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Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable
- sotojuan 9y agoI have to say, I am glad no one in my social group cared when I left Facebook. We still talk and hang out. That said, I did not have any "miserable" problems with Facebook because I removed everyone from my wall except close friends and family, essentially making Facebook just Messenger. Maybe Facebook changed the rules by now or something, but I recommend to ruthlessly unfollow people you don't care for but might want to be able to talk to one day.
- austincheney 9y agoAgreed. I took it to another level... and deleted my Facebook account. If I need to be social I have a cell phone.
- exergy 9y agoMe too, and it was simultaneously the best thing I ever did, and also "meh". For one, very few people cared that I left Facebook, and those who did were fortunately the ones who actually cared about me. Also, I expected it to be this big, life-changing, zen-inducing move, but turns out, I replaced FB with Reddit, HN and youtube. On the other hand, every so often, whenever I come across other people's Facebook wall, I realise that I'm not really missing out on people sharing their life, but instead, on looking at long pages of the loud, angry venting, and I realise that, at some point over the past four years, I went from missing facebook to realising that I'd built up too much mental resistance against it to ever put myself through opening an account ever again. That, plus the feel-good factor I get from being "more privacy conscious".
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- AlexMuir 9y agoI'm not sure where I read this suggestion, but a couple of months ago I unfollowed everyone on FB. Now my newsfeed is basically empty - and my Facebook experience is much improved. I highly recommend it.
- soneca 9y agoInteresting idea!
- trevyn 9y agoWhat is your Facebook experience now? Just Messenger?
- jpttsn 9y agoI did the same thing. Still have Messenger, but without push notifications. It works beautifully. The immediate FOMO fades quickly. Nothing of value is lost. Real friends and important info finds a way to get through.
- martalist 9y ago> Nothing of value is lost. Real friends and important info finds a way to get through. I've also found this to be true.
- tnecniv 9y agoThis is my Facebook experience. I didn't unfollow everyone like the grandparent, but I have no desire to go to the main sight. I, however, use messenger constantly (via messenger.com) because it's a unified service that all my friends are on. I've been pretty satisfied with it, but Facebook keeps adding more and more features that I have no interest in and clutter the UI.
- msutherl 9y agoJust Messenger, Events when I'm invited to them, occasionally being tagged in a post, and a couple of groups.
- 9y ago
- muninn_ 9y agoI stopped using Facebook about 4 years ago. Haven't looked back since. I haven't lost contact with anybody that I cared to not lose contact with. A random "hey what's up" text is usually enough.
- tsm 9y agoFacebook doesn't make me miserable because I feel like I'm having less fun and being less glamorous than the friends on my news feed—it makes me miserable because it's an addicting timewaster with minimal utility and I'd much rather be [reading a book, playing music, writing software, hanging out with friends IRL, working on a project, sleeping, watching TV…]
- trevyn 9y agoThis. It used to be closer to the former, but today it seems like all my "friends" are just raging about the latest ragefest. I am not envious of being overtaken by these emotions. :-)
- brightball 9y agoThat's actually why I deleted my account. The constant anger about everything was just unnecessary in my life.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- feocco 9y agoThis comment thread hits the nail on the head for why I deactivated my social media. But I haven't found a good alternative "productive" time waster for when my mind needs a short break.
- geppeto 9y agoOutside of Silicon Valley, people are marginally bewildered when you tell them you don't have Facebook. Inside Silicon Valley you'll quite often run into someone that works at Facebook and they'll switch to a psych analysis algorithm to understand how their service is not catering to you, while trying to mask their offense. It must be good because of the daily active user number! Yeah well Tobacco has a high DAU too.
- artifaxx 9y agoI remember a professor who equated smartphone use with smoking, he told people to go outside with the smokers if they wanted to use their smartphones/Facebook.
- H4CK3RM4N 9y agoI once saw those behaviours described as "idle animations"(on Reddit of all places).
- cableshaft 9y agoI once made a recommendation of "people checking their smart phone" to add as an idle animation for a Facebook game I was working on once. So makes sense to me!
