6 ms·

I'm really ashamed to admit it, but I am addicted to Facebook. As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook ha

by steego 11y ago

I'm really ashamed to admit it, but I am addicted to Facebook. As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. I've always explained the phenomenon of gossip rags as a surrogate for our innate need to be social. Rather than engaging in actual social scenarios (which can carry social risks), many people have fulfilled our social needs with television shows and gossip rags. Celebrities have become a surrogate community members for many people, and I suspect Facebook ups that by one by creating a platform where you can interact with friends, celebrities and strangers in an environment that mitigates most (not all) risks. I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other. Maybe it's only a matter of bandwidth, transistors and time.

Retric 11y ago
Facebook has a large disincentive to connecting people in the real world. If you're at a watching movies, camping in the woods, or just hanging out then you're not online. Worse, the more you connect in the real world the less interesting passive browsing becomes. Sure, you can still use FB to IM, but that's far less profitable for them. <click><click><click><click>...
- steego 11y ago
  Facebook is beholden to its shareholders first and foremost, then it's customers (advertisers, not you). Lastly, they want to make the inventory happy (that's you), so they can dish up ads. Now, if Facebook manages to release a successful augmented reality platform, they will have no qualms with you going out in the real world. If you're camping in the woods, that's just a nice opportunity for a singalong app to place an ad for you and your buddies. If you're going to the movies, that's an opportunity for Coke to subtly remind you that you can get Coke points on your way. It would be that Facebook has an incentive to get you out into the real world if they can influence where you go and spend your money. There are many ways you can do that without augmented reality.
  - tim333 11y ago
    Facebook is controlled by Zuckerberg who had 56.9 percent of the shareholder voting power and can tell the shareholders and advertisers to get lost if he really wants.
- luxpir 11y ago
  Another issue I've found since leaving the 'Facebook family' a few years back; there's a large disincentive for members you leave behind to contact you. You fall out of their habitual communication methods. The onus is on you to call them, which is already hard enough when both people could initiate the call. It becomes a much rarer event unless concerted effort is made. So until 'the next big social thing' comes along, I'm essentially out in the cold in many respects. But it's a price I'm willing to pay. I simply can't bring myself to support them in any way. The veneer of goodwill is very easy to see through with their constant manipulation tactics. And besides, it's not all bad; it hasn't stopped me from being invited to major events in my social circle. It's nice not to feel beholden to a website, which was the case when I was a member. The psychological effects are yet to be studied in depth, I'm sure.
  - manmal 11y ago
    A friend of mine returned to FB a few days ago, claiming that he had lost like 90% of his social contact. That sounds a bit much to me, bur one should definitely take this into consideration before leaving.
    - luxpir 11y ago
      And how sad is that? That a person's social activity should be dictated by a single website, in this world of ubiquitous social media, portable phones with hours of pre-paid talk-time... The effect may be more pronounced in the generation who've grown up solely on social media, but it certainly exists as a phenomenon. Whether the 'social contact' referred to by your friend is genuine in-person social contact or vague 'online contact' will probably depend on their age. Us pre-80s/90s kids had phonecalls, 'knocking on the person's door to see if they were in', postcards and 'meeting at the usual spot at the usual time' social habits. Now a lazy click to 'like' something posted to boost the poster's ego counts as socialising. That would be fine if we actually met up and spoke from time to time but that sadly is not the case. I thought at one point the younger generation had started to push back against screentime, but I seem to have been mistaken for the moment. Perhaps in another few years, with a bit of luck.
  - 11y ago
- vonklaus 11y ago
  While you are correct, and on the face of it i would agree because I am cynical, they can never really lose that battle. I doubt a normal Facebook user can ever be in the same place as all of their Facebook friends. So family, college friends, high school friends, etc, will always be accessible online at the expense of the other parties real life presence. Based on eating out, I can say that groups of people still use their phones to connect to Facebook, even with large groups of "Friends" IRL.
Tenhundfeld 11y ago
I go through an experience about once a year: 1) Log in to Facebook to look at picture of friend's new baby. This is nice. 2) Start browsing around, seeing what other friends have been up to. Oh neato. ... an hour later 3) Looking up people I knew in high school but haven't kept up with. ... another hour later 4) Holy crap, where'd the morning go? I can't do this. Shut it down. 5) Wait ~12 months for next event that draws me to the site. Repeat.
- softawre 11y ago
  4 hours per year on facebook is pretty good :)
- burkaman 11y ago
  Wouldn't it make a little more sense to spread those four hours out over the year? I never spend more than a few minutes at a time on Facebook, because there's never that much new stuff since I looked at it yesterday.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
    Yeah, definitely. I think for my personality, I just have a really hard time just "snacking" on Facebook. I also might have a more active set of Facebook friends/family than you do. I feel like whenever I open it, even when I've toyed with checking it weekly, I end up spending hours reading posts and articles people have linked to, etc. It's easier for me to just ignore it for months at a time and being okay missing the occasional important update.
- reitanqild 11y ago
  I try to use facebook more [0][1] but I just find it boring compared to family, work, friends and HN. [0]: I really struggle with faces and figured Facebook would be perfect for practicing. [1]: If anyone knows if someone has made a game out of names and faces on the social graph I'd be interested. If not gøfeel free to steal that idea.
Spooky23 11y ago
