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This is an excellent blog post, though it made me sick reading it. I recently made the switch. I went from trying to limit how much I log in (to once or twice

This is an excellent blog post, though it made me sick reading it. I recently made the switch. I went from trying to limit how much I log in (to once or twice a week), to actually not logging in. I've been cold-turkey for two months (except for a couple of times when I had a very specific reason to check something). I thought it would be difficult. Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me. If you have a plan to replace the social interactions with other forms, you realise that the rest is just dross. If I really want to know what my friends had for breakfast I can phone them up and ask. On balance, I'd rather not. I'm not at the point of deleting the account yet. Small steps. Here were my reasons FWIW: http://blog.afandian.com/2017/01/why-i-am-giving-up-on-facebook/ http://blog.afandian.com/2017/01/why-i-am-giving-up-on-faceb... If you're reading and considering whether or not you can withdraw from Facebook, you can do it!

macintux 10y ago
I found it interesting for the opposite reason: I've avoided Facebook up to now, but there are enough inconveniences that my resistance is wearing down.
- afandian 10y ago
  They might be clunky, but I'm sure there are adequate means of doing everything you'd want to do. The problem many people have is convenience. For example if you are forced to use Facebook in order to log into a Hotel Wifi (as I recently was) then you have to say "I don't want the Wifi more than I want to log in with Facebook". It's not an essential. Or, it might be more difficult to spend the effort keeping in touch with people on a personal level, but it's not impossible. It just doesn't have the convenience that Facebook gives. But it also doesn't have the costs. I'm not trying to convince anyone. But I do find it increasingly interesting (as I pay more attention to it) how many people confuse 'convenient' for 'essential'.
  - zeroer 10y ago
    I keep a dummy Facebook account for precisely this purpose.
zitterbewegung 10y ago
I did something similar. I deleted the facebook app from my phone (originally due to battery usage). Then eventually I deactivated my account. I believe I have been facebook free for two weeks.
newscracker 10y ago
I would so love to do it, but my use of Facebook is for a specific cause and I login and participate only in a few groups (always with a browser equipped with an ad blocker and tracker blocker). I don't browse time lines or participate on people's time line posts and comments. I don't use the app. I do use the messenger app for one of my FB accounts for convenience (with minimal permissions). Since I don't use WhatsApp (because it's an FB company and because chat is not a substitute for groups), it'd be very hard to engage with others for my use, find new people, etc.
kakarot 10y ago
> it's the fear of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me. Yeppp. I know exactly how you feel, brother. I gave up Facebook for New Years and will be deleting my account after I set up a blog so I have somewhere to blow off steam and tell bad jokes. The compromise that helped me overcome the feeling of being cut off was that I will have an open comments section and email address, if my friends really want to stay in touch then they will take time out of their week to come say hi. It's a lot harder than people think. And the last season of South Park was no joke... When I announced I was leaving Facebook, many people were shocked and genuinely concerned for me. They asked me if it was really necessary, if I couldn't just use it less. But that isn't an option, it's all or nothing and within a few months I will never let Facebook save another cookie on my computer again. But I know the concern is partially because they understand exactly what is going on in my mind but they don't see a way out. It's really depressing. For the hell of it I briefly checked my feed last week and I felt like a recovering junkie, visiting their old friends and seeing for the first time what their lifestyle really looked like from the outside.
- afandian 10y ago
  I recently sent round an event-organising email and slipped in the facebook thing. Not everyone who replied mentioned it, but everyone that did said that they were thinking exactly the same thing. And if you need an extra kick, you can download an archive all your data. It had previous girlfriends, employers, places I signed in, private messages, ad agencies they passed my details on to, etc etc. All stuff I'd rather let fade away, but I know it never will.
  - kakarot 10y ago
    I downloaded an archive, for sure. I was actually just searching it for a specific message before I got on HN. Sadly I lost the archive from my previous account. Lots of gems in there. It's amazing the amounts of conversations we have on a weekly basis that we soon forget. We are just passing too much information through our body and mind to catch even a tenth of it permanently.
- djrogers 10y ago
Kluny 10y ago
> Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me. If you have a plan to replace the social interactions with other forms, you realise that the rest is just dross. This is the problem for me right now. I don't have a plan for replacing the social contact of facebook (and facebook isn't giving me anywhere close to what I need). I'm also struggling with depression right now and pretty socially withdrawn. As soon as the current blues pass and I'm able to come up with a real life third place [1], I hope to start limiting how much time I spend there and eventually quit altogether. [1] From the article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
