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Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

nytimes.com

181–190 of 228 posts

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#181
post #176

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 pos…

Except the problem doesn't seem to be the technology, just the way you were using it. You engaged in behavior there you don't engage in in real life (for pretty much the same reasons we don't do it in real life). The problem with the internet and social media is a lot of people not realizing they aren't that different to real life, and have been getting less and less different.

Oh no, I engaged in the same way. I have opinions & I share rhem with friends. To be honest, I have stopped doing that too, any kind of social network is a time sink, including HN, reddit. Of course they are immensely helpful, but not if you are addicted to them.

Two yrs after cutting fb/whatsapp I am writing a sci fi novel, on the 80'th page!

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#182
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or uninstall the app, the mobile website works well and doesn't slurp your battery in the background.

Unfortunately you can't on most phones ... Facebook is a system app.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#183
I have dropped facebook for everything but events. I muted / unfollowed everybody, disabled all non-event notifications, and cleared out a lot of personal information.

What set this off was seeing a a buddy I hadn't spoken with in nearly a decade. Typically bumping into an old friend and catching up would be great, but we both knew nearly everything about each other due to our investment in social media. We still had stuff to talk about, but I felt somewhat robbed of that moment.

From day one I avoided adding people from high school or other areas of my life where I wasn't interested in sharing real-world social experiences. It might sound harsh, but I just don't care what these strangers are up to.

Social media is fine for some people, but I've never been happier to be ignorant of my friend's lives until I spend real time with them.

That being said, the event organization aspect of Facebook is great, and I know a lot of people who have stayed with the site for the same reason. The sooner a simple, centralized event organization platform becomes popular, the sooner we can start a proper exodus.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#184

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 pos…

Ditto to the ditto to the dit-tt-o.

Down vote me all anyone likes for this inane I have to totally agree with this absolute truth.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#185
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…]

The irony, of course, is that it was branded a social-utility.

Anything but.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#186
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend more time on HN than on FB by a fair margin now. I probably need to start reigning it in... :P

Luckily, HN has a handy no-proscrastination feature! :)

Tell me more about this!

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#187
post #64
post #37

That's more like Instagram than Facebook.[1] There are paid "Facebook influencers" [2] but it doesn't seem to be as big a thing as on Instagram. Remember, sharing is spamming. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/may/05/earn-a-living-... [2] https://socialix.com/facebook-influencers

Can you expand more on the _sharing is spamming_ ? Seems like a point with some depth to it.

Everything you share is visible to all your friends AND their friends, so you are grabbing attention of few hundreds/thousands of people, most of whom are total strangers to you - that's called spamming.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#188
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been free of Facebook for more than 3 years. There's never been a single moment where I felt I was missing out. Even the staying in touch - for those that matter we found other ways to stay connected. The final straw for me was actually a girl from my elementary school who wanted to friend me. The chat went like this... Me: I have to ask you something. So we haven't seen each other for decades, the last time being wh…

Honestly that's de facto a pretty dick move, despite whatever might make sense in an ideal world

A pretty dick move on her part for wanting to be included in a complete strangers personal circle?

I think that questioning the motive was justified.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#189
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a social advantage to being able to speak about current events. There is also a part of the news that a well-informed citizen should know about. There are things everyone can do about injustice that require us to know injustice took place. Sadly, the above part of the news isn't the focus off modern news media. The sensationalist spin doesn't help much either. What I'm trying to say is that news, in and of i…

Most news doesn't actually inform us in any meaningful way though. Here in the U.K. the last three weeks have been endless repetition of media managed slogans and photo opportunities. There are very real injustices happening in the world - in Syria and in Chechnya for instance - but they're routinely ignored unless you really go looking for them.

Resonates with me, living in Spain and listening to BBC news for the past 12 months wondering if anything actually happens in the UK aside from a handful of headline events?

Seems like anything that does get reported is merely an opportunity to spin the narrative towards their ideological agenda?

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