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Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

nytimes.com

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Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#81

Post by feocco »

wutbrodo wrote: post #73
majewsky wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When my mind needs a short break" sounds like you should give meditation a shot.

Yea, but for a lot of people who are just starting to get better at practicing mindfulness, it's not a 100% solution yet and you end up doing things like FB anyway, just more rarely. (I know that was the case for me at least)

I actually hadn't heard the term mindfulness. I think meditation is something I'll need to give a serious try with that in mind. I can see the possible benefits.

You're right on the latter part. But as of late I've gone to the extreme and deactivated all but Snapchat for social media. As well as using Cold Turkey and editing my hosts file's to keep me away from certain sites.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#82

Post by feocco »

nihonde wrote: post #49
feocco wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment thread hits the nail on the head for why I deactivated my social media. But I haven't found a good alternative "productive" time waster for when my mind needs a short break.

I like to waste time on YouTube and Wikipedia. They're good idle browsing for autodidacts.

TIL I'm an autodidact and that I have a very similar tastes to nihonde :P

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#85

Post by omegaworks »

kahoon wrote: post #63
spacelizard wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed Facebook seems to be really good at spamming me with useless notifications, it even somehow manages to do it after I've unfriended 90% of the people that I am not close friends with and blocked most notification types. Yeah I could prune my friends list even further and only check it passively, but then all I'm stuck with is basically an incredibly bloated email/chat service that is loaded with ads. Then…

Can't you just disable notifications from the Facebook app? Android allows it, and I reckon iOS does too. I found this to be a nice solution to deal with obnoxious apps because you remove the annoyance but can still use them should the need arise.

You can disable notifications, but on Samsung android you can't get rid of the red badges without disabling them for all apps.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#86

Post by MilnerRoute »

spacelizard wrote: post #12
tsm wrote: post #5

Facebook doesn't make me miserable because I feel like I'm having less fun and being less glamorous than the friends on my news feed—it makes me miserable because it's an addicting timewaster with minimal utility and I'd much rather be [reading a book, playing music, writing software, hanging out with friends IRL, working on a project, sleeping, watching TV…]

I've noticed Facebook seems to be really good at spamming me with useless notifications, it even somehow manages to do it after I've unfriended 90% of the people that I am not close friends with and blocked most notification types. Yeah I could prune my friends list even further and only check it passively, but then all I'm stuck with is basically an incredibly bloated email/chat service that is loaded with ads. Then…

Some time last year Facebook began giving me notifications within the application that... "Your friend uploaded a photo" or "your friend updated their status."

Maybe this is because I stopped using Facebook for so long, there weren't any real notifications to give me. They wanted it to seem like I'd missed something.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#87

Post by wutbrodo »

AlexMuir wrote: post #3

I'm not sure where I read this suggestion, but a couple of months ago I unfollowed everyone on FB. Now my newsfeed is basically empty - and my Facebook experience is much improved. I highly recommend it.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

This works pretty well for me (though only on desktop, unfortunately).

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#88

Post by blizkreeg »

The biggest mistake (or genius move, depending on how you look at it), IMO that Facebook made is to show you cards in your feed about what your friends liked or commented on or when a totally random person says something about your friend. You don't know any of the parties involved in this but somehow are being shoved a photo, a video, or something else about them.

Obviously this is the addictive part for a large number of people, an endless stream of crap to keep looking at. Had the exact opposite effect on me. It finally drove me away from Facebook. I just realized my feed was utterly useless at that point.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#89

Post by simonsarris »

kstenerud wrote: post #16

It's interesting how the vast majority of responses to this post are from people who have either left facebook entirely, or severely crippled it. Are the majority of HN folks off facebook, or is it just the vocal ones?

I use it and really like it to share photography and keep in touch, but I think its degraded a lot recently.

So many people share articles that they've never read, they're really just sharing a headline. Or post from useless meme pages (I can go to reddit or something for that). So I have hidden almost every article source ("Hide all from Buzzfeed/NYT/science memes page" etc)

All I want to see are people's mundane life updates and baby photos, personal projects, and other "lives of my friends" things. I love that facebook is an open letter system to your friends, I just wish more people would use it that way.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#90

Post by 0xfaded »

Facebook makes me miserable because it has become the defacto medium for social communication. When decent alternatives arrive offering end to end encryption, Facebook goes and buys them.

Say what you will, but WhatsApp/Messenger usage statistics correlated with Facebook usage statistics of less privacy conscious contacts can still paint a pretty damn good picture (read marketing profile).

You literally can't use any popular (digital) communication methods without opening yourself to advertisers or those wanting to buy an election. It's a minor miracle we still have email.

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