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I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

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Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#151

Post by Grumbledour »

ipsum2 wrote: post #21
dgfitz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always considered it a forum more than social media.

What's the distinction? They both have a community and social features. Commenting, upvotes/liking, posting links, user profiles. HN mainly lacks private messaging and groups.

I would say the difference is that forums are about topics/discussion while social media is about people.

There is a difference if you use it to discuss your interests with like minded individuals or if you broadcast to an audience. I think this is why social media mostly works in small groups or why many people on facebook still find groups with limited topics useful even if they hate the rest.

It is also my main gripe with things like SSB or the fediverse. They work much better than other social media, because they encourage smaller, more tight knight communities, but they are often still people focused, not discussion focused.

Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#152

Post by mixermachine »

kyle_martin1 wrote: post #146
stevage wrote: post #35

Scientifically, it's not a robust conclusion. The kind of person who wants to delete FB etc is the kind of person who will feel better after they do it. Personally, I just use FB in a pretty restricted way. I unfollow most friends unless they post stuff I like engaging with. I give FB the bare minimum of my own personal data, and block all the ads they serve. I mostly post questions for discussion, rather than highli…

What specifically makes him “that kind of person”?

For me the biggest thing was: If you feel bad/less when you watch somebodies vacation or achievements, you are using social media wrong/in a hurtful way. Comparing yourself against a polished virtual image of someone just makes you unhappy.

I used Facebook pretty early on and still have my account but login less then once per month now.

Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#154

Post by shuckles »

ccktlmazeltov wrote: post #51

Recently I went to Milan and remembered that I had a good friend there. I tried to reach out to him on Facebook and it turns out that he had deleted his account. I couldn't reach out to him again because I never knew his email, or really had much friends in common. It was pretty sad when I think about it. I'm happy that with Facebook I can still keep in touch with most of my friends that I made around the world trave…

For me, LinkedIn, surprisingly, has been very useful in such situations.

Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#155

Post by jsinai »

teetertater wrote: post #70
amatecha wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used FB regularly in about 3 years now (after being an early adopter and heavy user), and honestly the times I logged in to see all the "happy birthday!" notifications, I couldn't believe how far the platform had devolved since I last logged in. It's one of the biggest disappointments of modern technology for me. Such amazing unity of entire communities and families, worldwide, being turned into such an exp…

A measure that could significantly improve your Facebook experience (as it did mine) is to curate the content that you want to see. A few years ago I started actively clicking "not interested" on every type of content that I didn't want to see, and slowly but surely I managed to get rid of all memes, news, and uninteresting bits. Now I'm left with discussions about AI papers, local events that friends are attending,…

I have to do a “not interested” purge on my Instagram about once every 4 weeks. That’s how long it takes the Instagram Explore algorithm to devolve into degenerate memes and echo chambers regardless of my interests.

Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#156

Post by okareaman »

I don't understand these naive do gooders who want everyone to delete their social media. "I did it and I feel better!" Really, how much more self-centered can you get?

I'm a retiree. My kids and family are scattered. Social media is an important part of maintaining family cohesion and my role in the family. I've reconnected with old friends that I otherwise would have lost forever. Deleting social media would impoverish my life and drastically increase my loneliness and isolation.

Do gooders: give it a rest.

Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#157

Post by vmception »

eitland wrote: post #140
vmception wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insular US and Canada does not get Whatsapp, if they aren't interacting with people outside of those countries. But the other Americas, Europe and Africa are so heavy on it. It really is becoming the platform that you see in Asian countries for business, which Zuck had hoped he could have. Clout and reputation for business is all on whatsapp for many people. Compared to websites and public pages from decades past, wh…

> But the other Americas, Europe and Africa are so heavy on it. FWIW at least in my neck of the woods I stopped receiving messages on WhatsApp about 2 or 3 years ago and when I got a new phone in October last year I didn't even install it. Everyone is on Telegram and while I see people joining Signal all the time, the first time I actually had a conversation with anyone on Signal was a few weeks ago.

Telegram is 100% crypto in my world and its a riot, very entertaining. It serves a purpose because crypto people will SS7 attack you if you they know your phone number, so whatsapp isnt good.

Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#158

Post by lokedhs »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #87
ericol wrote: post #14

I lived in Spain for 5 years and then I returned to my country 13 years ago. Some 8 years ago, Facebook was something that I really enjoyed using. I left way too many friends, close friends, and well, lovers behind. Facebook allowed me to have a healthy relationship with them, even if at a distance. I went back to Spain on 2010 for the wedding of a close friend, and it was like I've been out of the country for 2 mont…

> Instagram, on the other side, is a different beast. Even with the strong push by FB in order to monetize the network, I think that fact that people can't easily share other people's post, and are kind of forced to post their own material still makes it an interesting place. >As long as instagram does not allow reposting, I think it'll maintain a certain degree of quality. This is a fascinating insight I never consi…

I think reposting with a comment is the worst. Mastodon has "boosting" which allows you to repost, but you can't add your own commentary to it.

This seems to work pretty well in preventing the spread of bad messages, as a boost of such message will imply that you agree with it. That way you're not getting the typical "look at what this horrible person said" messages.

Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

#160

Post by mister_hn »

it all depends on how do you maintain relations.

Living abroad, having a few friends and contact locally but a lot of connections non easily reachable physically makes the shutdown of FB, WA or IG hard, especially when most of your contacts uses ONLY the aforementioned platforms and nothing else.

That means killing your connections and cut bridges with people.

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