The one greatest internet life hack I discovered in the last couple of years is to delete browser autocompletes (cmd + shift + delete or similar).
Once I became aware of the "slot machine" effect of websites I deleted the default autocompletes for Facebook and Hacker News, for example.
Prior to doing this, if I typed "F" into chrome I went to my Facebook news feed, and "N" in chrome took me to HN.
I deleted those defaults and made it so the autocomplete takes it to my profile on each site. My Facebook profile page is inherently non addictive. It's just me. I can then choose to click on events or whatever.
My HN profile is even more boring. This forces me to make one extra click before viewing the news stories but that single click is enough to stop me from compulsively checking news.
I can't overstate how many hours per week I reclaimed from this one change. It is better for my purposes than any sort of focus blocker. It doesn't prevent me from doing anything, it just removes the addictive trigger.
I also moved my Facebook app from the first screen on my iPhone, and disallowed any notifications. This is better for me than deleting the app. As long as I don't see the little red circle with a number, there's no compulsive reminder.
As a consequence of using this technique I am able to get what I want from web services without the addictive component.
> I deleted those defaults and made it so the autocomplete takes it to my profile on each site. My Facebook profile page is inherently non addictive. It's just me. I can then choose to click on events or whatever.
People are going to start thinking I'm associated with this extension because I bring it up every time Facebook's addictiveness comes up, but Newsfeed Eradicator is a pretty elegant (and more complete) solution to this problem for me. It just removes the newsfeed and puts a daily quotation there instead.
This is a great idea for FB and Reddit. For HN, it's a tougher call for me, I value the topics and discussions a lot more than I do most other sites. But it is probably a giant distraction when taken as a whole.
Slack is another one I've found myself trying to stop compulsively checking. I've been collecting a lot of public slack teams lately.
The only reason I use hackernews is that it's the only site with the "noprocrast" feature. I'm still on here way more often than I should be but getting forced off to get actual stuff done is really great.
Brilliant, thank you. I use Facebook only on my phone, but there's no newsfeed eradicator I can use on my phone. This approximates it. Way less cumbersome than unblocking using 1blocker, but should still be effective.
I use a slightly different trick in the same spirit. I prevent my browser from saving login credentials for Facebook. So, any time I want to check Facebook, I need to type my email address and long password. One can also set the password to be some message one wants to reinforce, eg: 'nomorethanfiveminutes'.
My Facebook hack was to remove it from my home screen. I don't know what it was about having a number next to the app but I just HAD to check it. Just to get rid of the number... 30 minutes later... Wow what a waste of time. So now it sits in my apps and I only see it when I have to access something I don't typically use. This cut me down to using Facebook about once a week max.
I did the "disable notifications" for every single app on my phone, with the exception of Messages (which doesn't vibrate or make a sound) and Phone. Oh, and Pagerduty :)
It's a very positive change. Default setup on phones/apps encourages maximum distraction and slot machine functionality.
I quit Facebook right around the time my son was born. It wasn't for privacy reasons (and frankly, it never bothered me), but rather for the enormous energy and time sink it had become. Truly, it was as if I was a dopamine junkie and Facebook was the pusher of those sweet, sweet red circles with a number in them that meant someone, somewhere vaguely agreed with something you posted. I noticed I was not present in the moment with my newborn son, but rather my brain was hunting for the next quip to post or cute/smug/humblebragish picture to upload.
I quit cold turkey and have never looked back.
I'm off all social media today (except LinkedIn) and have weeded out a lot "friends" who really were just co-enablers in the dopamine rush hunt.
I felt the same - I was alarmed when I realised how much time I spent scrolling through a feed of inane posts, and how Cmd-T, f, down, enter had become almost a reflex.
Most of my "real" friends seemed to have stopped posting on there, yet I was still addicted to scrolling through the feed while waiting for code to compile or whatever (clever design on their part, I guess!).
However, also like you, the privacy side doesn't worry me too much (although as time goes by I do start to think about it more), and I still get some value from communicating with certain people on FB Messenger and being able to access photos from events etc., so instead of quitting, I unfollowed everyone (using a bit of Javascript - I'll try and dig it out).
