I opted out of social media when Facebook came out. I did it because I was smart and I saw all this coming. Boy have I been feeling smug for the past three years.
Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
101–110 of 161 posts
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#102I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info ab…
> - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active.
If only there were another technology one could use to distribute messages by electronic means from one computer user to one or more recipients via a network.
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#103I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info ab…
If you have a facebook login active then facebook is still tracking you and able to advertise to you, so you are using facebook for the only things they care about. You are still generating content (your web traffic via like buttons) and revenue (via ads).
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#104I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info ab…
Facebook has some utility if you're running a business or if you've found a really nice group of people on it, but I personally found it to be total trash and it's been at least 6 months since my profile was deleted. (yes, I know, Zuck still has backups and ML models trained on it)
I am so much more happier not being exposed to everyone thinking they're e-celebs, the back-patting, virtue signalling, constant outrage, pseudoscience, and all of that. I thought I'd be missing out on a lot by not being on Facebook, but people haven't forgotten me and now there's so much more to talk about when I actually meet people in person.
A private life is one of healthy solitude.
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#105I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info ab…
If you have a facebook login active then facebook is still tracking you and able to advertise to you, so you are using facebook for the only things they care about. You are still generating content (your web traffic via like buttons) and revenue (via ads).
The previous poster never mentioned that they care about any of that, so why bring it up?
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook posts are lightweight, asynchronous forms of communication compared to phone+voicemail.
They're also light on social interaction. Compare: - Sending a post about your holiday experience to Facebook, vs. - Calling a friend, engaging in small-talk about your holiday experience and how they've been lately. Sure, you won't be able to tell all your 1276 "friends" about your holidays, but the people you do talk to will actually be/become your friends. It's quantity vs quality. Personally I've decided that it'…
> Personally I've decided that it's more important to me to have a few dozen really good friends in my life, instead of hundreds of people that passively take part in my life
That's a false choice, though; while I don't use FB, everyone I know who does still keep a few good friends that they meet and talk to regularly. You and I could be scrolling our FB feeds right now, instead of reading HN, without taking time from our existing friendships.
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#107I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info ab…
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Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#108I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info ab…
If you have a facebook login active then facebook is still tracking you and able to advertise to you, so you are using facebook for the only things they care about. You are still generating content (your web traffic via like buttons) and revenue (via ads).
I use Firefox containers (and before that I used a totally separate browser for Facebook) so they haven't been tracking me around the web for years.
It's quite easy to avoid their tracking actually.
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#109I imagine a good number of people are like me and would like to close their Facebook account, but are afraid of losing that circle of friends and family that they have no other easy way of contacting. A useful feature (albeit one that Facebook would never, ever implement, as it would facilitate people leaving their platform) would be to have closure page with a final statement or forwarding address, e.g.: "I've decid…
There's always email, text, IM, phone, video call, meatspace/IRL conversations. I think the utility of FB is you can passively absorb updates from people without needing to contact them specifically. And send updates in the same way.
But if you can't find the time/inclination/energy to keep in active contact with someone, no matter how infrequently, does a real relationship even exist with them?
Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently
#110Wow. What I would do to be a fly on the wall in the impromptu, perhaps slightly anxious meetings at FB HQ right now. I imagine they're discussing whether or not they should be worried, what they should do about it, or whether they should do anything at all.
This has to be an insane position to be in. If you're responsible for the PR (or anything else) of a company that an ever-growing number of people are starting to suspect shouldn't exist (at least in its current form), what do you do? Where you do you even start?
The only other such case I can think of is big tobacco. Facebook is (probably) not quite that harmful or toxic, but I imagine FB and Philip Morris would have a few things to talk about over dinner.