- drvdevd 9y agoGosh I'd love to talk to this psychoanalyst. I can say as a non-adopter of Facebook (and before that MySpace) from the beginning (despite some immense social pressure) it has simply always been about "privacy" and the desire to stay out of touch. Not that I'm actually very great at staying private online. It started as avoidance of other people and now I avoid it simply because it's just another data silo to me. I already give Google my life story, why add Facebook? So. How can Facebook give me what I most want now from the platform? The ability to both stay in touch and stay invisible -- seems improbable.
- tabeth 9y agothe common counter to this feeling is that if facebook makes you miserable, then your friends are probably just not good ones. of course, this ignores that we all have friends who do things we don't like, and they're friends in spite of that. so the question is, given that facebook is used mainly for 1. communication 2. event planning 3. keeping the relationship alive. how do you get those things without all of the bloat, both cognitively and as a matter of tech? I feel that facebook is overkill if that's indeed true. what we (or at least I) need is just something that will sift through my calendar and all forms of communication and just let me know if I haven't contacted a friend in so often. such a thing would eliminate the need for facebook for 99% of people, I suspect.
- cylinder 9y agoUnfollow everyone
- tabeth 9y agoI don't use facebook, but that seems like silly advice. if you're going to unfollow everyone, then the primary value prop is gone. each time you bother to manually check on someone, you could've just called/emailed/messaged them. at that point you might as well delete your account imo.
- jpttsn 9y agoPeople assume you have Facebook. Still having my account keeps things smooth.
- rzzzt 9y agoUnfollowing someone is different from unfriending them; in the former case, you just stop seeing the person's posts in your news feed: https://www.facebook.com/help/190078864497547 https://www.facebook.com/help/190078864497547
- nissehulth 9y agoI did leave FB for awhile. But I realized that there are groups on Facebook that I do find interesting. I do get the occasional event invite on FB, sometimes personal, sometimes even work related. And, there are some people I enjoy communicating with, on Facebook. But, I really don't have much interest in what most of my friends post. Luckily, it's easy to just "unfollow" them to declutter my feed. They are still on my friends list and we can still communicate via FB/Messenger if needed. I just don't have to scroll through pictures of their food or kids or pets.
- geppeto 9y agoMaybe a groups and events app would have a lot of utility. They could probably bake it into messenger.
- denzil_correa 9y ago> Maybe a groups and events app would have a lot of utility. Facebook has stand alone apps for groups and events, individually. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/10/introducing-the-events-from-facebook-app/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/10/introducing-the-events-... https://groups.fb.com https://groups.fb.com
- geppeto 9y agoGreat! Ive seen several communities move off of their own custom built sites into facebook groups A crude solution driven by the people simply being there
- bigbugbag 9y agoIt's funny how what you say in line with what others often say. To me it seems that you remove almost all of what facebook offers to keep instant messaging, contact list and email. Things one can achieve outside of facebook but for some reason people still insist on using facebook for these even though they admit they dislike it. Just leave the damn thing already and build your networking outside of it instead giving more momentum to something you don't like and know is bad at the global scale.
- kstenerud 9y agoIt's interesting how the vast majority of responses to this post are from people who have either left facebook entirely, or severely crippled it. Are the majority of HN folks off facebook, or is it just the vocal ones?
- rdruxn 9y agoI posted a poll to Facebook asking how many of my friends had deleted Facebook; apparently not a single person has deleted it.
- geppeto 9y agoJust vocal ones. Not being on Facebook is met with bewilderment usually, so online its easier to find other people that are relatable by speaking up. Many people that are tied to Facebook share the same woes and may be looking for more inspiration about how to simply live without Facebook. So there's simply value in saying that you aren't on it, when these kind of threads or sound boxes pop up.