My feed is now totally blank, so I now only visit maybe twice a day for a few seconds to check for messages (I refuse to install their app - mbasic.facebook.com all the way!). I did think I could refollow people if I felt I was missing out, but surprise surprise, I don't at all.
Of course, I've now replaced reading Facebook with reading Twitter while stuff compiles but at least that's relevant to my work ;)
I'd highly recommend this approach if you feel uncomfortable with your use of Facebook but also value your network of friends on there.
Like you I also dropped it and never looked back for the following simple reasons:
1. It offers nothing while it takes a lot.
2. When something is free, then YOU are the product.
3. Massive violation of privacy (that "like" button on most websites and any other facebook element which now I block with ABP and NoScript)(and all known FB URLs on my hosts file).
4. I can still be in touch with my friend without informing FB (via facebook, instagram, whatsapp) who is my friend and when are we texting.
> 2. When something is free, then YOU are the product.
Debian Linux, Firefox, gcc, visual studio... The list goes on. I think the "you are the product" quip has become an overplayed meme of late. Mutually beneficial / co dependence and such themes are more applicable in more cases than not when it comes to free products and services, in my own view anyways.
I too feel exactly this way with almost everything. Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Email, Messages ... it's kind of tough to escape. Impossible even.
And here's the worst part: We grew up with this shit. My generation was one of the first (1987) to have their formative social years immersed in this shit. That means we'll never escape. Ever. We're literally wired to seek approval of strangers on the internet instead of the people around us. It feels more ... correct? Real? True?
That red circle with a number literally gives more enjoyment than a close friend saying "Heh that's cool". The worst part is that there's likely no cure. Rehab, maybe. But rehab for this shit doesn't exist yet.
Plus try explaining to your boss that you're not reading email and slack and you're never coming back because you're in notification rehab.
I watched the video and the speaker spends a great deal of time making some very elegant (if somewhat obvious) points. But then at the end he comes to the wrong conclusion, Imo. He blames the corporations where millennials work and passes the responsibility for fixing their attention/relationship deficits off to them! This is totally backwards.
Every generation has their dopamine hits. Of course, as society creates more leisure time, the number and (arguably) complexity of these increase. That is the trend. But, as always, the responsibility should be squarely on your own shoulders! You were not "dealt a bad hand." If that's a truth, then everyone ever born was dealt a bad hand. If being born at the time when the length and quality of life (health-wise) is at its longest, then deal me in! There are many, many benefits to being born in this time and as always, it is up to us to find the life we want and the balance we need.
> My generation was one of the first (1987) to have their formative social years immersed in this shit. That means we'll never escape. Ever. We're literally wired to seek approval of strangers on the internet instead of the people around us. It feels more ... correct? Real? True?
I don't think that's really true. I'm about your age, and you were ~20 when the iPhone came out, right? Facebook was just settling in as the tool of choice for every college student, but even then it was mainly just photo-sharing and event-planning. The fact that we missed out on social networking in our entire teenage and preteen years means that we narrowly escaped this.
If you spend any time around people a bit younger than us, the contrast is particularly stark. My cousins are about a decade younger than me (just started college), and throughout high school, Snapchat/Twitter/etc were simply a must-have. The amount of time they spent sharing content and scrolling through others is insane, and if you talk to them about it, they're very aware that it's somewhere between a chore, an addiction, and good ol' fun.
That's the kind of "hardwired into your formative social years" thing that we never really had to deal with.
Impossible is hard to square with the people in this thread (myself included) that did it.
You don't have to tell your boss you're not reading notifications. You just have to eliminate the notifications that serve no purpose except a high. Facebook still spams my email; it's filtered to the trash. Business carries on.
> And here's the worst part: We grew up with this shit. My generation was one of the first (1987) to have their formative social years immersed in this shit.
Yeah, I am only a year away, born in 1988. Our family's first home computer was put in my room when I was 6 years old and my parents were hands-off about using it, so I grew up on multi-player gaming, forums, chat rooms, porn, etc. It's difficult to express how strongly the internet shaped the direction of my life, and I'm not even as addicted as most people.
Not having a phone helps with staying off Facebook...
