25
votes
Have you quit any social media?
Have you quit social media? Why? Why not?
I have been thinking about it (specifically Facebook). I have not done so, because I fear that I'll lose contact with friends from my past (even though I have not messaged any of them, or seen their profile, in years).
I left Facebook in 2016.
I'll be frank with you: it was quite possibly the final nail in my social coffin. Facebook lets you check in on others passively through their posts, and they can do the same for you, so there's a low-grade connection that it maintains between anyone who's active on it. Deleting my Facebook cut those ties, and I went from having minor yet persistent connections with others to almost none at all.
I liken the social connections it fosters to the solar system. Each person is their own sun, and there are some people who are planets. Those are the people who you text or interact with regularly. You both have a strong pull. Deleting Facebook won't impact these relationships as much, though they will likely become a bit more distant because you don't get to see the life updates they post.
On the other hand, there's a much more populated circle of friends and acquaintences that make up your social asteroid belt. These are people whose connections you still value and whose lives you're still interested in, but they're not a big enough presence for you to text regularly or meet up with. Deleting Facebook interrupts the gravity between you and this belt of people. In its absence, you and they will drift far apart, eventually permanently.
I don't regret "deleting" my account, especially with all we've learned since about how genuinely scummy Facebook is. I left during the leadup to the 2016 United States presidential election because I was so thoroughly unhappy with my feed. It kept showing me inflammatory articles I didn't want to see and highlighting vicious arguments between people. I had a lot of friends on Facebook from both sides of the political aisle, and every time I logged in I was presented with a battleground. I made the decision to finally leave the site because I found that I was losing respect for people based on the aggressive, hostile things they were posting. It also didn't help that, no matter what I did, Facebook kept polluting my feed with terrible clickbait. All I wanted to do was post cute pictures of my dog and keep up with how my friends' lives were going, but those days were over.
At the time I just thought the world had gone toxic (which there is also some truth to), but we now know that this kind of user experience happened by design rather than accident. That's not the kind of experience I want in my life, nor is it the kind of corporate behavior I can support.
With all that said, I do crave a replacement or alternative. Deleting Facebook cut a lot of good people out of my life, and they no doubt saw it as me cutting myself out of theirs. I would love in the coming years for a competitor to rise up, but the network effect is strong, and they will no doubt buy up any competitor who begins to take off (as they did with Instagram). I don't know what the future holds and I will gladly wait for one to enter the scene, but the only problem is that everyone I know is getting older during that time, and absence has a way of calcifying over time. Even if a viable competitor does rise up in five or ten years, that'll be five or ten years I've been absent from and ignorant of the lives of many of my former friends. That's a hard place to come back from.
Here is a concept that may help people who may also feel that they are losing friends by closing out their social media accounts; people who don't take the time to contact you directly are not your friends, they are your subscribers. Its natural to feel lonely when it appears you have lost a lot of friends, so don't beat yourself up over it. What helps more than anything else is to focus on the quality friends you do have. A single good friend is better than 1000 followers.
When you don't use facebook you just stop getting invited to events and going to these events is the best way to get to know people better
When you go to these events how deep of a connection do you get with any of the people invited? Personally, I noticed that the more people involved the more insulated you are from them.
What I am advocating for is the individual choice to find meaning in close personal relationships as an alternative to attempting to get personal validation from large groups. @omnicrola's comment below largely echos my reasoning and summerizes it more coherantly than I could.
In my experience, it's the same as for any event. It's not the method of distributing invitations which matters, it's the personal interactions at the event itself - but you can't interact with anyone if you're not even there, which means you need to know about it... which can happen via Facebook.
As I type this, I'm travelling to an event for which the invitations were issued via Facebook. I know these people. They're not close friends, but I am in the process of making friends with a couple of them. However, I wouldn't even have the opportunity of building these friendships if I wasn't going to this party - and I wouldn't be going if I hadn't received the invitation via Facebook.
One of the main reasons I keep Facebook these days is to see what public events my friends are going to (as opposed to private parties). This keeps me in touch with my local social scene.
Also, there are a few friends who exclusively distribute invitations to their private parties via Facebook. If I wasn't on Facebook, I wouldn't even know these parties were happening, let alone get invited.
