never ask again and I have no problem keeping in touch with friends by text message even if they are heavy facebook users.
Not really. If you feel no peer pressure to sign up, great!
For me, I was missing out on events when classmates and even teachers started communicating via Facebook. These days it has died down again in favor of Telegram so I could technically deactivate the account, but I'm keeping it for convenience. Recently saw someone's wedding being announced there, not something I want to be missing out on. I'd have caught on eventually, but this is easier.
It depends how often I check it. If I have lots of stuff I want to do, I might not check it for a month. If I'm bored a lot (i.e. when school begins again after the holidays), I'll probably be on it before Monday morning is out, and be checking it every other day from thereon.
Linkedin:
Depends on your situation and business I'd guess, but as someone with not too much experience with Linkedin, I don't know. I've got it and I actively make connections, but I don't really use it other than that. More of a backup thing.
Can you go into a little more detail about Telegram?
I find the whole tech platform very promising, and I have a group chat and a couple private chats going on it, but at least in my social circle, we haven't transitioned.
Do you do event invites with it? Do you do family group chats with it? Just wondering.
with facebook you can get in touch with people that might be othwerwise unreachable (it allowed us to do a proper high school reunion for example).
the key is to use it sparingly and not spend too much time, it has some addictive factor in constant news feed that make news sites look like static HTML pages. it can be a good tool but a bad master
linkedin is purely professional, basically your online CV + network of your colleagues. they tried to make it more FB-like but I don't know a single person who is not recruiter who actually ever checks that.
If you have friends or family on Facebook then you may already be part of its social graph, even if you haven't explicitly joined . Ditto if you are an email contact of a LinkedIn user who is careless with app permissions.
But personally I don't think that you are missing out.
I find that my friends who don't use Facebook become a little bit detached from my social scene. It's sad but true.
It's a bit like those friends that stubbornly refused to get a mobile phone in the nineties - I just didn't keep in touch with them as much as my friends that had mobiles. Their argument was that they didn't want to be reachable all the time. Fair enough, but the trade off for them is that they're less reachable socially.
Eventually, of course, they got a phone. And eventually I'm sure everyone will be on Facebook too. There's nothing dystopian about sharing news, plans and photos.
Readit News
I've always explained the phenomenon of gossip rags as a surrogate for our innate need to be social. Rather than engaging in actual social scenarios (which can carry social risks), many people have fulfilled our social needs with television shows and gossip rags. Celebrities have become a surrogate community members for many people, and I suspect Facebook ups that by one by creating a platform where you can interact with friends, celebrities and strangers in an environment that mitigates most (not all) risks.
I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other.
Maybe it's only a matter of bandwidth, transistors and time.
> I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other.
It's called a coffee shop.
We need to get off the curated online experiences and back to interacting with people physically. It's vital. A therapist friend of mine says that most of the clients he sees that are teens or in their 20s have poor interaction skills in person and social phobia. Those lead to incredible rejection anxiety. I know from my own experience that some of the best conversations I've had with strangers have been people in their 50s and above who know how to engage in casual conversation and find joy in it rather than angst.
Go to a coffee shop and talk to a stranger. We should all do more of that. It's healthy.
And now everything is much more addictive, and mobile wasn't even that common in 2010. And now we have virtual reality, which when you read the research some scary side effects surface - stuff like "derealization" - basically having a consistent feeling that real life isn't real. Or stuff about ads having deep brainwashing like power.
And almost nobody is working to solve those issues.
[1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocke...
I think you underestimate the anxiety people experience when they go out. I see it when people come out to my meetups, so I make it a point to introduce myself and introduce them to other people.
When I say I wish I had a clever idea to offset the effects of Facebook, I really mean to say, I wish I had a clever idea encouraged people to go out, talk to strangers and make lifelong friends on a Facebook scale.
Worse, the more you connect in the real world the less interesting passive browsing becomes. Sure, you can still use FB to IM, but that's far less profitable for them.
<click><click><click><click>...
The onus is on you to call them, which is already hard enough when both people could initiate the call. It becomes a much rarer event unless concerted effort is made.
