I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago. Social media platforms have turned into a disease.
https://www.corycollier.com/2020/06/10/why-i-removed-my-soci...
I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
221–230 of 246 posts
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#222I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago. Social media platforms have turned into a disease. https://www.corycollier.com/2020/06/10/why-i-removed-my-soci...
> Social media platforms have turned into a disease
To be honest, OP deleted only Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts (all Facebook family), but NOT Twitter[0]
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Telegram is a really great app user experience wise, but I'm more preferential to Signal because I've read in-depth about the double-ratchet algorithm. Weren't there some concerns about Telegrams implementation or privacy issues or something with that app?
Ordinary Telegram chats are not secure, secret chats are secure - nobody has ever explained how the latter possibly can be eavesdropped. The problem with Telegram is many people don't know they are to create a secret chat explicitly every time they want a secure conversation. However, the fact Russia has unbanned Telegram after Durov's claims they have implemented an illegal content busting mechanism seem alarming: w…
Shit, I didn't know that and I have tested Telegram specifically thinking I was using an E2E encrypted application. Fuck me.
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The mask of anonymity completely removes accountability on forums. Accountable to whom? What accountability? Why was this necessary? Accountability wasn't necessary, as most forums were never big enough to really matter. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter are now forces of nature, especially in politics and matters of public opinion. > Pseudonomity This has varying degrees of anonymity - you need to further express what you…
> Accountable to whom? What accountability? Why was this necessary? Accountable to the community represented by the forum itself. Participants in a forum need to have some kind of skin in the game, even if it's based on their pseudonymous identity, which brings us to ... > Pseudonomity > This has varying degrees of anonymity By this I mean a consistent identity that has a history, credibility deriving from a track re…
This existed just fine with anonymity - even if you were anonymous, after time and following the rules, others would "know" who you were based on your interactions - thus having skin in the game.
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, Facebook in my day (I deleted it in 2014), was a lot better. It was just people saying what they did, sharing photos. It seemed a lot less political. And companies weren't fully onboard yet in using their ad campaigns, and politicians weren't either. And perhaps too bad actors weren't involved.
Facebook has not changed a bit, it was a glorified birthday reminder capturing as much personal data as possible and it still is. Well except maybe that at some point it started to aim at replacing the internet on order to keep the investor storytime running, which had the interesting side effect of facebook putting a dictator in power[1]. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/how-rodri...
Obviously I meant from an end user perspective.
Behind the scenes FB was nefarious then and now.
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, personally I have no issues with something like Netflix. Netflix is actually quite healthy for me. It's a way for me to relax, it's fast, and there's no addiction at all. Same with TikTok or Twitter. I have no impulse to watch the kind of things that make me feel bad, but many people do. I hear of people wanting to break Netflix addiction. I think certain types of people tend to indulge in certain types of ente…
I agree with this view, and that Netflix must be quite negatively addictive for some. Following from that, I wonder why we don't see similar articles about Netflix as we do about quitting facebook? It has the same kind of relevance to HN but I can't remember ever engaging in discussion about Netflix addiction here.
It sounds like survivorship bias. Netflix is a passive hobby and Facebook is an active one. The people who discuss on HN are likely to indulge in unproductive discussion. Whereas the people who lurk HN quietly and excessively may be likely to indulge in slothful behaviour.
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Ah. That all seems like too much work for me (unfollowing everyone etc) but I just don't log into it.
Gamification helps. Unfollow as you scroll through the feed for a different sort of dopamine hit ;)
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Accountable to whom? What accountability? Why was this necessary? Accountable to the community represented by the forum itself. Participants in a forum need to have some kind of skin in the game, even if it's based on their pseudonymous identity, which brings us to ... > Pseudonomity > This has varying degrees of anonymity By this I mean a consistent identity that has a history, credibility deriving from a track re…
This existed just fine with anonymity - even if you were anonymous, after time and following the rules, others would "know" who you were based on your interactions - thus having skin in the game.
> others would "know" who you were based on your interactions - thus having skin in the game
That's pseudonymity, is it not? Otherwise why the quotes around "know"?
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook is free. It is understood that we provide clues about ourselves for advertisers as a way to keep it free. Facebook is convenient. You're seriously suggesting in 2020 that my nieces and nephews correspond with me by letter? That's pretty hilarious actually. I can't move closer because I can't be in 10 locations at once. My family gets along. We agree not to talk about politics. It works for us. I'm sorry abou…
Our family gets along too, I don't know why you're trying to imply we don't? We're all far flung and have an annual cousins party at the lake. My 13 nieces and nephews aren't on facebook because it's for "the olds." Some of them have instagrams but they have multiple accounts and different "finstas" - candid fake accounts they only share with certain friends etc and delete and remake new accounts with friends etc con…
> Our family gets along too, I don't know why you're trying to imply we don't?
> 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.
I still have no explanation as to why people hate Facebook, the advertising system (do they also hate TV and magazines?) and in particular the idea that Zuckerberg is making money
Re: I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
#230I treat my FB and other accounts just like any other inbox.
And that's the rub: all of these things can be replaced with email.
Email - plain old text - can carry just as much info as all the web things, to my eyes - and, doesn't allow for much emerald-king manipulation behind the mirrors and smoke, either.
If only my friends and family all understood how to use email properly, in the first place.
Because this writing skill has been supplanted by software-usage skills. Why learn to top/quote/bottom, or properly cite text, or contract a useful file-archive and include URL's .. when this 'is what the computer is for' ..
Seriously though, I could radically reduce my social sphere down to the people I know can handle email etiquette and methodology well enough, and I won't need any other third-party service. Even my pizza guy can handle an email.
However, literacy being what it is, people don't have time or motivation to become proficient in email, as a tool. Its far easier just to swipe and touch things to share information, apparently .. perhaps the time has come for me to finally write an email client, hmm ..