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Why I deleted my Facebook account

blakewatson.com

91–100 of 327 posts

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#91
Similar boat to everyone else. Have had an FB account for ages. But gradually used it less as opposed to more. Barely use it at all now. Social Media has just never really my bag.

I don't really see the value in deleting it as I don't really use it and it does offer me a connection to old friends if I'm so inclined to contact them.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#93
post #10

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…

It's never too late. The day you quit FB is the day you reclaim a lot of time you spend on FB.

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.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#94
I never had an account because I never had a need to and can't see any advantages to having one.

There are lots of articles about how the price of using Facebook is your privacy but I've never seen one explaining to me what you get for that price and why you'd want that.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#95
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> social networking online... Isn't this a manufactured problem/requirement? EDIT: I mean, did people have this problem before social networks?

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Surely you can't be suggesting that social interaction between human beings is a "manufactured" requirement?

No. Social interaction between human beings has been going on well before these social networks.

The manufactured requirement is the need to reach to every person we ever know and share every little detail of your life with them, possibly multiple times a day, in return for their some kind of acknowledgement...

That is the manufactured need and that is what people are hooked on.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#96

For most people I know, we're only using facebook for events and as a centralized location where I can basically contact anybody. The sooner someone creates a standalone, sustainable event organizing application that doesn't spam you to death, the sooner the exodus can begin.

google calendar?

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#97
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Surely you can't be suggesting that social interaction between human beings is a "manufactured" requirement?

No. Social interaction between human beings has been going on well before these social networks. The manufactured requirement is the need to reach to every person we ever know and share every little detail of your life with them, possibly multiple times a day, in return for their some kind of acknowledgement... That is the manufactured need and that is what people are hooked on.

Social interaction between human beings was also severely limited for most of human history as soon as geographical distance was introduced. You don't have to look further back than the massive emigrations to the US from Europe, it completely shattered extended families. The need to communicate with the people you love is not "manufactured", what's always been missing is a well working and easy to use solution for it online. Facebook solves a problem, I don't even see a controversy in that statement. If they didn't, people wouldn't use it.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#98

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…

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.

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.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#99

I regret deleting my original Facebook account. I made it around the time they opened to every college in the US and there was a lot of history there, photos and videos and text. Sure most of it was worthless and maybe even embarrassing but that data is gone now.

I did the same and I regret it too, I wasn't really thinking of the consequences at the time.

I rejoined FB last year or so, but their "recover your deleted data" feature recovered nothing, presumably they do a permanent delete after 2 years or something rather than a soft one.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#100
post #83

If you're not sure you want to delete your Facebook account completely, but think maybe you might want to reduce your use of it, then uninstalling the app from your phone is very helpful (Assuming you have it on your phone). That worked very well for me. I used to have it on my phone and would check it all the time. Then I decided I didn't want to do that so I uninstalled it from my phone. Doing so helped me reduce a…

The best thing I ever did was to disable all notifications on my phone, other than text messages and direct instant messages.

No Facebook, email or other app notifications. It has severely reduced my tendency to constantly check my phone, and it doesn't buzz in my pocket all the friggin time.

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