Live data from Hacker News

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

shogan.co.uk

51–60 of 246 posts

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

#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 traveling. I end up meeting quite some friends that I haven't seen in decades when I travel.

I understand that some people are unhappy about the downsides of social networks, and Facebook in particular, but I wish more people would realize the upsides as well.

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

#53
post #28

I'm in a similar boat to the author and have also recently deleted my Facebook and Instagram account - although I'll note that the sneaky "to be deleted" state is now 30 days instead of just 7. But, similar to the author, I'm having more difficulty getting rid of WhatsApp. This is my primary means of communicating with friends and family all over the world. And for some of them I know it's just not an option to try g…

Why would anyone want to get rid of Whastapp.

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

#54

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…

Agreed. Platforms like facebook are very easy to find and contact with old friends, but when people delete the account it becomes 10x tougher to find them again. I wish people improve their self control when it comes to using apps like instagram and facebook.

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

#55

"I use Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and I feel fine!" -- most of the planet, but you'd never know it by reading HN

Facebook intentionally made about 400,000 feel sad/depressed on purpose. They bragged that they had 'informed consent' to perform psychological experiments on all Facebook users simply because you joined the site and agreed to their long legalese T&C.

Maybe the rest of the world feels better on Facebook. But that will only last until Facebook randomly decides one day to throw them into a depression.

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

#57
post #32
post #2

Very insightful blogpost and good for the author. It shows its possible to get away from Facebook's social network drug store which they purposefully make it hard for you to quit or delete your profile(s). With Facebook, there's no such thing as 'privacy' and 'account deletion'. I hope that everyone else isn't addicted to another drug that is called 'Twitter' which one of its side-effects is 'getting the worst out of…

This may sound overly-dramatic, but I think Twitter is to blame for many of the problems in the world. The "cancel culture" and lack of real debate that stems from Twitter is all due to a race-to-the-bottom environment with people competing to get the most blunt/sarcastic/outlandish statement distilled into a tiny soundbite to try increase their engagement. So many important topics are "discussed" on Twitter with the…

I’ve been saying this for years. You’re right about the format, but to make matters worse unlike other forums, a lot of people believe that twitter is both real and reflective of mainstream opinion.

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

#58

"I use Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and I feel fine!" -- most of the planet, but you'd never know it by reading HN

It sure seems like most of the planet doesn't feel fine. I feel social media is only adding to that.

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

#59

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…

Wechat/Line/Kakaotalk handle this without the damages of Facebook and the like. At least for KakaoTalk, it's not a "social network" in the same way your contacts list isn't one, but since everyone [in Korea] is on Kakaotalk it makes adding and maintaining friends easy. You don't have to worry about people deleting their accounts because there's nothing -to- delete an account over; it's just a chat app that everyone uses.

It would be nice if there were a similar app in the US with that kind of market share, instead of everything being scattered among various apps, etc.

The only real issue I felt with deleting my facebook was losing access to facebook groups. I was very close to making a burner account to participate in some groups, but I never ended up wanting it that -that- badly as meetup sufficed.

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

#60
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 don't use WhatsApp by choice, but occasionally it's someone else's preferred way to communicate. I don't have a problem with it.

I think this is a good point, just like you are expecting people to contact you on telegram there must be some people who would like you to contact them on whataspp.

Post reply on HN