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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

#151

Post by vinbreau »

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…]

It makes me miserable because I see people spouting ignorant nonsense as if from authority. It shows me the effect media has on my aging family members. It shows me bigotry in friends I had thought better of. And it appears to be accelerating.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#152

Post by mmackh »

I have a strategy for making facebook a lot less interesting:

1. Unfollow (not unfriend, i.e. not noticable) all your friends - this will clean up your newsfeed and confuse the algorithm

2. Follow some pages that do not post a lot from brands you are interested in

3. Uninstall the facebook mobile app and increase your battery

All in all, I can still use messenger for some things but without the load that facebook brings to the table. You might miss out on some things but you'll be happier because you are oblivious.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#153

Post by Chathamization »

sdrothrock wrote: post #131
pradn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely post on Facebook any more. Finding something agreeable to all my friends and family and still being authentic to myself is hard, and a losing game. Instagram can be made into something that is not just a mirror of your Facebook. If there's little difference between the two, you end up with the same problems - FOMO, envy, self-loathing. Instead, if you follow artists/photographers/creatives, you can find an i…

> I rarely post on Facebook any more. Finding something agreeable to all my friends and family and still being authentic to myself is hard, and a losing game. This is my primary issue with Facebook and one of the reasons I stopped using it. It's fine while you have a tight social circle, but once you have several social circles on Facebook, it's very difficult to navigate those kinds of tastes, whereas in real life i…

Yeah. I think I really stopped using Facebook when it decided to tell all of my contacts the things I was saying in a particular Facebook group. Thankfully it was something that was fairly non-controversial, but the complete lack of respect for privacy was stunning.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#154

Post by chki »

Inconel wrote: post #136
sdrothrock wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I rarely post on Facebook any more. Finding something agreeable to all my friends and family and still being authentic to myself is hard, and a losing game. This is my primary issue with Facebook and one of the reasons I stopped using it. It's fine while you have a tight social circle, but once you have several social circles on Facebook, it's very difficult to navigate those kinds of tastes, whereas in real life i…

I've never used FB but I did use Google+ for a while, not really for the social aspects but instead to join Android app betas, this was before Google moved the beta signups to the Play Store, and I always found the way G+ allowed you to define different circles to be a very nice feature. I know G+ gets a lot of hate but the circles aspect seemed well implemented and made compartmentalizing your different social/profe…

Facebook does actually allow something similar, at least I have seen some actual (offline) Facebook ads in Europe that described your exact problem and introduced the possibility to share only with "close friends" or "family".

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#155

Post by localhost3000 »

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 feel the same way so I built a Chrome extension that replaces the News Feed with a todo list [1].

If I complete all my todos I get to use News Feed for 5 minutes.

I had tried blocking fb entirely a few times but I always churned and unblocked it... So I thought instead maybe if I could redirect myself to a productive task any time I tried to use News Feed, the most addicting/distracting part of the site for me, that might help. (it has and I love it!)

[1] Todobook: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/todobook/ihbejplhk...

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#156

Post by newbear »

localhost3000 wrote: post #155
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 feel the same way so I built a Chrome extension that replaces the News Feed with a todo list [1]. If I complete all my todos I get to use News Feed for 5 minutes. I had tried blocking fb entirely a few times but I always churned and unblocked it... So I thought instead maybe if I could redirect myself to a productive task any time I tried to use News Feed, the most addicting/distracting part of the site for me, tha…

But does it work in incognito ??

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#157

Post by Chathamization »

carte_blanche wrote: post #119

Like the majority of the people here, I use Facebook sparingly, but I constantly need to go back there because of numerous groups that I follow. Is there any way to sideline the infamous "news feed" and instead curate a manual feed containing only group posts?

Are they groups of friends or general interest groups? I created a fake profile where I just join groups I'm interested in, and it's worked pretty well. It's just about the only way I use Facebook these days - I only check my "real" profile once every 2-4 weeks for a minute or two to see if I received any messages.

The only downside is some groups won't accept you if you don't have any friends, but there doesn't seem to be many like that.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#158

Post by jehlakj »

Seriously? Who says that we have no choice but to compare ourselves with others?

Facebook is a great way to stay connected with old friends. There's a pleasant feeling about seeing how the people you once knew are doing these days.

If you do inevitably end up focusing more on the Maserati, the million dollar wedding, etc., then that's your problem. Your insecurity. Whenever I scroll past those things, I simply say, "Cool" and move on.

And to the people who stopped using Facebook altogether to help them concentrate better: Self-control. It's like how a lactose intolerant person blames the ice-cream in the freezer for making them eat it.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#159

Post by gaius »

MilnerRoute wrote: post #86
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…

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.

I recently spent a week out of any mobile signal range and when I got back, I had email from FB (normally I don't get notifications by email, just in the app) for the most banal things like "Friend X has just uploaded a photo!". FB definitely enters panic mode if a regular user doesn't use it for a short while.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#160

Post by thewhitetulip »

I cut facebook out of my life three momths ago when I realized a pattern of my activities. Something hapened and I ranted there about my thoughts, others were offended ao they commented & we would fight not understanding each other.

Then I used to ignore them and continue.

Then one fine day, I sat on a bus, there was something going on about Kashmir and Indian military and I found that the guy next to me was also posting in a heated discussoon.

It was there that I figured out we are wasting time, we think our opinions matter, but they don't. Fb is just a waste of time. Of course, if you use it to stay in touch with frnds then it's a great tool, but there are other tools for that, if you can't get your friends on something say telegram's secret chat or signal (i hear it is peivacy focused) then it's a tragedy.

I have been living peacefully without fb/whatsapp.

Life is amazing when you realize the crazy volume of time we spend on whatsapp & the return on that time is nothing. We are superficially in touch with people

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