Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

No. I still use it to keep in contact with many friends and family. But I’ve stopped posting, checking in to places, etc.

And it is so much better, because when I'm thinking about X anyway my though process is not hijacked in an uncomfortable way by ads about X, and so sometimes I actually look at them instead of using energy to disregard them and gasp have even clicked on one or two.

Uh no, that's the only way I can talk with 95% of my friends, who are all over the world, in many countries. p.s. I've never had a cell phone.

No, I did it in 2011 and haven't looked back.

Deleted my account permanently two months ago. In the beginning it was interesting too see how it had become a habit to write the url almost without thinking, and for three weeks I found myself opening a new tab and writing the Facebook.com address every time my mind started wandering. Also deleted my Instagram account at the same time and currently in the process of deleting WhatsApp as well, as soon as some projects depending on it as the communication platform conclude.

Can’t say I missed it. The things I’ve lost in terms of communication power are far outweighed by the positive effect it has had on my wellbeing and time management. Other than that the effect has been relatively small on my life.

At the time of deletion I had around 700 “friends”, most of which I hadn’t seen in years and many of which I had had no connection after becoming friends on Facebook. Now two months after is feels weird to have used this service daily, when in reality it worked mostly as an address book than a communication platform.

Another thing I noticed was how invested I had become in other people’s lives by mostly just consuming their status updates, stories and pictures. This combined with lack of updates from my side had really distorted my relationship with people, and had me feel more connected to people than I really was. It has wonderful to notice how much more interesting and easier it has become to converse with people when you don’t know what they’ve been up to recently