- germinalphrase 10y ago
  I feel lucky in that I have a job that involves social interaction, but moving to a new city left me without any "third place". I definitely empathize with the loneliness that can stir up and so many public spaces seem designed around creating new social interactions between people who aren't already associated. I read an article not long ago about upscale private clubs. I'm strongly attracted to the status/networking aspect often involved, but the idea of a place gather and socialize that doesn't require buying alcohol/coffee/food is appealing. Place it in a neighborhood. Keep the membership fees accessible to the people who live in that community and then offer some small perks that bars/coffee shops don't (e.g. free billiards on a real table). Hopefully, membership would make people a little more open to socializing with whomever show up, rather than the typical bar in which most people stick to their own group. Does anyone have experience with private clubs (of any kind)? Did they open up social interaction in this way?
  - Kluny 10y ago
    That's a cool idea, yep. My thing used to be volunteering at bike shop. It was free as long as I was working (which I enjoyed) and there was a lot of interaction. Having it fee-based instead of work-based would be cool too.
    - germinalphrase 10y ago
aantix 10y ago
Strange; I've done the opposite. I engage with Facebook now more than ever. I'm 38 years old. I plan events with friends, I get to see their children grow up, new jobs, comfort them when they lose a parent.. There's never been a platform so emotionally engaging. It makes me feel in sync with their lives, even when I haven't seen them in a while. It's such an amazing platform.
- treehau5 10y ago
  I think Facebook is the ultimate realization of the American concept of "friendship" (maybe not your specific case) contrasted to the German version of friendship. In Germany, to call someone your friend, it is a great honor, it means something, it is an investment. Here in the states, "everyone is friends!" Yet it feels so superficial. Now we can just check in on them a couple times a day on their posts without the huge investment. It's perfectly American. Also I am sad to see your thought is being down-voted.
  - aantix 10y ago
    Strength of friendships in Germany can't be granular? Aren't there just people that have been good to you in the present or past, that you want to see succeed, that you want to root for? Those are the perfect candidates for Facebook.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      Acquaintances? FOAFs? Former colleagues? A DJ you used to go see 20 years ago? In the US, all of these people get swept under the rug of "friends" in the FB era, and it's in this way that they are less granular if "friend" can mean just about anybody you've ever come across.
      - treehau5 10y ago
        This was none other more apparent in college See someone from your hallway in your dorm in the library you never spoke to before? Oh dude that's my boy from my dorm right there! See a classmate out at the bar that you only asked for homework a few times? "Sup dude! It's your boy from chem class!" And hundreds of other examples similar to this.
bogomipz 10y ago
>"I thought it would be difficult. Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me." Agreed. People fear they will socially ostracized if the leave Facebook. My experience has been the opposite. I found that FB is a good excuse to be socially lazy. Going to actual social events and meeting new people and having spontaneous conversations is far more gratifying and important. It's easy to delude yourself that you are getting your "social fix" via your FB feed and sending and accepting "friend requests." There was a time when if you were in a public place waiting for a friend, you would strike up a conversation with a person next to you. Now if you are in say a bar waiting for your friend to show up most people are more likely to use that time to look FB on their phones, rather than interact with unknown people around them. I find this kind of sad.
riebschlager 10y ago
I'm now over one year Facebook-free. As with most things (especially online things) I don't even remember why it was so appealing in the first place. The fear of missing out fades really fast. And as someone else mentioned in this thread, I feel like I value actual friendship a bit more. If anyone's interested in really ditching Facebook and preventing it from injecting junk into the sites you visit and tracking you, here's a list of URLs I've added to my hosts file. As the repo's name suggests, it helps make the internet suck less. https://github.com/riebschlager/make-the-internet-suck-less/blob/master/facebook.txt https://github.com/riebschlager/make-the-internet-suck-less/...
- hiq 10y ago
  Some lists in ublock origin cover this use case, can't remember last time I saw facebook comments on a web page.
- alecco 10y ago
  Good work. More here https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio... http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
- NetOpWibby 10y ago
  Nice post! I deleted my Facebook account about 2 or 3 weeks ago and I haven't been happier. Before pulling the plug though, I spent a couple days babysitting a post deletion script that wasn't as autonomous as I've hoped. However, I was able to delete my first 3 years and last 5 years of Facebook posts and a decent amount of recent likes/reactions. I think if you really want to make sure Facebook doesn't have data directly from you, you'd need to take the time to delete every possible interaction you can, delete browser cookies, wait a couple days, then initiate account deletion (Facebook makes you wait 2 weeks until your account is actually deleted, just enough time for you to change your mind).