I have friends from HS I have literally not talked to in 20 years. At one point I found some of them on FB and exchanged maybe half a dozen messages with. It was the digital equivalent of bumping into someone at a random grocery store or event and having small talk for about 5 minutes.
The thing is, it is completely natural, normal, and expected to have relationships fade and disappear for no particular reason at all. Just people living their lives. People grow up, change, improve themselves, learn from their mistakes (hopefully) and make new friends. FB and other social media clog this process up. It's hard to change yourself and your relationships when your past is always there perfectly preserved both for yourself and your friends. It's OK to forget, it's OK to lose friends.
I deleted FB in 2018 because the mixup with Cambridge Analytica was the last straw on a pile of shit. For the reasons stated above, and because I know as a corporation FB does not have my best interests at heart, it has theirs. My wife joined me at the same time, which has made it a lot easier. It worked out pretty much as expected. When I have to put in just that bit more effort to keep in contact with people, it becomes clear what relationships are actually important to me and to others. In addition, whenever I talk to someone, the communication feels more real and meaningful because I know it was very deliberate. It wasn't just leaving a comment on a story that scrolled through my FB feed, it was me (or them) deliberately and purposefully seeking out another human being because I am interested in their life and their well being.
And that's why we need non-profit communication channels. Good things that greedy companies can't buy with money.
That's why I am all for federated social media operations like Mastodon.
I deactivated my FB account about 5 years ago. There have been repeated instances of not being invited to something because I wasn't on FB and was forgotten.
I am on Instagram, so there's some of the weak-bond interaction there, and people are far less political.
I didn't originally leave FB due to their lack of ethics, I was annoyed that people were relying on it so heavily to get in touch with me. I didn't check it that frequently towards the end, so some family members were getting annoyed with that... didn't want to deal with that garbage.
Now, with the ethical considerations, I'm unsure how to proceed with Instagram, as it keeps those weak-bonds in place for me.
Facebook never truly deletes your information so I opted to simply post a list of alternative contact information and haven't logged in for 6 months.
If someone needs to contact me they'll figure it out.
I also have some automation using ittt that handles the facebook page of a community organisation I'm involved in by sharing from the website's rss feed.
Nothing has changed with respect to contact with close friends and family.
The only thing I've lost is the noise of trivialities and drama from acquaintances, which is a welcome change.
My problem is that if I know it is there I will log on and start using it again.
I have to delete my profile so I can quit cold turkey
You know yourself better than anyone so do what you need to do.
I took more of a lukewarm turkey approach as I wasn't convinced at the time I could make a clean break.
Deleting the apps and changing my password to one that I couldn't remember without a password manager helped prevent myself logging in on impulse.
I took a week break that ended up being a few months as I realised I didn't really miss it once the basic automatic impulses wore off.
When I logged in to manage an event I was running I realised I didn't even really need it much for that either (granted I have other volunteers helping there).
I'm not advocating copying the same approach I took, but for those who think it's impossible I would suggest just taking a little break and seeing how it goes.
Thank you for linking your thread, this is what concerns me. Also you are absolutely right this would be a great way to start 2019.
Social media I've been on: facebook, twitter, whatsapp (does it count?), reddit, HN, tildes, tumblr, academia. I don't count things like GitHub.
Social media I've kept: twitter, whatsapp, reddit, tildes.
I have a Twitter account. which I wanted to use for following local entertainment events, but the way people post makes it impossible: they repost and repost and repost the same thing, it's impossible to notice what's new and what's something you've seen before. So it stays there, I check it every few months, and just close because I'm frustrated. I think the platform is best useful if one enjoys reading through others' grief, anger, hate and sickly humour.
I had a Facebook account almost ten years ago when I was in the high school, kept it for a few months, maybe about a year. I was trapped in a toxic group of "friends", so at one point I decided I let go of it and that was relieving. I opened a new one a couple years ago, because in the uni there was this Facebook group for our department which my colleagues and lecturers used, and I missed out on stuff because I wasn't on it. I tried to use it for five minutes, them immediately deleted the account. I'd rather drop out than use that pile of shit that is Facebook. Ended up graduating with the best GPA in class anyways...