- Bahamut 9y agoProbably just vocal ones - I still use it, but I have a pretty healthy relationship with it, and the internet in general from having had to keep away from it while in Marine Corps training, and actively challenging myself to refrain from logging in for a period of time as an exercise in self-control. I will casually browse it now and then to keep up with how friends are doing. I pay attention to some FB groups and post there sometimes, but they are groups on things I am interested in. I'll post one update every few days so people know what's going on in my world. Most of my time with FB is spent on Messenger though, as friends and I chat and organize get togethers there. FB is really convenient in this regard since there's less friction with being FB friends than there is with asking for someone's number. I don't worry about having to always check the internet though - if I'm busy doing something, the internet can wait.
- artifaxx 9y agoDifferent people are trying to get different things from Facebook. I use facebook but disable notifications and unliked all pages/companies. Crippling the annoying parts to them allows people to have their Facebook cake and eat it too. Without being bothered by stupid notifications mid bite.
- siliconc0w 9y agoSlightly ironic that the article has social media buttons. It's much better to let the media make you miserable.
- jpttsn 9y agoOn a cynical meta level, the article is like Beer telling you not to let Wine make you miserable.
- jventura 9y agoContrary to every comment so far, after I stopped using FB for some time, I've now started to use it again. It is not that I care much about what dinner some random friend is having, but I've started to use it to publish some photos that I take with my smartphone. I don't care much about the upvotes, but as I do a lot of walking on the mountains around my house, I now have a kind of a motivation to snap a photo, add some effects or change the colors a bit (on the phone itself) and publish.. :) Oh, and there's someone I follow who posts a lot of beautiful places on my country, places I eventually would like to go..
- hkmurakami 9y agoInstagram might be a better fit though?
- jventura 9y agoProbably, I don't really know what Instagram is.. Edit: I've checked it, thanks, it seems good, but I'm wary of adding another app to my list. As long as I can add photos and my closest family/friends can see them, FB is enough for me. :)
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoFWIW, I finally signed up for instagram a few months back - mostly to post artwork. I had hesitated: I don't have facebook on my phone, after all, and figured facebook was enough. Much to my surprise, It seems to be a much better platform for artwork and photography (most of my followers are posting the same, so generally interesting to go through as well). It will also post to facebook from the instagram app.
- eveningcoffee 9y agoOnce there was Flickr ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192817
- easilyBored 9y agoFacebook is great to find out what family and friends are doing since virtually everyone is using it. That's all. It will never make me miserable since I rarely post and don't care about "likes"
- sdwisely 9y agoI've ended up just moving the messenger into a fluid (osx) window on my status bar and not having the site in my browser all the time has helped a lot. Being able to pop down just the messages with a click and back off straight after means I'm only going to the site every other day to check the notifications for a few minutes.
- aleyan 9y agoPerhaps we should take NYTimes advice a step further and stop letting them make us miserable either. There is nothing actionable in the news; next to no utility. News is simply a time sink that depress your spirit. Whenever I think of reading "legitimate" news like the NYTimes, I am reminded of this quote from a Soviet novel by Bulgakov. In it a doctor gives advice: If you care about your digestion, my advice is [sic] never read soviet newspapers before dinner.[1] Over the past few years, motivated by the above quote and other reasoning, I taken a few experimental fasts from the news. During those weeks I found myself at no disadvantage that I could detect, but I did feel better and more productive. [1] https://medium.com/@antonkovalyov/never-read-soviet-newspapers-before-dinner-57aa720ba363 https://medium.com/@antonkovalyov/never-read-soviet-newspape...
- rocqua 9y agoThere is a social advantage to being able to speak about current events. There is also a part of the news that a well-informed citizen should know about. There are things everyone can do about injustice that require us to know injustice took place. Sadly, the above part of the news isn't the focus off modern news media. The sensationalist spin doesn't help much either. What I'm trying to say is that news, in and of itself can be good, necessary even. The question is whether current forms of news do this well enough, and what other harm their sensationalism does.