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    You're assuming the deletion actually deletes stuff. I doubt it does.
Waterluvian 10y ago
I flat out deleted Facebook (the hidden option that truly deletes you). Turned out to improve my social life. I focused on and nurtured the friendships that truly mattered to me.
- olkid 10y ago
  the hidden option?
  - Waterluvian 10y ago
    Well,the less obvious option I had to Google to find. It doesn't just set my account as inactive, it deletes it so that I no longer appear in friends lists as a referencabl e person.
bblough 10y ago
I also just took the plunge. I guess I'm at about 3 weeks (late next week is one month). For the past several months, I spent some of my free time going through my history, deleting almost everything I ever posted (note, there's a way to view your timeline by specific year, which seems to include more than the regular timeline view). The few things I couldn't delete (because it didn't give me an option) or that I didn't want to delete (e.g, photos I want to download later), I set to viewable only by me. Then without a peep, I deactivated my account. I probably should have written a script to do this rather than taking all the time. But to be honest, doing it manually was a nice jog down memory lane, even if it was really time consuming. At this point, I have no plans to reactivate my account, with one exception. At some point, when I decide that "it's time," I'll reactivate my account, download an archive of the remaining items, delete what I can of what remains, and use the "account delete" option (for whatever good that actually does). Then that will be it. Out of habit, I still frequently catch myself saying "ooh, interesting article, I should post that to facebook. Oh, wait..." Hopefully it's only a matter of time before that stops.
- NetOpWibby 10y ago
  I did the same as you about the same amount of time ago...interesting. A month prior, I requested an export of my Facebook data so I at least have that should I feel the need to look at old pics.
city41 10y ago
I deactivated my account over a year ago. Facebook will not delete your account, deactivate is the best you can do. Interestingly I went to a Facebook event at their headquarters and when I signed in, there was my profile picture staring back at me. I thought pulling it out of my deactivated account was in poor taste. Anyway, I can say I'm happier without it. I'm now seriously considering deactivating my Twitter account. Twitter really will delete your account after I believe 30 days of it being deactivated.
- rak00n 10y ago
  I thought Facebook does delete your account. Do you have a source?
  - zeroer 10y ago
    My guess is that they don't delete anything due to regulatory and legal reasons.
    - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
      My guess is they don't delete it because your data is valuable to them and they don't want to lose it, though they may use fake regulatory and legal excuses.
    - brokenmachine 10y ago
      What possible regulatory and legal reasons would there be that they can't delete your account? It's not like it's financial information. Any other service (eg Google) expressly says in it's TOS that they may delete your account whenever they feel like it.
  - westmeal 10y ago
    Facebook can remove it from public view however any posts you make are the property of Facebook and so they continue to hold onto it.
- rolodato 10y ago
grahamburger 10y ago
These 'made the switch' stories always surprise me - seems like an over-reaction. I guess I've never been so 'in' to Facebook that I've felt a pressing need to get 'out'. Sometimes I go weeks/months without engaging much at all, sometimes I browse it daily just to see what everybody's yakking about. I don't really feel like it has a net-negative impact on my life.
pimeys 10y ago
I've also been out from Facebook over a month now. The last time I did it I was out three years, but needed to join back when I moved to a new country. This time I also stopped drinking alcohol, quit nicotine (in the form of snus) and deleted several of my accounts, e.g. Gmail and Linkedin. This feels suspiciously easy...
- NetOpWibby 10y ago
  Nice!
cylinder 10y ago
Just unfollow everyone, you won't have a feed. There's nothing to do on there without a feed and you won't miss anything. It takes some time to do it but it's worth it. I still login pretty much daily but leave quickly.
DashRattlesnake 10y ago
> I'm not at the point of deleting the account yet. Small steps. I'm in the same boat. I hardly use it, but I keep it around because it is the favored way to contact certain people and organize events, and I don't want to miss out. I console myself by deliberately injecting noise into my profile (e.g. fake likes) every once in awhile.
herval 10y ago
Personal anecdote: I concluded it was making me slightly depressed, so manually unfollowed everyone (but kept them as friends) and un-liked every single page. Use it basically to reply when someone comments on a post (effectively trying to make it a "write-only" log) Turns out you apparently cannot do that, as every time I log in, I find myself re-following a few people (2-10) - some of which I had unfollowed long, long before my "isolationist" move...
Nugem_ 10y ago
It has taken me almost 8 years to cut Facebook from my life, mainly because I used to log on to tend to my business page. However, like you, I decided enough was enough and went cold turkey 2 weeks ago. Now 2 weeks later, when FB crosses my mind I am actually happy and sometimes grin thinking of how much I've benefited from quitting it!

