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

shogan.co.uk

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

#161

Post by fock »

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…

that's, why I ultimately decided to not delete it (as well as Instagram) - they'll keep their shadow profile anyway. Good idea about unfollowing most people though (some other post herr) - makes visiting it stupid unless to check if someone contacted you/contact someone.

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

#162

Post by johnsea »

gear54rus wrote: post #149
pochamago wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems extremely hyperbolic to call someone a sociopath for creating a platform for people to share news about themselves with friends and family. As much as I don't really enjoy using Facebook, it is still the single best way for me to keep up with what's going on in the lives of my extended family.

It might not be strictly psychopatic, idk, not a doctor. However when you call your users dumbfucks, recognizing you are exploiting them and still continue to do it... Why would I use (trust) any of his products?

That was a very long time ago. You never said things that would be "problematic" if publicly known?

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

#163

Post by hakanderyal »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #42
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…

> I still think of Instagram as a photography community, which is how old I am. Wait what? When did that change? I must be old too...

It's the biggest ecommerce platform in some social circles.

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

#164

Post by inDigiNeous »

I only use facebook these days by systemically unfollowing all my friends. And I mean all, I don't follow anyone. The experience is much better this way, I can sometimes check what my friends have posted, and I am not forced to see all the crap.

I unfollow most pages also. Can recommend testing this method out.

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

#165

Post by encom »

anon9001 wrote: post #142
faitswulff wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of so many human problems as the "sugary food" class of problems now. Internet addiction†, pornography, gossip, sensationalist headlines. All sugary food. Our brains are wired to seek out that hit of glucose or dopamine in resource scarce environments and it's maladaptive in the long-term for resource rich ones. † which is why I'm here on HN, if I'm honest

"Internet addiction" seems like a different thing than the rest of those to me. Being addicted to discovering new information and sharing with others sounds pretty healthy to me. I think the difference with HN vs FB is that at some level, you are driving your HN interaction, while FB is driving your FB interaction. I think it only becomes "internet addiction" when you're not the one in control.

>Being addicted to discovering new information and sharing with others sounds pretty healthy to me.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that you're passively consuming content for no real benefit. Sure, a lot of content on HN is interesting[#1], but it's ultimately useless[#2]. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere between these two extremes, but I think being addicted to anything is not healthy.

I think a better way to satisfy your curiousity is to learn a practical skill. Play guitar, build a birdhouse, learn to swim. I mean as a supplement, not a replacement.

I suppose this is a very roundabout way of saying turn off your computer and get out more.

[#1]and a lot of it is SV circlejerk and JS frameworks [#2]to you, not generally

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

#166

Post by ElKoji »

trophycase wrote: post #7
symmitchry wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deleting Twitter was easy for me because the platform is so antagonistic on mobile if you don't use their app. I don't even click on links people send me anymore.

Same with reddit. I don't want to use your damn app!! Guess I won't use it at all. Reddit just infuriated me anyway so that was just the nail in the coffin

I found reddit a bit refreshing in comparison to Facebook and Twitter, easy to get rid of content I don’t want and easy to start conversations with like minded people. Twitter is really not a place to have conversations, if you’re not somehow famous no one would talk to you unless you jump in a bandwagon of sensationalist content, Facebook on the other hand is limited to your family and old friends, not new people, unless you join groups but then Facebook would go tell your family behind your back about your activity, this “gossip” feature that you can’t control put me off from Facebook groups. Reddit work for me, no followers/friends just topics, no gossip feature, sure there are some heated discussions but you can always chose to silence them.

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

#167

Post by randycupertino »

okareaman wrote: post #156

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 impove…

So everyone in your family should be beholden to a for-profit data scraping company and advertising platform? How about use old fashioned ways to keep in touch with your family like phone calls and letters. Text pictures via a group text.

Facebook can decrease family cohesion and alienate family members as well. I stopped posting on there and stopped logging into my accounts after too many Fox news brainwashed great aunts and uncles ranted about how minorities should get out of the country or the NFL should ban black players who kneeled.

If you're lonely and isolated, consider moving closer to family and interacting with them in real life instead of expecting your family to sacrifice their data privacy to make Mark Zuckerberg more rich.

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

#168

Post by randycupertino »

ImaCake wrote: post #84

Whenever this topic comes up, there are always a lot of comments to the effect of "facebook isn't the problem, you are". Maybe it is best to think of facebook like sugary food. Many people have no trouble having one piece of chocolate and then leaving the rest for later. Many other people are unable to stop themselves from downing the whole 200g block. I think these comments come from people who have no trouble engag…

Can you block the entire newsfeed with Ublock origin and only visit specific people's pages when you want to see their updates?

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

#169

Post by randycupertino »

fock wrote: post #161
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…

that's, why I ultimately decided to not delete it (as well as Instagram) - they'll keep their shadow profile anyway. Good idea about unfollowing most people though (some other post herr) - makes visiting it stupid unless to check if someone contacted you/contact someone.

I deleted everything I've posted and stopped logging in and just kept my shell profile as I figured they were keeping a shadow profile on me. I log in an check messages every few months or whenever I randomly remember. I have all notifications turned off because I found they were sending me fake sketchy random notifications to get me to log in more when I stopped logging in, so now I only log in when I choose to.

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

#170

Post by SifJar »

randycupertino wrote: post #168
ImaCake wrote: post #84

Whenever this topic comes up, there are always a lot of comments to the effect of "facebook isn't the problem, you are". Maybe it is best to think of facebook like sugary food. Many people have no trouble having one piece of chocolate and then leaving the rest for later. Many other people are unable to stop themselves from downing the whole 200g block. I think these comments come from people who have no trouble engag…

Can you block the entire newsfeed with Ublock origin and only visit specific people's pages when you want to see their updates?

But then how would you know when a given person has updates to see? Sure you could just check periodically, but say there are a dozen people you care about seeing updates for - it gets a lot less convenient than seeing those all in one place. I'd suggest unfollowing everyone except people who's updates you actually want to see, but you'd still have "sponsored" & "suggested" posts etc from FB
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