- kristianc 9y agoMost news doesn't actually inform us in any meaningful way though. Here in the U.K. the last three weeks have been endless repetition of media managed slogans and photo opportunities. There are very real injustices happening in the world - in Syria and in Chechnya for instance - but they're routinely ignored unless you really go looking for them.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago> There are very real injustices happening in the world - in Syria and in Chechnya for instance - but they're routinely ignored unless you really go looking for them. How can you say they're ignored while admitting that you can find reporting on them if you look? I find it ironic that people complain about the quality of mass media while simultaneously swallowing mass media's definition of what is and isn't important. If you hate mass media, then you are a person who doesn't need to be spoon-fed news, right? Of course this notion flies in the face of our dear leader, who hates CNN but watches it religiously. He seems to have convinced every far right person to do the same.
- Animats 9y agoThat's more like Instagram than Facebook.[1] There are paid "Facebook influencers" [2] but it doesn't seem to be as big a thing as on Instagram. Remember, sharing is spamming. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/may/05/earn-a-living-instagram-micro-influencers https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/may/05/earn-a-living-... [2] https://socialix.com/facebook-influencers https://socialix.com/facebook-influencers
- aethos 9y agoCan you expand more on the _sharing is spamming_ ? Seems like a point with some depth to it.
- mamon 9y agoEverything you share is visible to all your friends AND their friends, so you are grabbing attention of few hundreds/thousands of people, most of whom are total strangers to you - that's called spamming.
- meddlepal 9y agoI deleted my Facebook account a few months ago and it has felt great to not waste time on their.
- scrps 9y agoIf a Facebook post of a photo of a friend sitting in their new BMW, sipping 30 year old single malt next to a 19 year old bikini model whist reading Grant's Interest Rate Observer on a beach in Nice captioned with a Kurt Vonnegut quote is making you miserable then I suspect there are larger psychological issues at play then social media usage that might be remedied with a walk in a park, physical interaction with another human being or a good book.
- noobermin 9y agoI know hindsight bias is a thing, but I the response in me that bubbled up was "of course." I think everyone under the age of 40 knows that their insta and fb involve posts that make us look cooler/more hip/sexier than we really are. Isn't that how things have always been? How many nytimes articles have been written about Irritable Bowel Syndrome, to use their example? Or how often do you talk about it with friends before the internet? Has that really changed? It's just the medium that has changed. Some thing's are new, some are the same. People presenting the best of themselves certainly hasn't.
- sarcasmic 9y agoAs my Facebook cohort aged up into their mid-20s, my feed is all baby photos and overchurned memes that have been re-shared across 5 different sites, interspersed with relentless posts from artists I forgot I liked long ago, and ads that are trying hard to be local. Its utility is increasingly not defined by the Feed, but by being a contact list of Everyone You Ever Met Who You Don't Want To Unfriend, which has some uses for communication, warding off the most superficial kind of loneliness, and when someone is giving away spare goods a la Craigslist. Most of the visually enticing bragging has moved onto Instagram, where the content is front-and-center and all about the number of hearts, imitating the style of celebrity influencers: beach scene with brand cocktail, friends taking a multi-selfie at an event, etc. Conversely, my Snapchat is full of relatively mundane stuff: morning selfies with makeup on point, silly antics at a party, funny faces and filters. To me, Instagram is actually the most frustrating, as it's the one that amplifies discrepancies between the popularity of your friends the most. For those of your real life friends who attract a lot of likes, it makes you feel like an increasingly irrelevant fan of a rising celebrity; while those who get very little validation are attract solely the sympathy heart, and often get deleted at the end of the day, leaving both the poster and you dissatisfied. For these reasons, Instagram is a bad fit for people who are self-conscious about their relative lack of popularity, which is -- let's face it -- quite a few people. On the other hand, it's a great fit for people who, for whatever reason, can get plenty of likes from strangers and friends alike: no wonder it's the favored platform for social media influencers and their sponsors.
