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Why I deleted my Facebook account

blakewatson.com

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Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#231

Post by swiley »

whiddershins wrote: post #216

The one greatest internet life hack I discovered in the last couple of years is to delete browser autocompletes (cmd + shift + delete or similar). Once I became aware of the "slot machine" effect of websites I deleted the default autocompletes for Facebook and Hacker News, for example. Prior to doing this, if I typed "F" into chrome I went to my Facebook news feed, and "N" in chrome took me to HN. I deleted those def…

The only reason I use hackernews is that it's the only site with the "noprocrast" feature. I'm still on here way more often than I should be but getting forced off to get actual stuff done is really great.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#233

Post by kodt »

Draiken wrote: post #173
Bakary wrote: post #162

I stopped using Facebook for a variety of reasons years ago and I am starting to regret it. In my case it had a clear negative effect on my social life, since friendships are heavily based on repeated unplanned interactions and many of these now occur on the service. If you add to this the friction of contacting someone outside of the service (in a context where they are a clear minority), the slight difference build…

You say "friendships" but I don't believe that's the exact word. Real friendships will continue to survive and thrive, as they did before Facebook, as long as both parties keep trying. If a "friend" of mine won't invite me to a party because I don't have Facebook, he's not really my friend. It's as simple as that for me. Of course we probably differ on what we define as friendship, but I believe you'd agree that havi…

How many friends do you think a person would have if they refused to use a computer or telephone and required all communication to come by way of hand written letters or telegrams?

People would think that person is strange and likely not interact with them or bother to invite them to events.

Sadly, this is becoming partially the case with Facebook. I am not talking about existing friends, but making new friends, especially among young people where Facebook is the norm and they don't remember a time before the internet and cell phones.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#234

Post by kodt »

One issue now is many social groups and businesses primarily communicate through Facebook. I was part of a subreddit that was basically dead, gaining no users only around 30 active people. The mod decided to create a Facebook group instead, that group quickly ballooned to 1,000 members and now has over 7,000, this is for a single metropolitan area. The subreddit still exists but has very little activity or useful information. If you want to be a part of that community Facebook is pretty much your only choice.

I also follow a number of small business in a certain industry, and I would say 100% of them have Facebook accounts, 90% have websites, 50% have decent/good websites, 10% actually update and post news to their website. A good amount use Twitter & Instagram, but all post events, news, promotions, etc.. on Facebook. If you want to follow these businesses, you have to use Facebook to do so.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#235

Post by softawre »

ivm wrote: post #228
whiddershins wrote: post #216

The one greatest internet life hack I discovered in the last couple of years is to delete browser autocompletes (cmd + shift + delete or similar). Once I became aware of the "slot machine" effect of websites I deleted the default autocompletes for Facebook and Hacker News, for example. Prior to doing this, if I typed "F" into chrome I went to my Facebook news feed, and "N" in chrome took me to HN. I deleted those def…

Yes, I have a separate laptop for all the distracting sites including HN. My main machine is for work. But why do you need Facebook app on your iPhone at all? Messenger is enough.

Would you really be surprised to learn that others use technology differently than you?

Why do you need Messenger on your phone at all? Snapchat/iMessage/etc is enough.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#236

Post by softawre »

bogomipz wrote: post #229
_lbaq wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem with quitting Facebook has nothing to do with your (real) friends, at least not for me, but for one or two communities (retro computers in this case), 10 years ago they would have been on a forum-like platform, but are now on Facebook instead.

Well FB is also a "forum-like" platform. What does that mean? What does FB provide your two communities that wouldn't be available via a Slack Channel/Blog/mailing list/subreddit etc?

The fact that all of those people are already in the community on Facebook?

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#237

Post by pmlnr »

colordrops wrote: post #126
djhworld wrote: post #102

I returned to FB last year after a 3-4 year hiatus. I limit my use of it, maybe one visit p/day or less, it seems to work OK. The nice thing about it is I get to see photos of my family and friends who I don't see often. I visit Hacker News more than I visit Facebook, I'm not sure what that says about me.

I just returned myself after about the same length of time. I was shocked to find that most content is no longer personal images and text. I counted the first 66 posts in my timeline, and 2 were personal content. The rest were viral videos and news items and others junk. That's 3% personal content. Absurd. I've been spending the last two days clicking "hide all from to no avail, as the outlets are essentially endless…

That's not only fb's fault: as far as I can tell, people simply stopped posting personal entries.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#238

Post by skc »

So here's a question.

Facebook seems to have a really bad rep here on HN. But I'm wondering how many people here that hate Facebook, run their own businesses or have apps that include some form of Facebook interaction whether it be for ads, authentication, social media integration etc and how do you justify that if so.

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#239

Post by pmlnr »

robertcope wrote: post #186
djhworld wrote: post #102

I returned to FB last year after a 3-4 year hiatus. I limit my use of it, maybe one visit p/day or less, it seems to work OK. The nice thing about it is I get to see photos of my family and friends who I don't see often. I visit Hacker News more than I visit Facebook, I'm not sure what that says about me.

That's why I'm on Facebook: family and friends. We live away from most of our family and friends. When we had our first child, we discussed it and decided that it would be best to very actively share pictures and stories via Facebook with our family and friends. I do a pretty solid job of posting almost daily updates and whatnot. This strategy has worked great. People "know" her. When we go to the race track (my hobb…

I hope you're not in France: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1217...

Re: Why I deleted my Facebook account

#240

Post by davidf18 »

fastbeef wrote: post #17

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…

When I first starting FB, as one of the very first schools as part for the site, it worked really well. Now for some reason there are bugs that allow info I don't want not from my friends. I can't figure out how to turn the junk off. Does anyone know how? All I want is info from my FB friends.

I've stopped using it because of all of this junk.

They took something that worked well and made it not work well. Brilliant.

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