I first opened an Academia [dot] edu account (I won't link that bullshit), when I started uni back in 2014, give or take a few months. It was like wearing your parents' clothes as a kid, I was wanting to become and academic (I still do), so I opened an account there. Then learned about what sort of a horrible platform it was, and closed my account. I opened up accounts a couple times in the recent past in order to get to PDFs and follow a couple researchers, but was not worth the hassle, so I never kept them.
I've opened and closed Reddit accounts. I find that when I stick to useful, niche, serious subs like /r/emacs, /r/languagelearning, /r/istanbul etc., I don't overuse it, but if I get into "fun" stuff, or /r/turkey, I tend to get into stupid arguments or browse for long times. So I opened up a non-anonymous account with my proper name, so that I never get into those stupid stuff. That way, I'm really making good use of the website. /r/emacs has been useful many times, and language learning subs are always really useful.
HN is a... well, I don't want to call it a cesspool, but it's on its way to get there. The moderators are pure idiots, totally sided, totally unaccountable. It's in line with the Clojure ideology I think: community is regarded as a pack of stray dogs; pg, dang, sctb, and a few others as unquestionable gods. I stayed there for tech news, but I got into stupid arguments (not discussions) all the time. When I realised I did not really care about cutting edge tech anymore, I stopped using it. If I still keep my account, it's because they are horrible enough to not bother offering an option for the deletion thereof.
I love the vibe here on Tildes. I sometimes spend too much time here, given I tend to write a bit too much sometimes (as is evident...), but I never count it as procrastination or time spent for no good because it's always pleasing and often useful. Hope it'll stay that way!
I used Tumblr on and off for my blog a few years ago. It's (was?) the best (micro)blogging platform out there, and had many cool visual artists which produced lovely things to look at. I quit it when I moved on to a static blog. Nowadays tho it seems that it's being prepared to become a billboard, so IDK if any value will remain there.
Finally, WhatsApp. I use it because everybody I know uses it and SMS is inconvenient in Turkey because there's a lot of spam (I receive at least one every day, and spam calls are often too; they made a law for it, but the idiots made it opt-out...). It's fine for me because it still shows me only valid, relevant stuff (i.e. messages from my contacts) and nothing else. The day it does that, I get rid of it.
For me, essentially, if a "friend" or a "group of friends" can't be bothered to text me or call me about some event or something just b/c I don't have a Facebook account, if the inconvenience of opening another app is too big for them, they are not friends. I also don't like (read: I hate) texting or chatting or even calling for small-talk. Everybody's texting all day long, along with whatever they're doing, switching between tasks all the time. I like to concentrate on one thing, either be together w/ people, or be alone and do my thing. That causes some social friction, but so be it. For me, I think it's some sort of a psychological epidemic the attachment people have grown to other people, so much so that they crave constant communication. Or maybe I like being with myself alone a bit too much. But that communication isn't like what I'm doing here now: with this text, I participate in interesting dicussion, and writing this sort of comments is also a mode of introspection, a way to give concrete shape to some of my thoughts, so it has a value. Sometimes I make blog posts out of these comments. But gossiping or smalltalk with multiple people constantly throughout the day, it's a loss of time. And what is Facebook, apart from that? Worthless logorrhoea, and some events. Ain't nobody got time for that!
I heard about it when it was first announced on HN as a compsec-oriented forum. Seems to me that it's become general purpose, now that I check it.
I'd probably try it out if I was still interested in tech news, but I'm no longer interested in those, so I won't (I get the little dose I need from here & /r/emacs). But it's good to know that there is a tech community with sensible people. Thanks for reminding me of it!
I had deleted facebook for a couple of years but I have a few pages that I need to admin + messenger is convenient to keep in contact with people. I still hated the idea of social media and how it distorts our view of reality so I found an add-on for chrome that unfollows everyone and everything. So now even when I get that weird urge to check my feed, there is nothing but the pages that interest me (mostly music related stuff.)
If you haven't, I 100% recommend the article @borja linked. I feel that I am my most anxious when I have spent too much time looking at what other people post on social media. It's nauseating when you reflect on how people post vs. how they actual live their lives.