- pradn 9y agoI rarely post on Facebook any more. Finding something agreeable to all my friends and family and still being authentic to myself is hard, and a losing game. Instagram can be made into something that is not just a mirror of your Facebook. If there's little difference between the two, you end up with the same problems - FOMO, envy, self-loathing. Instead, if you follow artists/photographers/creatives, you can find an interesting, beautiful world. Of course, there's a tension here. The more popular someone is, the more likely their feed is to devolve into brand endorsements. That commercial force corrupts. So while its possible for instagram to be less superficial that Facebook, its a constant battle.
- sandov 9y agoI left facebook a couple of weeks ago. It's been great so far, because I don't feel the urge to read comments on news sites' fanpages. When I did, it usually ended in resent against people from my country for being so stupid.
- nether 9y agoI don't even look at my feed for this reason. I think it kind of offends people though when I meet them and had no idea they went to Yosemite the past weekend. So now before I hang out with someone, I brush up on their feed real quick.
- ArtDev 9y agoI uninstalled the apps (db/messenger) and only visit it about once per week. I logout after I visit. Checking it takes about 5 minutes. There are usually 10 posts from friends at the top. The rest of it is total garbage. Petitions, fake news, etc. I noticed that if I visit Facebook more than 5 minutes per week, I will feel miserable. 95% of my fb feed is designed to make me upset. I just don't need all of that negativity.
- makecheck 9y agoI liked Facebook early on when it was set up in a way that was pretty easy to customize (even with plug-ins). It felt easier than creating a custom web page — even as someone with the skills to do so — and it was more likely to actually be seen by people that I knew. Then they started compartmentalizing everything. After awhile, if you wanted to mention something that didn’t have a field in their form, there wasn’t really anywhere to put that. All the plug-ins went away. Then I started to realize that if I learned too much about things by reading a feed, I had no idea what to talk about in person because I already “knew” everything. Ironically a social platform was making real social behavior more difficult. Eventually though, knowing things was not exactly beneficial because it was like dirty laundry. Paragraphs and paragraphs of stuff that I didn’t want to see. Oh, great: didn’t know that co-worker was actually super-religious and was going to start posting every possible religious thing that crossed his inbox [hide]. Oh, great: friends that go to the same places every single weekend and post the same maps of those places and the same pictures every single time [hide]. Oh, great: pages of the latest political diatribes [hide]. Oh, great: 50 things I have already seen on Reddit [hide]. These days if I do log in, I can scroll for quite awhile and see nothing interesting at all, even after being gone from Facebook for a week. That means it’s become a glorified address book, which is kind of where we started and perhaps where we should have always remained. What is the multi-billion-dollar “value” of Facebook now?
- aembleton 9y agoDon't you find that when you meet people in real life, they then refer to something on their or your Facebook feed? Sometime ago, I put up a music video and yesterday I was chatting with a friend who had seen it.
- webwanderings 9y agoThis article is absolutely true on everything, except for the title. The title gives the impression that one should continue on as is on the Facebook. That's misleading to the intent of the whole article.
- AndrewOMartin 9y agoHow do you know if someone doesn't use Facebook....
- blizkreeg 9y agoThe biggest mistake (or genius move, depending on how you look at it), IMO that Facebook made is to show you cards in your feed about what your friends liked or commented on or when a totally random person says something about your friend. You don't know any of the parties involved in this but somehow are being shoved a photo, a video, or something else about them. Obviously this is the addictive part for a large number of people, an endless stream of crap to keep looking at. Had the exact opposite effect on me. It finally drove me away from Facebook. I just realized my feed was utterly useless at that point.
- 0xfaded 9y agoFacebook makes me miserable because it has become the defacto medium for social communication. When decent alternatives arrive offering end to end encryption, Facebook goes and buys them. Say what you will, but WhatsApp/Messenger usage statistics correlated with Facebook usage statistics of less privacy conscious contacts can still paint a pretty damn good picture (read marketing profile). You literally can't use any popular (digital) communication methods without opening yourself to advertisers or those wanting to buy an election. It's a minor miracle we still have email.