Just sign out. Facebook's response is hilarious -- they send you "please come back" emails for a few weeks. I stopped using it a few months ago, don't really miss it at all. If you find you're missing someone whom you normally interacted with on Facebook, give them a call.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Yeah those messages are hilarious. I got a pathetic new wrinkle on that the other day: It looks like someone tried to log into your account on April XX at X:XXxm using an unknown device. Your account is safe; we just wanted to make sure it was you who tried to log in from somewhere new. If you don't think this was you, please log into Facebook so we can walk you through a few steps to keep your account safe. Haha nice try Zuck!
Raphmedia 11y ago
> I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. I strongly agree. I also believe that it is very easy to disturb their black magic. Ever since I started using Stylish to customize the interface, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it. My version of Facebook remplaces all the blue for red hues and adds a wallpaper. I find that this makes Facebook more tiring to use. This must be why Facebook is so against browser apps that change their features even when it's only minimally.
- amelius 11y ago
  > Ever since I started using Stylish to customize the interface, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it. Ever since I added the following entry in my /etc/hosts file, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it: 127.0.0.2 facebook.com www.facebook.com
  - Raphmedia 11y ago
    I'm not sure if it's a joke or not, but using the hosts file to block websites is a big way to gain productivity. Even better if you ask your admin to do it while not giving you the rights to change it back! Edit: Also, Hacker News has built-in features to do this. Look up "noprocrast" in your profile! You have "maxvisit" and "minaway" you can use to keep you from coming here too much!
    - drjesusphd 11y ago
      It's easy to dismiss little hacks like this because "you can always change it back". But what I've found is the simple little disruption of a lazy habit is enough. If I need to open the hosts file with sudo, that's enough of a block
- s4chin 11y ago
  Can you give a link of the style?
  - 11y ago
kevinbluer 11y ago
One thing that has recently helped me kick the "addiction" is by unfollowing literally everybody I know. It's taken a while, but now when I go back in it literally says something to the effect that "you need to follow friends to get news in your feed". I'm now placing the onus on going back in and actively going to the feeds of friends and family that I care about; as opposed to the mindless thumbing through the feed.
spoinkaroo 11y ago
I got a chrome extension that blocks my newsfeed. Forces me to look at it on mobile only and only use FB for messenger.
tdkl 11y ago
> I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. It's a "novelty addiction". They weren't the first, it's just its content is closer and more relevant to you since it's people you know. The feeling when you find something new gives you a pleasurable dopamine hit, so you're constantly looking for more. Same can be said for people addicted to reddit, HN, Twitter, etc.
ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other." So like Meetup but with a stronger online discussion platform? http://www.meetup.com/ http://www.meetup.com/
Diederich 11y ago
I am not addicted to facebook or any other social media. In fact, the only reason I use them with any regularity is to take part in social interactions with my immediate family. However, I still think you're onto something. Social media has figured out how to really, at a deep level, grab our attention and keep it. But it doesn't work on me because I'm not a very social person. I'm pretty far on the 'recluse' spectrum.
golemotron 11y ago
Facebook is the social equivalent of fast food. They've tuned the menu to make it addictive. > I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other. It's called a coffee shop. We need to get off the curated online experiences and back to interacting with people physically. It's vital. A therapist friend of mine says that most of the clients he sees that are teens or in their 20s have poor interaction skills in person and social phobia. Those lead to incredible rejection anxiety. I know from my own experience that some of the best conversations I've had with strangers have been people in their 50s and above who know how to engage in casual conversation and find joy in it rather than angst. Go to a coffee shop and talk to a stranger. We should all do more of that. It's healthy.
- cognivore 11y ago
  I have nothing to add but what a great post.
- petra 11y ago
  It's not just you or your therapist friend. According to a study[1]: Empathy Dropped 40% in College Students between 2000 to 2010. And now everything is much more addictive, and mobile wasn't even that common in 2010. And now we have virtual reality, which when you read the research some scary side effects surface - stuff like "derealization" - basically having a consistent feeling that real life isn't real. Or stuff about ads having deep brainwashing like power. And almost nobody is working to solve those issues. [1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocker-empathy-dropped-40-in-college-students-2000 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocke...
  - bpchaps 11y ago
    Wow. I've been suspecting this more and more, but whenever I bring it up or similar, it ends with an asinine amount of resistance and I'm regarded as an SJW, worse, and even unempathetic. Hell, when I bring up some of the civics work I do, people get angry that I'm trying to help others. Parpaphrased statements like, "Why are you trying to help dumb people?" are unbearably common and sad. Thanks for the article. It gives me a lot to think about (after fact checking, of course).
drinknderive 11y ago
If you are trying to fix this. I started muting everything that came across my feeds, that why I can use it for my groups and only the friends I want to see how things are going.
sk8ingdom 11y ago
> As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. For me the beginning of the end was when Facebook created the Newsfeed and started "optimizing" it based on your behavior. Suddenly, content was no longer chronological (including photos in a single post!), all articles were click-bait, and most posts were "on behalf of the user". For example, "So-and-so has liked Pepsi!", "So-and-so has expressed interest in this local event!", etc. All content seems designed to provide the illusion that everyone is always on Facebook. And you should be too! Luckily, I've found a workaround that fits my workflow well. I'm still a pretty avid RSS (GNU Emacs / Gnus) user, so I added the people I care about to my "Close Friends" group, subscribed to the RSS feed, and read it on my own time. Posts maintain chronological order and are 100% text (unless I choose to click on them). Most importantly, when I'm done sifting through the notifications, I'm done. Since I'm not on the website, Facebook can't manipulate me into wasting my time. With my luck, they're shut down this feature in the near future.