The add-on you linked is definitely the least I should do now. Specially since most of the things I see on my feed are nonsense that people share (clickbait, magic videos, social experiments etc.).
Hi, I'm the freak who's keeping FB and is not unhappy about it. I joined years ago to see what my extended family members were up to, since I live in a different city and do not enjoy social contact or travel. I rarely post, sticking to the occasional Like or short comment on others' posts for the most part. This allows me to see their photos and hear the family updates I would otherwise never get. Often I'm the person to pass on a little bit of info to my mother, even though she's the one who keeps in touch in more traditional ways with the next generation up.
Having FB was extremely helpful earlier this year when I was tracking down some long-lost family for my father. I had some basic info from a different website, but comparing FB profiles let me verify everything and figure out all the connections before making contact. In fact, I couldn't figure out a way to locate and contact these people any other way, so having the option of FB was great.
I am mostly on Facebook because my mother-in-law is immunocompromised and can't leave the house, so my wife uses it as a way of keeping her in touch with our lives. My martial arts gym also uses it as the main discussion forum for planning classes and making announcements, so I'm kind of stuck. I don't have issues with the other social media, like Twitter or Mastadon. I need WhatsApp because my cousins abroad have big family-chat groups in there and there just isn't an alternative that works across countries. And I actively enjoy using Instagram so I'd regret losing that. Reddit is the only other one I have issues with, mostly because I think it fosters toxic engagement while not really adding much value.
I haven't formally quit anything, but I've put some rules in place to prevent myself from falling into what I think of as bad habits.
I don't install apps on my phone for Facebook or Reddit and I don't have bookmarks for them. So if I want to access them I need to open a browser and type it into the URL. It makes sure that if I'm going there are steps in the way and I have to actually have a purpose for going in rather than just indulging in compulsion.
When I do get on Facebook I don't let myself scroll more than 2 or 3 posts down to avoid getting into a loop.
I keep my phone in a wallet that needs to be unsnapped to get to it. This keeps me from using the phone in idle moments, like when waiting in line. Similar to my first point, just introducing some friction helps make sure I only reach for the thing if I actually need it rather than indulging in addictive behaviors.
I only have Facebook as social media, but I'm not on there very often - just on Messenger. After getting rid of the app on my phone, I realized that I was missing out on a lot of important events like recruitment and job workshops, etc so I will probably have to get the Facebook app back in the New Year.
Almost none of my friends post anything anymore and so I hope that it doesn't suck away too much of my time, the way it did several years ago.
Facebook Messenger is the only reason I haven't deleted my own facebook account.
People underestimate how hostile Facebook is to them. In a comment a week ago I told a friend's story about it:
I don't have a link, but I read an article about this, and this was done with this sort of effect in mind, totally consciously, by Facebook. They try to, and succeed at, manipulating people's emotional states and daily life. Horrible, horrible stuff. Unbelievable how people can keep such an hostile thing because they want to talk to some relative or close friends, or even people they'd forget about in an hour if they did not exist in their list of FB friends.
You are absoluteley right. If I can't bother to get their information then I don't really want to stay in contact with them.
Oh, I will comment here.
I left Facebook a few months ago permanently prior to which I was a chronic user of it. I had left Instagram just before Facebook. I then left Reddit after Facebook. Then YouTube. However, being a student I had to keep a way for YouTube. But I am planning to link my resources to dynalist and browse YouTube anonymously. Life has changed dramatically with the leaving of social media for me. My focused shot up so much, I am actually now concerned , my efficiency might be taking a toll because of long hours of work I have become used to doing. Alhamdulillah.
I've deactivated my Failbook account, and outright deleted Google+, Reddit, Twitter, and my various Mastodon accounts. Now I have nothing but this account and a Pleroma account.
Tildes is the extent of social media that I participate in. I haven't had a Facebook account in almost 8 years, and I stopped using Instagram when my feed turned into a bunch of paid ads. I never used Twitter so yeah. Like many others have said, the people you are actually friends with will still reach out to you and get in touch. Anyone who doesn't bother wasn't a friend to begin with, they were just an acquaintance.