> those sweet, sweet red circles with a number in them that meant someone, somewhere vaguely agreed with something you posted
Now, you get those whenever you join a group, save an event, have a friend like a post from someone you don't even know, etc etc etc.
I've seen several of my "friends" leave Facebook over the last year simply because the platform isn't a "face book" anymore, but a rough media consumption platform susceptible to manipulation by advertisers, political opponents, nation states, and [dank memes]. It's basically become internet middle school in terms of post quality, and people are noticing.
LinkedIn is perhaps the worst of the bunch though. I see people in "people you may know" that I've already tried to add but LinkedIn will show them to me because I assume they're not the ones spamming if it happens due to me clicking a button. All for a blip in user engagement.
Except Linkedin is boring, inane drivel from "thought leaders" so I'm not even tempted to have a look. At least FB has the occasional picture of someone I care about, or a political link (that inevitably agrees with my already-established view of things)
The thing is, with Facebook, we all knew it was mostly public information and that you'd be a dolt to reveal everything sensitive about yourself in your profile. Most people instinctively know to leave certain tidbits about themselves off of their FB profile.
Whereas with LinkedIn, we are willing to give up much more sensitive and accurate profile data, such as all of our past employers, addresses, phone, email, birthdate, professional experience, headshot, school information, coworkers, etc.
The initial content of a typical LinkedIn profile is much more rich than a starter FB profile. There is no need-to-know for Facebook to have as much "real" information about you as LinkedIn has. I feel that LinkedIn got in through the backdoor with the information most people have provided to it. Though Facebook undoubtedly has more of your day-to-day activities than LinkedIn, which might be more dangerous.
I never personally got suckered into a Facebook profile, one of those (lucky) few that have continued to live on planet earth without a FB account. But LinkedIn is another story, I totally got swooped up in that one for sure.
What about HN (Reddit and like)? May sound funndy, but there are the also reward mechanisms at play when we visit these sites, and they can be affecting work/private life negatively as well.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of people here are confused by the notion of Facebook addiction because they don't personally find the content on Facebook particularly engaging. I certainly don't, but I have experienced the same time sink addiction on reddit and HN.
I quit my Facebook account around ten years ago, but somehow regretted it because I've got out of touch with many people - especially those I never knew so well. FB is definitely nice to somehow superficially keep in touch with acquaintances and old friends.
However, in my opinion their EULA is totally unacceptable, so I cannot use it.
Good point... for this, I'm still using Google+. One circle for immediate family, another for wider family... I don't think I bother sharing photos to any wider circles than that at the moment.
I'm quite surprised with everything the internet is teaching us on a personal and social level.
I noticed on reddit I seek for shallow agreement too. And if a comment gets 0 I'm a bit disappointed. It also taught me that sometimes you get a few downvotes at first but later some people upvote, some even comment. Patience ..
Heh, I _only_ keep Facebook around because it's the most efficient way to provide images of my daughter to our extended family members. Email is just too unwieldy, with many of our family claiming that they've long since forgotten their account credentials.
I find the posting, sharing, and status updates on Facebook to be not valuable, outside of keeping up to date with some family members. I've found the real value of Facebook to be Messenger and groups.
When I first starting FB, as one of the very first schools as part for the site, it worked really well. Now for some reason there are bugs that allow info I don't want not from my friends. I can't figure out how to turn the junk off. Does anyone know how? All I want is info from my FB friends.
I've stopped using it because of all of this junk.
They took something that worked well and made it not work well. Brilliant.
It's too late to join the Leaving Facebook party. If you were a regular user since 2005 and leave now, it does not make any difference anymore. The collected data about you is enough to interpolate your profile for the next decades.
Of course, decentralization is a valid point and it's really important to get people who are kinda "new" to social media on distributed platforms. Twitter is centralized as well and also tracks with buttons and scripts. We need critical masses for e.g. XMPP and OStatus platforms like Mastodon.
This of course also applies to mobile clients like WhatsApp.
Of course I am exaggerating. But IMO people vastly underestimate how similar their own behaviour is to other people. Meaning, if Facebook "knows" me since 12 years (!) it can very precisely categorize me into a group of people. And those other people do not leave Facebook but feed it more information.
