Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
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Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#2Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#3TL;DR from the abstract of the actual study:
> In a randomized experiment, we find that deactivating Facebook for the four weeks before the 2018 US midterm election (i) reduced online activity, while increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and (iv) caused a large persistent reduction in post-experiment Facebook use. Deactivation reduced post-experiment valuations of Facebook, suggesting that traditional metrics may overstate consumer surplus.
Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#4When you stop using Facebook, it makes the quality of your life better.
Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#5Facebook is moderately useful for keeping in touch with people you want to hear from and who just won't use email/Mastadon or whatever, and for interest-based groups and events. That is all. And as long as you strictly restrict yourself to using only the website through a browser and eschew their apps and carefully go over the privacy settings and tune them to your needs you should be okay. As for endlessly scrolling the newsfeed all day, well that is not so much Facebook's fault as that people who do that are probably having too much idle time and not knowing how to do some productive or more creative activity. If Facebook did not exist those people would trawl through Twitter or Youtube or something else.
Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#6You won't see bulls and live life outside the online world.
Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#7HN's Facebook obsession is so unproductive. Let it go already. Focus on building your own thing.
Yes, people use Facebook. No, you don't have to.
Edit: yes, please downvote this comment. Let the HN naval gazing continue.
Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#8HN's Facebook obsession is so unproductive. Let it go already. Focus on building your own thing. Yes, people use Facebook. No, you don't have to. Edit: yes, please downvote this comment. Let the HN naval gazing continue.
People who use Facebook often ask you to use Facebook, too…
Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#9Personally, giving up facebook saves about 10-15 minutes a day. I feel better, not because my friends' stories were making me feel inadequate, but because it is one less stream of mostly useless information that I need to filter and process. I miss seeing pictures of my friends. I do not miss people regurgitating political memes. I don't think quitting FB dramatically improved my life satisfaction or happiness.
Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook
#10HN's Facebook obsession is so unproductive. Let it go already. Focus on building your own thing. Yes, people use Facebook. No, you don't have to. Edit: yes, please downvote this comment. Let the HN naval gazing continue.
FB is so detrimental to society, people that never use it need to be concerned much like with gambling and alcoholism.
HN is hardly alone on this, plenty of other sites including redit and a few others that I know of hate on facebook regularly.