- tim333 9y ago>You literally can't use any popular (digital) communication methods without opening yourself to advertisers... I use uBlock origin for general stuff and FB Purity for Facebook (laptop use). I see roughly zero ads. I donated a bit to the FB Purity guy - It was a noticeable improvement to my life.
- XorNot 9y agoAny of those services for shipping you binary blobs with no open source code. None of them were trustworthy.
- teddyh 9y agoI have never used Facebook, so I can’t chime in in these threads to say “I quit Facebook because…”, since I’ve never used it. The reason? Even if we disregard the admittedly huge walled-garden and privacy issues, it just seems to be an extremely time-expensive and constantly distracting hobby, with not much to really recommend it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bigbugbag 9y agoI'm also part of those who never registered an account on facebook because it was obvious from the get-go what this was gonna be about. There were only one major difference from the previous similar services namely the shift to having people carelessly use their actual names which is something that was unthinkable until then. And a minor difference in the large use of tricks from the dark book of anti-patterns and dark patterns to get more and more unsuspecting people on board. To be 100% honest I did use facebook for a little while as I was employed in the shady business of uncovering online users identities and tracking them in the real world. The emergence of facebook made my job a breeze at first, then before long made the whole job position entirely expendable, clients would simply use facebook themselves to conveniently find all the info they were after in one place.
- naitoon 9y agoTo avoid FB making me miserable, I only follow people whose posts tend to be interesting. The tools are there. Just use them. If there's something I can ask FB to do is to make it still easier to manage privacy of posts, and to unsubscribe to second-degree stuff like "X liked Y" or "X reacted to Y".
- Waterluvian 9y agoI deleted Facebook fully years ago and my social life shrunk in quantity, but improved immensely in quality. I don't think Facebook is universally bad, but if you have your doubts, try quitting it for a month and see what happens.
- ddingus 9y agoI glance at the thing every so often. That's OK fine. Anyone who really matters can use other channels.
- obtino 9y agoThe way I cut out Facebook out of my life was to use a password manager to generate a 128 character password, store it in the password manager (which itself has 50+ character long password) and log-out of Facebook.
- ziikutv 9y agoTotally unrelated to the article, so I understand this might be down voted... If I used a bot to delete all of my posts (and literally everything else) after which, I deleted my account... is that actually deleted? Edit: It's been a year or more since doing this. It was such a time waster, and I felt that... if I remove some of my data, it might be a good idea. It is a bit tinfoil-y, I admit but the less data that is out there, the better since Facebook is going into a lot of other markets. Edit 2: Reason for deletion was that I noticed some of my very old posts were not created by me but said they were. I assume it was either a virus or, more likely, some of my friends xD... I am sure the teenagers can relate.. people go on your screen in labs and write "HACKED" (NOT REALLY SILLY!!!)
- bigbugbag 9y agoChances are that none of this is actually ever deleted but simply made unavaible, in the realm of the shadow profiles facebook is reported to have on people that are not yet registered. Even if you probably can't achieve actual deletion, what you did probably didn't hurt and removed information for other public or API access.
- ziikutv 9y agoThat sucks. I have said too many silly things on Facebook. oh well.
- thr0waway1239 9y agoI don't use Facebook. I still feel miserable for the same reason I feel miserable when I see war. FB is designed to encourage the absolute worst of all our human nature, dressed up as a "tool to reconnect with people". To make the war analogy even more true, now people are actually 'dying on Facebook'.
- nradov 9y agoI don't get it, where is the misery? Are people really so fragile that they get upset seeing some old classmate in a luxury car? I put off creating a Facebook account for a long time but eventually gave in. And I was pleasantly surprised to find how well it works for sharing photo albums with my friends and family.
- abalashov 9y agoI don't get it, where is the misery? Are people really so fragile that they get upset seeing some old classmate in a luxury car? I don't think it's any particular, discrete thing like that in itself, but rather the accumulated impact of the social media heuristic described over a period of years. For a more extreme example, look at LinkedIn. Judging by the posts, one can easily be led to believe that all of one's connections are super-successful but utterly brainwashed corporate droids. It's a warped and misleading portrayal of human reality (for most of them, anyway—there are always those few that really do drink the Kool Aid that much). But it's naturally going to lead a lot of people to the anxiety: should I be as invested in my work as these amped-up salespeople? Am I working hard enough to promote my professional brand?