I haven't left because I was concerned about the data they were collecting, I left because I realised that I couldn't stop going on facebook, any time my hands were free I would open up my phone and check the feed, scroll through the endless stream of garbage and crap I didn't care about in the slightest. That, and the fact that I was getting really depressed by all the news surrounding brexit, then I would go and read comments and be completely negative about everything, and facebook was just amplifying the negativity tenfold.
I just cut the cord and I am now a lot happier without it, facebook is literally a drug,
I shifted to Twitter for a while and eventually kicked that too. I get the HN daily digest email and generally only visit the links from that, though there are exceptions when I'm looking for something interesting over morning coffee (hence replying to this post at this time). I stopped paying attention to the news media years ago.
I think I'm pretty much free of the 'need' to look at what's 'new' now. You might think this means I have loads more free time to do more important things. I'm still waiting for that to happen.
If you were a regular user since 2005 and leave now, it does not make any
difference anymore. The collected data about you is enough to interpolate
your profile for the next decades.
Does it really matter if you have been on facebook at all? Even if you never
joined, people upload their addressbooks with all of their contacts, they
upload pictures of people never been on facebook and tag them (and share other
information about everyone, which facebook probably is able to use as well). So
essentially facebook builds your social graph no matter if you have ever been a
member or not.
It does make a difference. Just not to care and to give up is no solution
either.
Right exactly. I don't have (and have never had) a Facebook account. But I know that they have much more information about me than I would want them to. They most certainly have some sort of "shadow" account sitting there associating whatever they can to it; friends' address books, photo tagging, etc.
And if you throw in the Instagram wildcard, it gets worse. I signed up for an Instagram account before Facebook purchasing them. I never posted a photo, but I'm sure this still adds to the reach of their shadow profile. People who actively use both Facebook and Instagram, I feel sorry for them.
I do use twitter and google extensively though, so I guess I can't complain or say anything about my social profile. Twitter luckily has a smaller budget, so they can't quite crunch data as hard as Facebook can. But Google owns me, I'm afraid.
I'm not (too) scared about NSA. At least, NSA has some sort of government bureaucracy that slows down their ability and interest in my data; they aren't trying to use me for-profit. I think we should be more scared about what Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, et al. can do, especially because they are generally bound to whatever their current (and fungible) terms of service and privacy policy stipulates. [edit] i.e. policies written for the sole benefit of the share-holders.
Yes - Mastodon! I've been there a couple of months now and I never go on Twitter any more. Find an instance you like, hang with like-minded people, or dip your toe into the Fediverse stream for a firehose of toots. Yes, toots. You know, like a Mastodon would toot....oh nvm.
It is not entirely true that 10 years of past data is enough for fb to draw conclusions on a person. In fact fb is trying more to make people share. You can also try 'tools that fudge info' to confuse fb. If done cleverly, this is a major tool to put fb off the scent.
Also, Quitting fb for mental sanity is a worthwhile reason if not privacy
Key is to reduce FB usage to the minimum while still using its features to socialize and network. FB is like alcohol. Once in a while it's great but FB or alcohol 24/7 makes you sick. Having the app installed on your phone is a no-go.
FB is super crucial when it comes to networking. It is so easy to follow up/stay in touch with people you just met, thanks to real names, a complete social graph, a smooth Messenger experience and a good DNA for that use case ('hey we are friends now', compare this to Linkedin).
What are the other options? Getting the business card and writing an email or text the next days? Works as well but it's more formal and not that subtle. And if you don't have a topic to follow-up with people will forget you and be surprised about your awkward email six months later. Not with FB.
Linkedin is a strange thing, connecting there feels somehow wrong and the messaging experience is subpar.
The crucial argument for me was that I have to trust Facebook forever. Facebook intends to keep your data forever, so you have to trust them for just as long.
I don't think Facebook will go forever without some major data leak. I don't like to count on the competence of corporations in handling secret information.
Similarly, I don't think any human ever looks at Facebook's statistical models for any individual. Facebook likely considers this data of the upmost secrecy. But I'm not sure they'll remain as upstanding decades from now, if they're ever in dire financial straights. In my view, Facebook is only going to get eviler.