macintux 10y ago

I found it interesting for the opposite reason: I've avoided Facebook up to now, but there are enough inconveniences that my resistance is wearing down.

afandian 10y ago
They might be clunky, but I'm sure there are adequate means of doing everything you'd want to do. The problem many people have is convenience. For example if you are forced to use Facebook in order to log into a Hotel Wifi (as I recently was) then you have to say "I don't want the Wifi more than I want to log in with Facebook". It's not an essential. Or, it might be more difficult to spend the effort keeping in touch with people on a personal level, but it's not impossible. It just doesn't have the convenience that Facebook gives. But it also doesn't have the costs. I'm not trying to convince anyone. But I do find it increasingly interesting (as I pay more attention to it) how many people confuse 'convenient' for 'essential'.
- zeroer 10y ago
  I keep a dummy Facebook account for precisely this purpose.

zitterbewegung 10y ago

I did something similar. I deleted the facebook app from my phone (originally due to battery usage). Then eventually I deactivated my account. I believe I have been facebook free for two weeks.

newscracker 10y ago

I would so love to do it, but my use of Facebook is for a specific cause and I login and participate only in a few groups (always with a browser equipped with an ad blocker and tracker blocker). I don't browse time lines or participate on people's time line posts and comments. I don't use the app. I do use the messenger app for one of my FB accounts for convenience (with minimal permissions). Since I don't use WhatsApp (because it's an FB company and because chat is not a substitute for groups), it'd be very hard to engage with others for my use, find new people, etc.

kakarot 10y ago

> it's the fear of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me. Yeppp. I know exactly how you feel, brother. I gave up Facebook for New Years and will be deleting my account after I set up a blog so I have somewhere to blow off steam and tell bad jokes. The compromise that helped me overcome the feeling of being cut off was that I will have an open comments section and email address, if my friends really want to stay in touch then they will take time out of their week to come say hi. It's a lot harder than people think. And the last season of South Park was no joke... When I announced I was leaving Facebook, many people were shocked and genuinely concerned for me. They asked me if it was really necessary, if I couldn't just use it less. But that isn't an option, it's all or nothing and within a few months I will never let Facebook save another cookie on my computer again. But I know the concern is partially because they understand exactly what is going on in my mind but they don't see a way out. It's really depressing. For the hell of it I briefly checked my feed last week and I felt like a recovering junkie, visiting their old friends and seeing for the first time what their lifestyle really looked like from the outside.

afandian 10y ago
I recently sent round an event-organising email and slipped in the facebook thing. Not everyone who replied mentioned it, but everyone that did said that they were thinking exactly the same thing. And if you need an extra kick, you can download an archive all your data. It had previous girlfriends, employers, places I signed in, private messages, ad agencies they passed my details on to, etc etc. All stuff I'd rather let fade away, but I know it never will.
- kakarot 10y ago
  I downloaded an archive, for sure. I was actually just searching it for a specific message before I got on HN. Sadly I lost the archive from my previous account. Lots of gems in there. It's amazing the amounts of conversations we have on a weekly basis that we soon forget. We are just passing too much information through our body and mind to catch even a tenth of it permanently.
djrogers 10y ago

Kluny 10y ago

> Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me. If you have a plan to replace the social interactions with other forms, you realise that the rest is just dross. This is the problem for me right now. I don't have a plan for replacing the social contact of facebook (and facebook isn't giving me anywhere close to what I need). I'm also struggling with depression right now and pretty socially withdrawn. As soon as the current blues pass and I'm able to come up with a real life third place [1], I hope to start limiting how much time I spend there and eventually quit altogether. [1] From the article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