by steego 11y ago

Retric 11y ago

Facebook has a large disincentive to connecting people in the real world. If you're at a watching movies, camping in the woods, or just hanging out then you're not online. Worse, the more you connect in the real world the less interesting passive browsing becomes. Sure, you can still use FB to IM, but that's far less profitable for them. <click><click><click><click>...

steego 11y ago
Facebook is beholden to its shareholders first and foremost, then it's customers (advertisers, not you). Lastly, they want to make the inventory happy (that's you), so they can dish up ads. Now, if Facebook manages to release a successful augmented reality platform, they will have no qualms with you going out in the real world. If you're camping in the woods, that's just a nice opportunity for a singalong app to place an ad for you and your buddies. If you're going to the movies, that's an opportunity for Coke to subtly remind you that you can get Coke points on your way. It would be that Facebook has an incentive to get you out into the real world if they can influence where you go and spend your money. There are many ways you can do that without augmented reality.
- tim333 11y ago
  Facebook is controlled by Zuckerberg who had 56.9 percent of the shareholder voting power and can tell the shareholders and advertisers to get lost if he really wants.
luxpir 11y ago
Another issue I've found since leaving the 'Facebook family' a few years back; there's a large disincentive for members you leave behind to contact you. You fall out of their habitual communication methods. The onus is on you to call them, which is already hard enough when both people could initiate the call. It becomes a much rarer event unless concerted effort is made. So until 'the next big social thing' comes along, I'm essentially out in the cold in many respects. But it's a price I'm willing to pay. I simply can't bring myself to support them in any way. The veneer of goodwill is very easy to see through with their constant manipulation tactics. And besides, it's not all bad; it hasn't stopped me from being invited to major events in my social circle. It's nice not to feel beholden to a website, which was the case when I was a member. The psychological effects are yet to be studied in depth, I'm sure.
- manmal 11y ago
  A friend of mine returned to FB a few days ago, claiming that he had lost like 90% of his social contact. That sounds a bit much to me, bur one should definitely take this into consideration before leaving.
  - luxpir 11y ago
    And how sad is that? That a person's social activity should be dictated by a single website, in this world of ubiquitous social media, portable phones with hours of pre-paid talk-time... The effect may be more pronounced in the generation who've grown up solely on social media, but it certainly exists as a phenomenon. Whether the 'social contact' referred to by your friend is genuine in-person social contact or vague 'online contact' will probably depend on their age. Us pre-80s/90s kids had phonecalls, 'knocking on the person's door to see if they were in', postcards and 'meeting at the usual spot at the usual time' social habits. Now a lazy click to 'like' something posted to boost the poster's ego counts as socialising. That would be fine if we actually met up and spoke from time to time but that sadly is not the case. I thought at one point the younger generation had started to push back against screentime, but I seem to have been mistaken for the moment. Perhaps in another few years, with a bit of luck.
- 11y ago
vonklaus 11y ago
While you are correct, and on the face of it i would agree because I am cynical, they can never really lose that battle. I doubt a normal Facebook user can ever be in the same place as all of their Facebook friends. So family, college friends, high school friends, etc, will always be accessible online at the expense of the other parties real life presence. Based on eating out, I can say that groups of people still use their phones to connect to Facebook, even with large groups of "Friends" IRL.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago

I go through an experience about once a year: 1) Log in to Facebook to look at picture of friend's new baby. This is nice. 2) Start browsing around, seeing what other friends have been up to. Oh neato. ... an hour later 3) Looking up people I knew in high school but haven't kept up with. ... another hour later 4) Holy crap, where'd the morning go? I can't do this. Shut it down. 5) Wait ~12 months for next event that draws me to the site. Repeat.

softawre 11y ago
4 hours per year on facebook is pretty good :)
burkaman 11y ago
Wouldn't it make a little more sense to spread those four hours out over the year? I never spend more than a few minutes at a time on Facebook, because there's never that much new stuff since I looked at it yesterday.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  Yeah, definitely. I think for my personality, I just have a really hard time just "snacking" on Facebook. I also might have a more active set of Facebook friends/family than you do. I feel like whenever I open it, even when I've toyed with checking it weekly, I end up spending hours reading posts and articles people have linked to, etc. It's easier for me to just ignore it for months at a time and being okay missing the occasional important update.
reitanqild 11y ago
I try to use facebook more [0][1] but I just find it boring compared to family, work, friends and HN. [0]: I really struggle with faces and figured Facebook would be perfect for practicing. [1]: If anyone knows if someone has made a game out of names and faces on the social graph I'd be interested. If not gøfeel free to steal that idea.

Spooky23 11y ago

Just sign out. Facebook's response is hilarious -- they send you "please come back" emails for a few weeks. I stopped using it a few months ago, don't really miss it at all. If you find you're missing someone whom you normally interacted with on Facebook, give them a call.

jessaustin 11y ago
Yeah those messages are hilarious. I got a pathetic new wrinkle on that the other day: It looks like someone tried to log into your account on April XX at X:XXxm using an unknown device. Your account is safe; we just wanted to make sure it was you who tried to log in from somewhere new. If you don't think this was you, please log into Facebook so we can walk you through a few steps to keep your account safe. Haha nice try Zuck!

Raphmedia 11y ago

> I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. I strongly agree. I also believe that it is very easy to disturb their black magic. Ever since I started using Stylish to customize the interface, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it. My version of Facebook remplaces all the blue for red hues and adds a wallpaper. I find that this makes Facebook more tiring to use. This must be why Facebook is so against browser apps that change their features even when it's only minimally.

amelius 11y ago
> Ever since I started using Stylish to customize the interface, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it. Ever since I added the following entry in my /etc/hosts file, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it: 127.0.0.2 facebook.com www.facebook.com
- Raphmedia 11y ago
  I'm not sure if it's a joke or not, but using the hosts file to block websites is a big way to gain productivity. Even better if you ask your admin to do it while not giving you the rights to change it back! Edit: Also, Hacker News has built-in features to do this. Look up "noprocrast" in your profile! You have "maxvisit" and "minaway" you can use to keep you from coming here too much!
  - drjesusphd 11y ago
    It's easy to dismiss little hacks like this because "you can always change it back". But what I've found is the simple little disruption of a lazy habit is enough. If I need to open the hosts file with sudo, that's enough of a block
s4chin 11y ago
Can you give a link of the style?
- 11y ago

kevinbluer 11y ago

One thing that has recently helped me kick the "addiction" is by unfollowing literally everybody I know. It's taken a while, but now when I go back in it literally says something to the effect that "you need to follow friends to get news in your feed". I'm now placing the onus on going back in and actively going to the feeds of friends and family that I care about; as opposed to the mindless thumbing through the feed.