I deleted my Reddit account and now only use it for the resources present, not as a passive thing to scroll through. Pretty happy with that decision though it does feel weird to be left out of happenings in games and other scenes that I care about.
I had two Facebook accounts, and I deactivated the one I actually used while I left up the one under my deadname that basically only exists to get messages from family. In my mind I've basically left, or at least killed the presence that Facebook had.
My opinion on leaving Facebook is a mixed one, though. Having people I'm not super close to but who I want to keep up on and see how they're doing is a big deal, and I have no idea what's going on with them now. Saying "they're not your real friends if they don't keep up with you elsewhere" is kinda worthless when the role they played in your life was never one which you mistook for genuine close friendship.
I'm also significantly more out of touch. People like to act like Facebook is just for granny memes, but if you find the right corners and especially if you find the right original pages, you'll be at the source for a lot of the humor and memes which make their way to Tumblr, Reddit, 4chan, and wherever else in the time that follows. I'm in a moment where I feel a bit disconnected from that culture anyway, none of the new things are that funny to me, but I regret not being there.
I was also part of a lot of political groups and friends with people I loved to learn from when it came to politics. There was toxicity and witch hunting too, I don't want to claim that my little corner of leftbook was perfect, but I don't think I'm better without it.
Shit, thinking about it makes me want to open my account back up. All I'm gaining is that I'm baited into a few less arguments and I get to feel good about having "escaped". Is that worth it at all?
facebook years ago, reddit years ago then again this year, never snapchat or insta... i may have made accts at one point but don't use them.
I have kind of a love hate relationship with social media, in that I have Facebook mostly for messenger and logins, never checking the front page. I nuked my main Twitter and made an alt for lurking and messaging, same for Reddit, same for Tumblr anywhere else I tried out and didn't like. Google is too ingrained to my life to delete that without major pain points, and ironically their news aggregator is my new compulsive checker, but at least it beats the comment section.
I think you hit the nail in the head when you say: "Social media is no replacement for a phone call."
Because I treat it like it is, and end up never contacting old friends. I use what friends post to 'keep up' with their lives. But really, I know for a fact if they looked at my posts, they would not really know what is going on in my life. And, it's probably the same way for them.
I've been slowly weaning off of Facebook and basically just use it passively. It never could hold my attention for more than a couple minutes at a time, so addiction or time wasting was never really an issue. As time has gone on, I've been less and less comfortable with their data practices. I disabled messenger from my phone since I didn't want to be tracked everywhere, then I did that with my tablet too even though I don't carry that around everywhere like I do with my phone. I eventually disabled the main app on all my mobile devices and only log in occasionally on my PC. I used to post pictures I take of family events on Facebook to share with family, but now I just share Google photos album instead. I don't think I can quit Google as easily. They already know basically everything about me through email, location history, search history, etc. and their products are very convenient.
I haven't deleted it entirely since I don't see that it would do much good. They've already got what they've got and I don't think they're getting much additional data on me that they wouldn't also get if I did delete my account. Unlike for many others, Facebook was never really detrimental to my health or productivity as it has never been a significant time-waste or addiction or source of toxicity for me, so maintaining an account doesn't pose the same risk that it does for those whom it does affect in those ways.
As a parting thought, for me, Facebook lost nearly all its appeal when OC became drowned out by the lazy sharing of unoriginal content. Occasionally these links are interesting, but for the vast majority, it's like browsing /r/all/new/ on Reddit, an ocean of garbage with very few posts that people put any effort into.
Over the last 12 months I've dropped: Snapchat, Instagram, Telegram and a few other smaller ones I can't remember at the moment. Soon to come is Facebook, just waiting for a few friends to get back to me with their mobile numbers and/or discord usernames.
I've kept Twitter (Probably next to go), Tildes, WhatsApp and Discord. I'm hoping to fill in the gap from Facebook messenger with discord, using that to keep in contact with friends in the short-term.
I'll say one of the things that annoys me is the recommendation we're getting slammed with these days from every corner to "Delete Your Facebook Today!" For a lot of people that isn't an option and it does get obnoxious