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I miss Facebook

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Re: I miss Facebook

#71

Post by labster »

bcherny wrote: post #63
labster wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those were the same three features that were a core part of thefacebook before they introduced the News Feed. If it was the same site that it was in 2005, but with more people, I'd still be using it. But now, it's mainly a machine that turns other people's content into dollars.

Groups was launched in ‘08, I think.

Not possible. One of the things I did in the week after the News Feed was launched was to join a rather large (for 2006) group protesting the News Feed.

Re: I miss Facebook

#72

Post by zikzak »

lordnacho wrote: post #15

Hits the nail on the head. For me the main uses of FB are now: 1) Rolodex of friends, with reminders from the ones who actually use it. 2) Bad version of stumbleupon. Seriously large amount of unuseful content, but it does kick up something interesting now and again. 3) Reasonable funnies stream. There's always someone with a good meme. There's no real content though. All the news commentary is simply terrible. Loads…

I normally use FB as a birthday reminder and sometimes group chat with friends who mainly use it to stay in touch. I recently joined a neighborhood group because there's been a bunch of property crime and we're all sharing camera footage and so on. Anyway, 85% of every thread is just other people's names. However, I don't seem to get email updates about these comments, just the more substantive ones. To me, it looks ridiculous and amateurish but at least I'm not getting tons of email spam.

Re: I miss Facebook

#73

Post by system16 »

charleshan wrote: post #52

This really hits home. So what ruined Facebook? The Wall was replaced by an algorithm which sunk original content below a flood of ads, fake news, and externally shared content "you might like". We stopped seeing original content. Then, people stopped sharing personal stuff, as nobody interacted with it.

I quit Facebook many years ago, but one of the reasons I stopped engaging with it was after they started creepily sharing interactions made on the site. Seeing "Pam liked this photo" or "Dave commented on this post" in my feed - almost certainly without them knowing I was seeing it - made me very hesitant to interact with the site at all. I'm sure they have a ton of metrics proving it increases engagement for the majority of users, but it was enough to turn me off the site completely.

Re: I miss Facebook

#74

Post by classichasclass »

jugg1es wrote: post #66

This article reminds me of a complaint I've had about online gaming. I'm 36 and I remember when all online FPS games were played on centralized servers. If you logged on at the same time of day, you would see the same players you saw yesterday. Over time, you would develop relationships with those people and perhaps you would eventually meet them in real life. I have 2-3 very good real-life friends that I originally…

MUDs were like that, too. I knew when my friends were on, and we'd hang out, smash a few monsters and do a few quests, and talk about our days. Met quite a few people in real life from there. Most of the MUDs I frequented (LPs, primarily) are dead, or a shadow of their former selves.

Re: I miss Facebook

#75

Post by Zak »

I agree. I've tried using FBPurity to hide things that aren't my friends creating text or pictures themselves, or more simply, setting "friends feed" to be the default. That used to help, but not so much anymore. The problem is most of them have stopped, or greatly cut back posting.

I remember when I first decided to create a Facebook account. I had previously avoided social media. I wasn't motivated enough for Livejournal, and Myspace seemed like a useless vanity page. After watching over some friends' shoulders as they used Facebook, I saw that it was a genuinely useful communication tool.

The share button was the worst thing to happen to Facebook from this user's perspective. It actually did exist before I started using Facebook, but most people didn't press it often. Facebook is not a very good place for news stories compared to Google News. Facebook is not a very good place for cat pictures compared to reddit. By trying to be the place people go for things like that, Facebook has ceased to be good at the thing it was good at: keeping up to date with an extended group of friends and family.

Re: I miss Facebook

#76

Post by sizzle »

jugg1es wrote: post #66

This article reminds me of a complaint I've had about online gaming. I'm 36 and I remember when all online FPS games were played on centralized servers. If you logged on at the same time of day, you would see the same players you saw yesterday. Over time, you would develop relationships with those people and perhaps you would eventually meet them in real life. I have 2-3 very good real-life friends that I originally…

Same experience for me, made friends logging in at the same time of day after school but with StarCraft on battle.net

Re: I miss Facebook

#77

Post by k_sze »

I don’t miss Facebook. I just weaned myself off Facebook about a week or two ago.

I realised that I needed to get off Facebook because it made me feel depressed. When I was on Facebook, I would look at the feed and become poignantly aware of how boring my life is. (I don’t travel. I don’t do any “fun” thing. I don’t go to parties.)

So one day I decide that I have had enough and I just uninstalled Facebook from my phone, closed all Facebook tabs in my browser sessions, and turned off all notifications (including the e-mail one that tries to drag you back in). The only notification that I leave enabled is account/security notifications. I haven’t outright deactivated/deleted my Facebook account because I may still need it someday for some stupid reason.

Anyway, as soon as I took those steps, I freed myself from the reminder of my misery. I’m not actually having any more fun, but at least I’m no longer constantly comparing my life with those of my “friends”.

So what about people who may want to reach me via Facebook? I’ve decided that if someone can or know only to reach me via Facebook, then they are not my real friend anyway and I don’t need them in my life.

Quit Facebook. It can be done and it should be done.

Re: I miss Facebook

#78

Post by dgudkov »

lordnacho wrote: post #15

Hits the nail on the head. For me the main uses of FB are now: 1) Rolodex of friends, with reminders from the ones who actually use it. 2) Bad version of stumbleupon. Seriously large amount of unuseful content, but it does kick up something interesting now and again. 3) Reasonable funnies stream. There's always someone with a good meme. There's no real content though. All the news commentary is simply terrible. Loads…

>Rolodex of friends, with reminders from the ones who actually use it.

Check out personal CRMs out there. They are still in their infancy, but already usable.

Re: I miss Facebook

#80

Post by lokedhs »

k_sze wrote: post #77

I don’t miss Facebook. I just weaned myself off Facebook about a week or two ago. I realised that I needed to get off Facebook because it made me feel depressed. When I was on Facebook, I would look at the feed and become poignantly aware of how boring my life is. (I don’t travel. I don’t do any “fun” thing. I don’t go to parties.) So one day I decide that I have had enough and I just uninstalled Facebook from my pho…

Same for me. I've kept my account, but I only log in once every few months or so when I feel really bored.

Whenever I do, it only takes minutes before I start to feel bad, mostly for the same reasons you do. I then realise that literally just sitting in your chair, staring at a monitor that is turned off, is a better use of your time than going to Facebook.

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