4 ms·

Ask HN: How to get out of the Facebook cycle, keeping the good parts

6 points by camillomiller 10y ago

I think I'm finally done with Facebook. I want out. The noise is too high, and I'm sure that, if I'm able to pull out, my quality of life will increase. So much idle time spent on the useless flux of futile blabbering, so many minutes (hours and days, over all these years) spent on a virtual place where everyone's entitled to an opinion nobody else really cares about. Facebook's original mission, i.e. "connecting everyone in the world", is utter bullshit. Intentions were good, maybe they still are, but that's all bullshit nonetheless. But: 1) I've got a ton of work contacts that I met there and I should keep in touch with; 2) I love groups. If you pick the right well-managed ones, there's a lot of added value to discover there. To the question: has anybody here implemented a successful "soft leave" from Facebook? I would love to deactivate my account, but if I do that I won't be able to use the messenger and groups apps anymore. Please, don't say I should simply let go of that too. I know, you're right, but currently I cannot do that without impacting my professional life. I'm eager to hear your opinions--I would listen to them, here.

meira 10y ago
I let it go and it happened as you are predicting: worked very well personally and very bad professionally. It was a good tradeoff, but now, 1 year later, I'm planning to get back and do a better use.
- camillomiller 10y ago
  Thanks for your feedback, and for confirming that, unfortunately, there's some professional fallout to be expected from quitting Facebook. I'm so excited that another post on HN actually had some great advice on this very problem. Here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13062063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13062063 I'm planning on exploring this more and write something on a way to "softly quit" Facebook, maybe over the next weekend.
cmstoken 10y ago
Check out this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12550465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12550465. I wrote a response in there about how I "soft left" FB. You can still use messenger and groups but you won't have to deal with the noise anymore. Just takes 2-3 weeks to get used to.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
maqmaq 10y ago
You can always use this place instead of facebook one https://www.facebook.com/messages/ https://www.facebook.com/messages/ to use only facebook messanger and if i still get distracted i use greasemonkey script to not let topbar and msg popup to distract me http://pastebin.com/3VL88ihe http://pastebin.com/3VL88ihe
- somedanishguy 10y ago
  I can also recommend using www.messenger.com, as that is the facebook messenger only, and no topbar.
BarbNerdy 10y ago
love your comment in my blog! Specially this --> "because the whole discovery process did not involve Facebook at all. There’s hope!" Yes! I'm quite happy with my new empty and zero friends profile. For groups its bad, I have to login back with my profile and oops all notification bling bling is coming up... On GitHub you can try out the quiet facebook thing: https://github.com/maxfriedrich/quiet-facebook https://github.com/maxfriedrich/quiet-facebook
- camillomiller 10y ago
  Trying the quiet Facebook route right now, with a little add-on: #fbNotificationsJewel { visibility: hidden !important;} This will silence also the notifications, so you won't be tempted to check them and be sucked in. Franz on my Mac is taking care of the pages I have to manage, and I'm using only the groups and pages apps--I removed the main FB app from my phone. Not interested in removing content right now, but I'm thinking about putting some text in my cover image to explain why I won't be posting anymore.
BarbNerdy 10y ago
but to be clear: I want to leave this thing completely. Of course I need it for biz reasons and also to stay in touch with people. The way out might take a while but I'm on this way.
seanwilson 10y ago
Can't you just only check it every few days and only for a sensible amount of time...? I'm not understanding the problem, nobody is making you read what's on there. Also, how are you using Facebook for your professional life? I thought most people only used it for their social/private life? Friending people who are actually your friends and using email or LinkedIn for work colleagues sounds more sensible to me.

6 points by camillomiller 10y ago

meira 10y ago

I let it go and it happened as you are predicting: worked very well personally and very bad professionally. It was a good tradeoff, but now, 1 year later, I'm planning to get back and do a better use.

camillomiller 10y ago
Thanks for your feedback, and for confirming that, unfortunately, there's some professional fallout to be expected from quitting Facebook. I'm so excited that another post on HN actually had some great advice on this very problem. Here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13062063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13062063 I'm planning on exploring this more and write something on a way to "softly quit" Facebook, maybe over the next weekend.

cmstoken 10y ago

Check out this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12550465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12550465. I wrote a response in there about how I "soft left" FB. You can still use messenger and groups but you won't have to deal with the noise anymore. Just takes 2-3 weeks to get used to.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

maqmaq 10y ago

You can always use this place instead of facebook one https://www.facebook.com/messages/ https://www.facebook.com/messages/ to use only facebook messanger and if i still get distracted i use greasemonkey script to not let topbar and msg popup to distract me http://pastebin.com/3VL88ihe http://pastebin.com/3VL88ihe

somedanishguy 10y ago
I can also recommend using www.messenger.com, as that is the facebook messenger only, and no topbar.

BarbNerdy 10y ago

love your comment in my blog! Specially this --> "because the whole discovery process did not involve Facebook at all. There’s hope!" Yes! I'm quite happy with my new empty and zero friends profile. For groups its bad, I have to login back with my profile and oops all notification bling bling is coming up... On GitHub you can try out the quiet facebook thing: https://github.com/maxfriedrich/quiet-facebook https://github.com/maxfriedrich/quiet-facebook

camillomiller 10y ago
Trying the quiet Facebook route right now, with a little add-on: #fbNotificationsJewel { visibility: hidden !important;} This will silence also the notifications, so you won't be tempted to check them and be sucked in. Franz on my Mac is taking care of the pages I have to manage, and I'm using only the groups and pages apps--I removed the main FB app from my phone. Not interested in removing content right now, but I'm thinking about putting some text in my cover image to explain why I won't be posting anymore.

BarbNerdy 10y ago

but to be clear: I want to leave this thing completely. Of course I need it for biz reasons and also to stay in touch with people. The way out might take a while but I'm on this way.

seanwilson 10y ago

Can't you just only check it every few days and only for a sensible amount of time...? I'm not understanding the problem, nobody is making you read what's on there. Also, how are you using Facebook for your professional life? I thought most people only used it for their social/private life? Friending people who are actually your friends and using email or LinkedIn for work colleagues sounds more sensible to me.