There's nothing to stop FB from getting out in front of a leak. They can figure out that someone is writing about a leak and pull a CNN on them before they post it on their blog or whatever.
>"Here’s the thing. You won’t be as outcast and lonely as you think. Your friends—and I know this is hard to believe—are still your friends in real life. You just won’t get notifications of what they ate on their lunch break."
This is so true and you might even find that you interact with your real friends more in real life after quitting Facebook.
"Facebook friends" is really a misnomer that has kind of devalued the word friend in my opinion. I think for the vast majority of connections on FB are more likely to be "Facebook acquaintances." These exists in real life as well, you just might not be as up to date on "what they had for lunch"(quoting the article.
Problem with quitting Facebook has nothing to do with your (real) friends, at least not for me, but for one or two communities (retro computers in this case), 10 years ago they would have been on a forum-like platform, but are now on Facebook instead.
Years ago, a club I was in was using Yahoo Groups, and over time more and more events were posted to Facebook. People complained, and eventually the organizer wrote back "I've been using Facebook because it lets me schedule an event, track RVSP's, link to the location/map, add members, post pics, and help advertise/recruit for more members. Anybody that wants to help or takeover any or all of this, let me know".
Total silence for a day or two before about 50 of us joined Facebook.
That was 8 years ago. I moved away but now I'm in at least 4 clubs that actively use Facebook for events... now it's typical for friends to schedule birthday parties, housewarmings, plain old get-togethers via Facebook private events. Also alumni groups, community events and so on that keep in touch or advertise things to do that way.
The only thing I'm tired of is people that constantly mention how they quit Facebook. I don't care. It serves a useful purpose for me. It's like that Onion article about the guy who doesn't own a TV and mentions that as often as possible - Onion should do an update starring Facebook quitters.
And before anybody suggests it, Meetup isn't a good alternative. (I'm an organizer of a Meetup group as well; I like Meetup but fills a different niche.)
> And before anybody suggests it, Meetup isn't a good alternative.
I agree. And Meetup in general is starting to go downhill here in Seattle. More and more, I'm seeing more "meetups" that are actually more on the lines of suburban "mortgage seminars" but for tech.
Example: Company XYZ launches a new API, so they host a "meetup" with free beer at their HQ where 2/3 of the time is spent by a "developer relations manager" advertising the new API. In the other 1/3 of the meetup, the atmosphere is noticeably awkward and nobody really talks to anyone beyond a friendly hello.
I recently deleted my 10 year old Facebook account and opened a new locked down one that I use only for events. No pictures, no connections to anything else I use, no facebook app on my phone. it's unfortunate but it's basically a necessity.
Even though I deleted my Facebook account earlier this month, I totally agree. Events on Facebook were easily the fullest set of local happenings that I could browse through. Luckily, my girlfriend keeps me updated using her Facebook account, so I don't feel like I'm missing out.
I feel there's significant opportunity for an events dedicated app to really take over. I'll be waiting.
Easy solution I've found: unfollow everyone. Obviously they make this hard for you, you have to unfollow individually and get stopped for "abuse" every once on a while, but it's so rewarding at the end. You get all the benefits of Facebook with none of the addictive qualities.
This is a big one. Meetup is good for group events, and personal invitations are good for close friends, but I haven't really seen anything for the middle.
I joined Facebook some ten years ago. It was pretty useless back then. Couldn't find anyone I know and the UI was fucking hideous. I deleted the account in less than a month and haven't looked back since. Recently I took a job as consultant for an art institution and part of the job is to oversee the use of their social media accounts. Facebook as a marketing venue seems lame. You get tons of traffic but very little loyalty. It just seems that users use Facebook pretty much as a photo gallery. They rarely click on anything and even when they do they visit the site for two minutes and then they leave. As an avid web user I loathe that behavior. It seems to me that fb is actually hurting Internet. They aggregate pretty much everything but their content isn't searchable, not even inside fb itself and they provide little to no value to web sites.
Readit News
Once I became aware of the "slot machine" effect of websites I deleted the default autocompletes for Facebook and Hacker News, for example.