germinalphrase 10y ago
I feel lucky in that I have a job that involves social interaction, but moving to a new city left me without any "third place". I definitely empathize with the loneliness that can stir up and so many public spaces seem designed around creating new social interactions between people who aren't already associated. I read an article not long ago about upscale private clubs. I'm strongly attracted to the status/networking aspect often involved, but the idea of a place gather and socialize that doesn't require buying alcohol/coffee/food is appealing. Place it in a neighborhood. Keep the membership fees accessible to the people who live in that community and then offer some small perks that bars/coffee shops don't (e.g. free billiards on a real table). Hopefully, membership would make people a little more open to socializing with whomever show up, rather than the typical bar in which most people stick to their own group. Does anyone have experience with private clubs (of any kind)? Did they open up social interaction in this way?
- Kluny 10y ago
  That's a cool idea, yep. My thing used to be volunteering at bike shop. It was free as long as I was working (which I enjoyed) and there was a lot of interaction. Having it fee-based instead of work-based would be cool too.
  - germinalphrase 10y ago

aantix 10y ago

Strange; I've done the opposite. I engage with Facebook now more than ever. I'm 38 years old. I plan events with friends, I get to see their children grow up, new jobs, comfort them when they lose a parent.. There's never been a platform so emotionally engaging. It makes me feel in sync with their lives, even when I haven't seen them in a while. It's such an amazing platform.

treehau5 10y ago
I think Facebook is the ultimate realization of the American concept of "friendship" (maybe not your specific case) contrasted to the German version of friendship. In Germany, to call someone your friend, it is a great honor, it means something, it is an investment. Here in the states, "everyone is friends!" Yet it feels so superficial. Now we can just check in on them a couple times a day on their posts without the huge investment. It's perfectly American. Also I am sad to see your thought is being down-voted.
- aantix 10y ago
  Strength of friendships in Germany can't be granular? Aren't there just people that have been good to you in the present or past, that you want to see succeed, that you want to root for? Those are the perfect candidates for Facebook.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Acquaintances? FOAFs? Former colleagues? A DJ you used to go see 20 years ago? In the US, all of these people get swept under the rug of "friends" in the FB era, and it's in this way that they are less granular if "friend" can mean just about anybody you've ever come across.
    - treehau5 10y ago
      This was none other more apparent in college See someone from your hallway in your dorm in the library you never spoke to before? Oh dude that's my boy from my dorm right there! See a classmate out at the bar that you only asked for homework a few times? "Sup dude! It's your boy from chem class!" And hundreds of other examples similar to this.

bogomipz 10y ago

>"I thought it would be difficult. Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me." Agreed. People fear they will socially ostracized if the leave Facebook. My experience has been the opposite. I found that FB is a good excuse to be socially lazy. Going to actual social events and meeting new people and having spontaneous conversations is far more gratifying and important. It's easy to delude yourself that you are getting your "social fix" via your FB feed and sending and accepting "friend requests." There was a time when if you were in a public place waiting for a friend, you would strike up a conversation with a person next to you. Now if you are in say a bar waiting for your friend to show up most people are more likely to use that time to look FB on their phones, rather than interact with unknown people around them. I find this kind of sad.

riebschlager 10y ago

I'm now over one year Facebook-free. As with most things (especially online things) I don't even remember why it was so appealing in the first place. The fear of missing out fades really fast. And as someone else mentioned in this thread, I feel like I value actual friendship a bit more. If anyone's interested in really ditching Facebook and preventing it from injecting junk into the sites you visit and tracking you, here's a list of URLs I've added to my hosts file. As the repo's name suggests, it helps make the internet suck less. https://github.com/riebschlager/make-the-internet-suck-less/blob/master/facebook.txt https://github.com/riebschlager/make-the-internet-suck-less/...

hiq 10y ago
Some lists in ublock origin cover this use case, can't remember last time I saw facebook comments on a web page.
alecco 10y ago
Good work. More here https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio... http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
NetOpWibby 10y ago
Nice post! I deleted my Facebook account about 2 or 3 weeks ago and I haven't been happier. Before pulling the plug though, I spent a couple days babysitting a post deletion script that wasn't as autonomous as I've hoped. However, I was able to delete my first 3 years and last 5 years of Facebook posts and a decent amount of recent likes/reactions. I think if you really want to make sure Facebook doesn't have data directly from you, you'd need to take the time to delete every possible interaction you can, delete browser cookies, wait a couple days, then initiate account deletion (Facebook makes you wait 2 weeks until your account is actually deleted, just enough time for you to change your mind).
- dexterdog 10y ago
  You're assuming the deletion actually deletes stuff. I doubt it does.

