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What should you think about when using Facebook?

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Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#221
post #155
post #150

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I deactivated my account over a year ago. Facebook will not delete your account, deactivate is the best you can do. Interestingly I went to a Facebook event at their headquarters and when I signed in, there was my profile picture staring back at me. I thought pulling it out of my deactivated account was in poor taste. Anyway, I can say I'm happier without it. I'm now seriously considering deactivating my Twitter acco…

I thought Facebook does delete your account. Do you have a source?

Facebook can remove it from public view however any posts you make are the property of Facebook and so they continue to hold onto it.

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#222
post #199

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I didn't have a plan for replacing the social contact of Facebook when I quit. I lost contact with a lot of people. But it turned out that most were acquaintances, not friends, and I could do without them. My acquaintances now are the people I see every day, the doormen and baristas I meet but don't become close with, and I find this means my acquaintances include more variety of people as a result. And the real frie…

Facebook prevented you from becoming acquaintences with doormen and baristas?

Yes. Your experience might be different, but I have a limited capacity for the number of people I can remember basic facts about to be polite, so when I was keeping track of 100+ people on Facebook I didn't have the mental space to keep track of people who I met in my day-to-day.

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#223
post #132

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So after the death of a parent, an old, close childhood friend that lives far away sends you a message saying "your mom was a second mother to me" and it means nothing...? It means something to me. So I continue to use the service.

Those people sent letters and sympathy cards - actual handwritten ones! And they called too - actually spoke on the telephone. I know, it's a little wacky, but it works.

It's the quality of the thought, not the medium for which it's conveyed.

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#224

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Facebook publishes ARPU numbers every quarter. Users in the US and Canada were worth $19.81 each in 2017 Q4, with $4.83 being the worldwide average. [1] This pays for the programmers, storage, offices and other costs. Facebook had a net income of $3.6bn from 1.86bn monthly active users, or $1.93 per user. I don't think many users are going to work for what Facebook could reasonably pay out of that.... Worse, any remo…

Why would you spread it out evenly? Of course that makes no sense. It's more like, you pay out to the users that generate a lot of views, and after a threshold. If 1/100 users is a great content generator, the idea that they may make $100/mo is very attractive to switch (and take their followers with them). As for fake accounts, you bundle in the proof-of-identity stuff and whatever else current networks use to keep…

So you don't think there's enough clickbait fake news on Facebook, and you want to incentivize its creation?

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#225

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I'm now over one year Facebook-free. As with most things (especially online things) I don't even remember why it was so appealing in the first place. The fear of missing out fades really fast. And as someone else mentioned in this thread, I feel like I value actual friendship a bit more. If anyone's interested in really ditching Facebook and preventing it from injecting junk into the sites you visit and tracking you,…

Nice post! I deleted my Facebook account about 2 or 3 weeks ago and I haven't been happier. Before pulling the plug though, I spent a couple days babysitting a post deletion script that wasn't as autonomous as I've hoped. However, I was able to delete my first 3 years and last 5 years of Facebook posts and a decent amount of recent likes/reactions. I think if you really want to make sure Facebook doesn't have data di…

You're assuming the deletion actually deletes stuff. I doubt it does.

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice post! I deleted my Facebook account about 2 or 3 weeks ago and I haven't been happier. Before pulling the plug though, I spent a couple days babysitting a post deletion script that wasn't as autonomous as I've hoped. However, I was able to delete my first 3 years and last 5 years of Facebook posts and a decent amount of recent likes/reactions. I think if you really want to make sure Facebook doesn't have data di…

You're assuming the deletion actually deletes stuff. I doubt it does.

I'm hoping it does, that's why I did it. At least I have piece of mind, which may very well be false.

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#227

If you're looking to use Facebook less (but can't bring yourself to quit) I just launched a tool for that! http://youjustneedspace.com The iOS version is a web app because Apple rejected our native app. They said any app that encourages you to use your phone less is not appropriate for the app store.

Did you bring up the number of apps which either block a tone of sites with a simulated con or notify you until you reopen the app to keep you off you're phone?

We're going through the appeal process right now. We've gathered lists of web content block apps, workflow style apps, and icon skinning apps. I'm not familiar with that last category of apps (notify you until you reopen the app to keep you off you're phone). Can you give me an example?

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#229
post #103

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To my knowledge, your account is never actually gone but instead deactivated. Not sure if there is a grace period to that, but as anondon said you can get an archive of all your data (which is what I did before deleting my account).

Facebook provides a real delete option. It's hidden but it's there. https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account

This was the exact option I used.

Re: What should you think about when using Facebook?

#230
A long while back (2012?) i deleted my Facebook account without really thinking it through, and i lost contact with a bunch of people i'd met during an overseas period. I still find that a bit of a pity, but ultimately (as cynical as it sounds) life goes on, and i've found more compatible people whom i care more about in the meantime.

However, a few years ago i recreated a Facebook profile (this time a pseudonym with initially 0 friends) because some of the events i'm interested in (local music/art galleries for example) only publish their events on Facebook, it seems. No mailing list available, invariably. This is a pity, because i don't have friends to rely on to drag me to the good gigs (i like to keep up-to-date with local experimental music, for example, which my friends don't care for).

And, the problem too, is that inevitably, i've made one or two friends with that account, partly with my previous FB experience in mind, and partly because they seemed belligerently anti-email (and texting isn't practical when you're in another country). So now i'm far from being back to square one, and i only look at Facebook about once every month, but i still would love to just get rid of it, except i don't really know how to handle musicians and artists who only publish their upcoming events on Facebook. But aside from that, the comments are spot on. If people can't be arsed to email me if i prefer email (and i, too, believe that i am easily google'able), they're probably not really worth chasing.

Does that exist? Like-on-Facebook-and-relay-via-email-as-a-Service?

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