Prior to doing this, if I typed "F" into chrome I went to my Facebook news feed, and "N" in chrome took me to HN.
I deleted those defaults and made it so the autocomplete takes it to my profile on each site. My Facebook profile page is inherently non addictive. It's just me. I can then choose to click on events or whatever.
My HN profile is even more boring. This forces me to make one extra click before viewing the news stories but that single click is enough to stop me from compulsively checking news.
I can't overstate how many hours per week I reclaimed from this one change. It is better for my purposes than any sort of focus blocker. It doesn't prevent me from doing anything, it just removes the addictive trigger.
I also moved my Facebook app from the first screen on my iPhone, and disallowed any notifications. This is better for me than deleting the app. As long as I don't see the little red circle with a number, there's no compulsive reminder.
As a consequence of using this technique I am able to get what I want from web services without the addictive component.
--edit: grammar--
People are going to start thinking I'm associated with this extension because I bring it up every time Facebook's addictiveness comes up, but Newsfeed Eradicator is a pretty elegant (and more complete) solution to this problem for me. It just removes the newsfeed and puts a daily quotation there instead.
Slack is another one I've found myself trying to stop compulsively checking. I've been collecting a lot of public slack teams lately.
But why do you need Facebook app on your iPhone at all? Messenger is enough.
Why do you need Messenger on your phone at all? Snapchat/iMessage/etc is enough.
It's amazing how reflexive opening a tab and going to your favorite distraction is.
I also make sure to put my phone silenced and out of arms reach.
It's a very positive change. Default setup on phones/apps encourages maximum distraction and slot machine functionality.
I quit cold turkey and have never looked back.
I'm off all social media today (except LinkedIn) and have weeded out a lot "friends" who really were just co-enablers in the dopamine rush hunt.
Most of my "real" friends seemed to have stopped posting on there, yet I was still addicted to scrolling through the feed while waiting for code to compile or whatever (clever design on their part, I guess!).
However, also like you, the privacy side doesn't worry me too much (although as time goes by I do start to think about it more), and I still get some value from communicating with certain people on FB Messenger and being able to access photos from events etc., so instead of quitting, I unfollowed everyone (using a bit of Javascript - I'll try and dig it out).
My feed is now totally blank, so I now only visit maybe twice a day for a few seconds to check for messages (I refuse to install their app - mbasic.facebook.com all the way!). I did think I could refollow people if I felt I was missing out, but surprise surprise, I don't at all.
Of course, I've now replaced reading Facebook with reading Twitter while stuff compiles but at least that's relevant to my work ;)
I'd highly recommend this approach if you feel uncomfortable with your use of Facebook but also value your network of friends on there.
1. It offers nothing while it takes a lot.
2. When something is free, then YOU are the product.
3. Massive violation of privacy (that "like" button on most websites and any other facebook element which now I block with ABP and NoScript)(and all known FB URLs on my hosts file).
4. I can still be in touch with my friend without informing FB (via facebook, instagram, whatsapp) who is my friend and when are we texting.
5. FB is the devil :)
Debian Linux, Firefox, gcc, visual studio... The list goes on. I think the "you are the product" quip has become an overplayed meme of late. Mutually beneficial / co dependence and such themes are more applicable in more cases than not when it comes to free products and services, in my own view anyways.
And here's the worst part: We grew up with this shit. My generation was one of the first (1987) to have their formative social years immersed in this shit. That means we'll never escape. Ever. We're literally wired to seek approval of strangers on the internet instead of the people around us. It feels more ... correct? Real? True?
That red circle with a number literally gives more enjoyment than a close friend saying "Heh that's cool". The worst part is that there's likely no cure. Rehab, maybe. But rehab for this shit doesn't exist yet.
Plus try explaining to your boss that you're not reading email and slack and you're never coming back because you're in notification rehab.
Simon Sinek explains it perfectly: https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU?t=195
Every generation has their dopamine hits. Of course, as society creates more leisure time, the number and (arguably) complexity of these increase. That is the trend. But, as always, the responsibility should be squarely on your own shoulders! You were not "dealt a bad hand." If that's a truth, then everyone ever born was dealt a bad hand. If being born at the time when the length and quality of life (health-wise) is at its longest, then deal me in! There are many, many benefits to being born in this time and as always, it is up to us to find the life we want and the balance we need.