Waterluvian 10y ago

I flat out deleted Facebook (the hidden option that truly deletes you). Turned out to improve my social life. I focused on and nurtured the friendships that truly mattered to me.

olkid 10y ago
the hidden option?
- Waterluvian 10y ago
  Well,the less obvious option I had to Google to find. It doesn't just set my account as inactive, it deletes it so that I no longer appear in friends lists as a referencabl e person.

bblough 10y ago

I also just took the plunge. I guess I'm at about 3 weeks (late next week is one month). For the past several months, I spent some of my free time going through my history, deleting almost everything I ever posted (note, there's a way to view your timeline by specific year, which seems to include more than the regular timeline view). The few things I couldn't delete (because it didn't give me an option) or that I didn't want to delete (e.g, photos I want to download later), I set to viewable only by me. Then without a peep, I deactivated my account. I probably should have written a script to do this rather than taking all the time. But to be honest, doing it manually was a nice jog down memory lane, even if it was really time consuming. At this point, I have no plans to reactivate my account, with one exception. At some point, when I decide that "it's time," I'll reactivate my account, download an archive of the remaining items, delete what I can of what remains, and use the "account delete" option (for whatever good that actually does). Then that will be it. Out of habit, I still frequently catch myself saying "ooh, interesting article, I should post that to facebook. Oh, wait..." Hopefully it's only a matter of time before that stops.

NetOpWibby 10y ago
I did the same as you about the same amount of time ago...interesting. A month prior, I requested an export of my Facebook data so I at least have that should I feel the need to look at old pics.

city41 10y ago

I deactivated my account over a year ago. Facebook will not delete your account, deactivate is the best you can do. Interestingly I went to a Facebook event at their headquarters and when I signed in, there was my profile picture staring back at me. I thought pulling it out of my deactivated account was in poor taste. Anyway, I can say I'm happier without it. I'm now seriously considering deactivating my Twitter account. Twitter really will delete your account after I believe 30 days of it being deactivated.

rak00n 10y ago
I thought Facebook does delete your account. Do you have a source?
- zeroer 10y ago
  My guess is that they don't delete anything due to regulatory and legal reasons.
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    My guess is they don't delete it because your data is valuable to them and they don't want to lose it, though they may use fake regulatory and legal excuses.
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    What possible regulatory and legal reasons would there be that they can't delete your account? It's not like it's financial information. Any other service (eg Google) expressly says in it's TOS that they may delete your account whenever they feel like it.
- westmeal 10y ago
  Facebook can remove it from public view however any posts you make are the property of Facebook and so they continue to hold onto it.
rolodato 10y ago

grahamburger 10y ago

These 'made the switch' stories always surprise me - seems like an over-reaction. I guess I've never been so 'in' to Facebook that I've felt a pressing need to get 'out'. Sometimes I go weeks/months without engaging much at all, sometimes I browse it daily just to see what everybody's yakking about. I don't really feel like it has a net-negative impact on my life.

pimeys 10y ago

I've also been out from Facebook over a month now. The last time I did it I was out three years, but needed to join back when I moved to a new country. This time I also stopped drinking alcohol, quit nicotine (in the form of snus) and deleted several of my accounts, e.g. Gmail and Linkedin. This feels suspiciously easy...

NetOpWibby 10y ago
Nice!

cylinder 10y ago

Just unfollow everyone, you won't have a feed. There's nothing to do on there without a feed and you won't miss anything. It takes some time to do it but it's worth it. I still login pretty much daily but leave quickly.

DashRattlesnake 10y ago

> I'm not at the point of deleting the account yet. Small steps. I'm in the same boat. I hardly use it, but I keep it around because it is the favored way to contact certain people and organize events, and I don't want to miss out. I console myself by deliberately injecting noise into my profile (e.g. fake likes) every once in awhile.

herval 10y ago

Personal anecdote: I concluded it was making me slightly depressed, so manually unfollowed everyone (but kept them as friends) and un-liked every single page. Use it basically to reply when someone comments on a post (effectively trying to make it a "write-only" log) Turns out you apparently cannot do that, as every time I log in, I find myself re-following a few people (2-10) - some of which I had unfollowed long, long before my "isolationist" move...

Nugem_ 10y ago

It has taken me almost 8 years to cut Facebook from my life, mainly because I used to log on to tend to my business page. However, like you, I decided enough was enough and went cold turkey 2 weeks ago. Now 2 weeks later, when FB crosses my mind I am actually happy and sometimes grin thinking of how much I've benefited from quitting it!