So until 'the next big social thing' comes along, I'm essentially out in the cold in many respects. But it's a price I'm willing to pay. I simply can't bring myself to support them in any way. The veneer of goodwill is very easy to see through with their constant manipulation tactics. And besides, it's not all bad; it hasn't stopped me from being invited to major events in my social circle. It's nice not to feel beholden to a website, which was the case when I was a member.
The psychological effects are yet to be studied in depth, I'm sure.
Now, if Facebook manages to release a successful augmented reality platform, they will have no qualms with you going out in the real world. If you're camping in the woods, that's just a nice opportunity for a singalong app to place an ad for you and your buddies. If you're going to the movies, that's an opportunity for Coke to subtly remind you that you can get Coke points on your way.
It would be that Facebook has an incentive to get you out into the real world if they can influence where you go and spend your money. There are many ways you can do that without augmented reality.
Based on eating out, I can say that groups of people still use their phones to connect to Facebook, even with large groups of "Friends" IRL.
1) Log in to Facebook to look at picture of friend's new baby. This is nice.
2) Start browsing around, seeing what other friends have been up to. Oh neato. ... an hour later
3) Looking up people I knew in high school but haven't kept up with. ... another hour later
4) Holy crap, where'd the morning go? I can't do this. Shut it down.
5) Wait ~12 months for next event that draws me to the site. Repeat.
And then once every few months, I decide to dig in to someone's FB page/photos since I haven't thought about them in a long time and what to see what they've been up to.
I get enjoyment out of it. I don't understand why the people who hate it, hate it so much.
[0]: I really struggle with faces and figured Facebook would be perfect for practicing.
[1]: If anyone knows if someone has made a game out of names and faces on the social graph I'd be interested. If not gøfeel free to steal that idea.
It's a "novelty addiction". They weren't the first, it's just its content is closer and more relevant to you since it's people you know. The feeling when you find something new gives you a pleasurable dopamine hit, so you're constantly looking for more.
Same can be said for people addicted to reddit, HN, Twitter, etc.
I'm now placing the onus on going back in and actively going to the feeds of friends and family that I care about; as opposed to the mindless thumbing through the feed.
However, I still think you're onto something. Social media has figured out how to really, at a deep level, grab our attention and keep it.
But it doesn't work on me because I'm not a very social person. I'm pretty far on the 'recluse' spectrum.
For me the beginning of the end was when Facebook created the Newsfeed and started "optimizing" it based on your behavior. Suddenly, content was no longer chronological (including photos in a single post!), all articles were click-bait, and most posts were "on behalf of the user". For example, "So-and-so has liked Pepsi!", "So-and-so has expressed interest in this local event!", etc. All content seems designed to provide the illusion that everyone is always on Facebook. And you should be too!
Luckily, I've found a workaround that fits my workflow well. I'm still a pretty avid RSS (GNU Emacs / Gnus) user, so I added the people I care about to my "Close Friends" group, subscribed to the RSS feed, and read it on my own time. Posts maintain chronological order and are 100% text (unless I choose to click on them). Most importantly, when I'm done sifting through the notifications, I'm done. Since I'm not on the website, Facebook can't manipulate me into wasting my time.
With my luck, they're shut down this feature in the near future.
I stopped using it a few months ago, don't really miss it at all. If you find you're missing someone whom you normally interacted with on Facebook, give them a call.
It looks like someone tried to log into your account on April XX at X:XXxm using an unknown device. Your account is safe; we just wanted to make sure it was you who tried to log in from somewhere new.
If you don't think this was you, please log into Facebook so we can walk you through a few steps to keep your account safe.
Haha nice try Zuck!
So like Meetup but with a stronger online discussion platform?
http://www.meetup.com/
I strongly agree.
I also believe that it is very easy to disturb their black magic.
Ever since I started using Stylish to customize the interface, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it. My version of Facebook remplaces all the blue for red hues and adds a wallpaper. I find that this makes Facebook more tiring to use.
This must be why Facebook is so against browser apps that change their features even when it's only minimally.
Ever since I added the following entry in my /etc/hosts file, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it:
I can use Whatsapp and Instagram without a Facebook account, and there's no reason I couldn't use this new video streaming thing in the same way.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
If such a platform did exist, and I knew about it, I would switch immediately. Their entire business model revolves around getting users addicted, and their history of abusing user's data means I will never be able to even trust the platform.