spoinkaroo 11y ago

I got a chrome extension that blocks my newsfeed. Forces me to look at it on mobile only and only use FB for messenger.

tdkl 11y ago

> I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. It's a "novelty addiction". They weren't the first, it's just its content is closer and more relevant to you since it's people you know. The feeling when you find something new gives you a pleasurable dopamine hit, so you're constantly looking for more. Same can be said for people addicted to reddit, HN, Twitter, etc.

ZenoArrow 11y ago

> "I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other." So like Meetup but with a stronger online discussion platform? http://www.meetup.com/ http://www.meetup.com/

Diederich 11y ago

I am not addicted to facebook or any other social media. In fact, the only reason I use them with any regularity is to take part in social interactions with my immediate family. However, I still think you're onto something. Social media has figured out how to really, at a deep level, grab our attention and keep it. But it doesn't work on me because I'm not a very social person. I'm pretty far on the 'recluse' spectrum.

golemotron 11y ago

Facebook is the social equivalent of fast food. They've tuned the menu to make it addictive. > I wish I had a clever idea for a solution to this because I really think the world deserves an open social platform that not only engages people socially, but provides the social lubricant to enable people to form online/offline clubs and interact with each other in a high-bandwidth so we can use the internet to teach each other and create fun things with each other. It's called a coffee shop. We need to get off the curated online experiences and back to interacting with people physically. It's vital. A therapist friend of mine says that most of the clients he sees that are teens or in their 20s have poor interaction skills in person and social phobia. Those lead to incredible rejection anxiety. I know from my own experience that some of the best conversations I've had with strangers have been people in their 50s and above who know how to engage in casual conversation and find joy in it rather than angst. Go to a coffee shop and talk to a stranger. We should all do more of that. It's healthy.

cognivore 11y ago
I have nothing to add but what a great post.
petra 11y ago
It's not just you or your therapist friend. According to a study[1]: Empathy Dropped 40% in College Students between 2000 to 2010. And now everything is much more addictive, and mobile wasn't even that common in 2010. And now we have virtual reality, which when you read the research some scary side effects surface - stuff like "derealization" - basically having a consistent feeling that real life isn't real. Or stuff about ads having deep brainwashing like power. And almost nobody is working to solve those issues. [1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocker-empathy-dropped-40-in-college-students-2000 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocke...
- bpchaps 11y ago
  Wow. I've been suspecting this more and more, but whenever I bring it up or similar, it ends with an asinine amount of resistance and I'm regarded as an SJW, worse, and even unempathetic. Hell, when I bring up some of the civics work I do, people get angry that I'm trying to help others. Parpaphrased statements like, "Why are you trying to help dumb people?" are unbearably common and sad. Thanks for the article. It gives me a lot to think about (after fact checking, of course).

drinknderive 11y ago

If you are trying to fix this. I started muting everything that came across my feeds, that why I can use it for my groups and only the friends I want to see how things are going.

sk8ingdom 11y ago

> As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. For me the beginning of the end was when Facebook created the Newsfeed and started "optimizing" it based on your behavior. Suddenly, content was no longer chronological (including photos in a single post!), all articles were click-bait, and most posts were "on behalf of the user". For example, "So-and-so has liked Pepsi!", "So-and-so has expressed interest in this local event!", etc. All content seems designed to provide the illusion that everyone is always on Facebook. And you should be too! Luckily, I've found a workaround that fits my workflow well. I'm still a pretty avid RSS (GNU Emacs / Gnus) user, so I added the people I care about to my "Close Friends" group, subscribed to the RSS feed, and read it on my own time. Posts maintain chronological order and are 100% text (unless I choose to click on them). Most importantly, when I'm done sifting through the notifications, I'm done. Since I'm not on the website, Facebook can't manipulate me into wasting my time. With my luck, they're shut down this feature in the near future.