I don't think that's really true. I'm about your age, and you were ~20 when the iPhone came out, right? Facebook was just settling in as the tool of choice for every college student, but even then it was mainly just photo-sharing and event-planning. The fact that we missed out on social networking in our entire teenage and preteen years means that we narrowly escaped this.
If you spend any time around people a bit younger than us, the contrast is particularly stark. My cousins are about a decade younger than me (just started college), and throughout high school, Snapchat/Twitter/etc were simply a must-have. The amount of time they spent sharing content and scrolling through others is insane, and if you talk to them about it, they're very aware that it's somewhere between a chore, an addiction, and good ol' fun.
That's the kind of "hardwired into your formative social years" thing that we never really had to deal with.
You don't have to tell your boss you're not reading notifications. You just have to eliminate the notifications that serve no purpose except a high. Facebook still spams my email; it's filtered to the trash. Business carries on.
Yeah, I am only a year away, born in 1988. Our family's first home computer was put in my room when I was 6 years old and my parents were hands-off about using it, so I grew up on multi-player gaming, forums, chat rooms, porn, etc. It's difficult to express how strongly the internet shaped the direction of my life, and I'm not even as addicted as most people.
Not having a phone helps with staying off Facebook...
Now, you get those whenever you join a group, save an event, have a friend like a post from someone you don't even know, etc etc etc.
I've seen several of my "friends" leave Facebook over the last year simply because the platform isn't a "face book" anymore, but a rough media consumption platform susceptible to manipulation by advertisers, political opponents, nation states, and [dank memes]. It's basically become internet middle school in terms of post quality, and people are noticing.
Whereas with LinkedIn, we are willing to give up much more sensitive and accurate profile data, such as all of our past employers, addresses, phone, email, birthdate, professional experience, headshot, school information, coworkers, etc.
The initial content of a typical LinkedIn profile is much more rich than a starter FB profile. There is no need-to-know for Facebook to have as much "real" information about you as LinkedIn has. I feel that LinkedIn got in through the backdoor with the information most people have provided to it. Though Facebook undoubtedly has more of your day-to-day activities than LinkedIn, which might be more dangerous.
I never personally got suckered into a Facebook profile, one of those (lucky) few that have continued to live on planet earth without a FB account. But LinkedIn is another story, I totally got swooped up in that one for sure.
However, in my opinion their EULA is totally unacceptable, so I cannot use it.
I noticed on reddit I seek for shallow agreement too. And if a comment gets 0 I'm a bit disappointed. It also taught me that sometimes you get a few downvotes at first but later some people upvote, some even comment. Patience ..
I've stopped using it because of all of this junk.
They took something that worked well and made it not work well. Brilliant.
You really should quit linkedin as well. Their security is like a screen door on a submarine.
Of course, decentralization is a valid point and it's really important to get people who are kinda "new" to social media on distributed platforms. Twitter is centralized as well and also tracks with buttons and scripts. We need critical masses for e.g. XMPP and OStatus platforms like Mastodon.
This of course also applies to mobile clients like WhatsApp.
Did Facebook recently hire Hari Seldon?
Of course I am exaggerating. But IMO people vastly underestimate how similar their own behaviour is to other people. Meaning, if Facebook "knows" me since 12 years (!) it can very precisely categorize me into a group of people. And those other people do not leave Facebook but feed it more information.
I just cut the cord and I am now a lot happier without it, facebook is literally a drug,
I think I'm pretty much free of the 'need' to look at what's 'new' now. You might think this means I have loads more free time to do more important things. I'm still waiting for that to happen.
It does make a difference. Just not to care and to give up is no solution either.
And if you throw in the Instagram wildcard, it gets worse. I signed up for an Instagram account before Facebook purchasing them. I never posted a photo, but I'm sure this still adds to the reach of their shadow profile. People who actively use both Facebook and Instagram, I feel sorry for them.