That being said, I limit my facebook usage to messanger and wishing people happy birthday, so I guess it could be worse.
>That being said, I limit my facebook usage to messanger and wishing people happy birthday, so I guess it could be worse.
You don't need a platform, you need a messaging tool and, if you don't mind the lack of encryption, you could just use email.
As for email, to me it just doesn't serve the same purpose that IM does. It's analogous to sending letters back and forth as opposed to having a face-to-face conversation -- the increased time lag between replies encouraged by the medium has a huge influence on the nature of conversations that occur through it.
I still use email, for example when I want to send something more in-depth to someone and I don't expect a quick reply. But it's not the right tool if I want a real-time, informal conversation with someone, which is most of my conversations.
[0]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-20/whatsapp-s... [1]http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-heres-why-we-just-s...
*Old as in not a teenager
I use Facebook Messenger more often than texts now.
But perhaps more interestingly, I'm neither addicted to Facebook nor worried about this trend. It just fades into the background for me. The real value is the communication I have with other people. And as for the ads... I rarely notice them anymore.
We have very active programming groups (Israeli IOS/Android devs, Javascript Israel), neighborhood and city groups (Secret Tel Aviv), social groups (Burning man Israel) and even a large discussion group about politics and economics.
In fact I hardly ever check my facebook feed anymore, I mostly just go directly to the group I'm interested in.
That was about a year ago. I don't miss it, and I don't feel that I'm missing anything. I think there are plenty of niche, high value aggregators of content, and ways to "connect" that are more useful to me. Such as where I am posting now. And I don't have to feel bad about myself when I use them.
LinkedIn, I still have an active account. But I really don't "get it". The amount of garbage and spam posted by your connections on there, is quickly approaching Facebook levels. I rarely use it, except to clear out inbox requests from head hunters. It's basically a SpaceBook for business people.
1) So I don't get questions about why I'm not on Facebook.
2) To let friends tag me in pictures (and see what pictures are being posted of me).
3) To let friends invite me to parties through Facebook.
4) See pictures of friends' babies.
I think it's good to have a Facebook account. It lets people push stuff to you, and more often I'm seeing invitations coming exclusively through FB. But I personally don't think you're missing anything by not actively using it.
Likewise, LinkedIn can be nice to keep tabs on past colleagues, not those you were close to obviously, but those on your periphery. You don't need to participate in the community to get the biggest benefit, IMO.
It was like removing the carrot-dangling-from-a-stick when I left Facebook.
Not really. If you feel no peer pressure to sign up, great!
For me, I was missing out on events when classmates and even teachers started communicating via Facebook. These days it has died down again in favor of Telegram so I could technically deactivate the account, but I'm keeping it for convenience. Recently saw someone's wedding being announced there, not something I want to be missing out on. I'd have caught on eventually, but this is easier.
It depends how often I check it. If I have lots of stuff I want to do, I might not check it for a month. If I'm bored a lot (i.e. when school begins again after the holidays), I'll probably be on it before Monday morning is out, and be checking it every other day from thereon.
Linkedin:
Depends on your situation and business I'd guess, but as someone with not too much experience with Linkedin, I don't know. I've got it and I actively make connections, but I don't really use it other than that. More of a backup thing.
I find the whole tech platform very promising, and I have a group chat and a couple private chats going on it, but at least in my social circle, we haven't transitioned.
Do you do event invites with it? Do you do family group chats with it? Just wondering.
the key is to use it sparingly and not spend too much time, it has some addictive factor in constant news feed that make news sites look like static HTML pages. it can be a good tool but a bad master
linkedin is purely professional, basically your online CV + network of your colleagues. they tried to make it more FB-like but I don't know a single person who is not recruiter who actually ever checks that.
But personally I don't think that you are missing out.
It's a bit like those friends that stubbornly refused to get a mobile phone in the nineties - I just didn't keep in touch with them as much as my friends that had mobiles. Their argument was that they didn't want to be reachable all the time. Fair enough, but the trade off for them is that they're less reachable socially.
Eventually, of course, they got a phone. And eventually I'm sure everyone will be on Facebook too. There's nothing dystopian about sharing news, plans and photos.