I do use twitter and google extensively though, so I guess I can't complain or say anything about my social profile. Twitter luckily has a smaller budget, so they can't quite crunch data as hard as Facebook can. But Google owns me, I'm afraid.
I'm not (too) scared about NSA. At least, NSA has some sort of government bureaucracy that slows down their ability and interest in my data; they aren't trying to use me for-profit. I think we should be more scared about what Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, et al. can do, especially because they are generally bound to whatever their current (and fungible) terms of service and privacy policy stipulates. [edit] i.e. policies written for the sole benefit of the share-holders.
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I haven't updated my FB account since I graduated college and it feels great.
If FB wants to obsessively and endlessly analyze the profile and posts of my college-self, it's free to do so.
Any way, it's pretty engaging. Check it out.
http://joinmastodon.org
Also, Quitting fb for mental sanity is a worthwhile reason if not privacy
FB is super crucial when it comes to networking. It is so easy to follow up/stay in touch with people you just met, thanks to real names, a complete social graph, a smooth Messenger experience and a good DNA for that use case ('hey we are friends now', compare this to Linkedin).
What are the other options? Getting the business card and writing an email or text the next days? Works as well but it's more formal and not that subtle. And if you don't have a topic to follow-up with people will forget you and be surprised about your awkward email six months later. Not with FB.
Linkedin is a strange thing, connecting there feels somehow wrong and the messaging experience is subpar.
FB is like alcohol with an entire team of people constantly engineering it to get more and more people using it more and more often.
I don't think Facebook will go forever without some major data leak. I don't like to count on the competence of corporations in handling secret information.
Similarly, I don't think any human ever looks at Facebook's statistical models for any individual. Facebook likely considers this data of the upmost secrecy. But I'm not sure they'll remain as upstanding decades from now, if they're ever in dire financial straights. In my view, Facebook is only going to get eviler.
>"Here’s the thing. You won’t be as outcast and lonely as you think. Your friends—and I know this is hard to believe—are still your friends in real life. You just won’t get notifications of what they ate on their lunch break."
This is so true and you might even find that you interact with your real friends more in real life after quitting Facebook.
"Facebook friends" is really a misnomer that has kind of devalued the word friend in my opinion. I think for the vast majority of connections on FB are more likely to be "Facebook acquaintances." These exists in real life as well, you just might not be as up to date on "what they had for lunch"(quoting the article.
What does FB provide your two communities that wouldn't be available via a Slack Channel/Blog/mailing list/subreddit etc?
I don't know any good alternative. For example it's still missing in Diaspora: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/1359
Years ago, a club I was in was using Yahoo Groups, and over time more and more events were posted to Facebook. People complained, and eventually the organizer wrote back "I've been using Facebook because it lets me schedule an event, track RVSP's, link to the location/map, add members, post pics, and help advertise/recruit for more members. Anybody that wants to help or takeover any or all of this, let me know".
Total silence for a day or two before about 50 of us joined Facebook.
That was 8 years ago. I moved away but now I'm in at least 4 clubs that actively use Facebook for events... now it's typical for friends to schedule birthday parties, housewarmings, plain old get-togethers via Facebook private events. Also alumni groups, community events and so on that keep in touch or advertise things to do that way.
The only thing I'm tired of is people that constantly mention how they quit Facebook. I don't care. It serves a useful purpose for me. It's like that Onion article about the guy who doesn't own a TV and mentions that as often as possible - Onion should do an update starring Facebook quitters.
And before anybody suggests it, Meetup isn't a good alternative. (I'm an organizer of a Meetup group as well; I like Meetup but fills a different niche.)
I agree. And Meetup in general is starting to go downhill here in Seattle. More and more, I'm seeing more "meetups" that are actually more on the lines of suburban "mortgage seminars" but for tech.
Example: Company XYZ launches a new API, so they host a "meetup" with free beer at their HQ where 2/3 of the time is spent by a "developer relations manager" advertising the new API. In the other 1/3 of the meetup, the atmosphere is noticeably awkward and nobody really talks to anyone beyond a friendly hello.
I log in to Facebook on Thursday to see what might be happening on the weekend, and leave it at that. Once a week is more than enough.
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