- chrismealy 9y ago"Are people really so fragile" Yes, people are generally fragile.
- LVB 9y agoWhile maybe not misery, I was certainly drawn into a stressful state of mind. I didn't get upset about about a luxury car or anything material, but demonstrations of copious free time did eat at me. My schedule was completely full with kids, lots of work, and little down time for hobbies or relaxation. But I got into the groove and was reasonably content. Enter Facebook's feed with endless updates from friends on vacations, attending conferences, exotic work travel etc., and suddenly I start viewing my own lot in a shitty light. My rational assessment was that things were fine, but I just didn't feel very good about it. I quit FB cold turkey and within probably a month these feelings evaporated. I don't think fragile is a good description. I think it's simply reacting. If the shared family photos you mentioned started having a lot of stuff that you didn't like, you'd probably choose to avoid it.
- carte_blanche 9y agoLike the majority of the people here, I use Facebook sparingly, but I constantly need to go back there because of numerous groups that I follow. Is there any way to sideline the infamous "news feed" and instead curate a manual feed containing only group posts?
- pierrepoutine 9y agotry their standalone Groups app
- sfifs 9y agoAh... Thanks! I didn't know this. I wanted the groups feature but don't want to deal with the feed
- martalist 9y agoAlong with the groups app, you can get a browser extension to block the news feed, and liberally disable notifications that you don't care about (including email/sms).
- Chathamization 9y agoAre they groups of friends or general interest groups? I created a fake profile where I just join groups I'm interested in, and it's worked pretty well. It's just about the only way I use Facebook these days - I only check my "real" profile once every 2-4 weeks for a minute or two to see if I received any messages. The only downside is some groups won't accept you if you don't have any friends, but there doesn't seem to be many like that.
- nojvek 9y agoI just have Facebook so I can occasionally message some contact. I use it as messenger purpose only. I like snapchat a lot better since it's actually social. I am a lot happier as a person
- eyeareque 9y agoI don't let it make me miserable. I deleted it years ago.
- SeriousM 9y agoI'm so happy that I stopped using Facebook a year ago! It's just funny to read all the psychological studies about Facebook and how the people suffer from using it.
- mmackh 9y agoI have a strategy for making facebook a lot less interesting: 1. Unfollow (not unfriend, i.e. not noticable) all your friends - this will clean up your newsfeed and confuse the algorithm 2. Follow some pages that do not post a lot from brands you are interested in 3. Uninstall the facebook mobile app and increase your battery All in all, I can still use messenger for some things but without the load that facebook brings to the table. You might miss out on some things but you'll be happier because you are oblivious.
- jehlakj 9y agoSeriously? Who says that we have no choice but to compare ourselves with others? Facebook is a great way to stay connected with old friends. There's a pleasant feeling about seeing how the people you once knew are doing these days. If you do inevitably end up focusing more on the Maserati, the million dollar wedding, etc., then that's your problem. Your insecurity. Whenever I scroll past those things, I simply say, "Cool" and move on. And to the people who stopped using Facebook altogether to help them concentrate better: Self-control. It's like how a lactose intolerant person blames the ice-cream in the freezer for making them eat it.
- ionised 9y ago> Who says that we have no choice but to compare ourselves with others Human nature
- thewhitetulip 9y agoI cut facebook out of my life three momths ago when I realized a pattern of my activities. Something hapened and I ranted there about my thoughts, others were offended ao they commented & we would fight not understanding each other. Then I used to ignore them and continue. Then one fine day, I sat on a bus, there was something going on about Kashmir and Indian military and I found that the guy next to me was also posting in a heated discussoon. It was there that I figured out we are wasting time, we think our opinions matter, but they don't. Fb is just a waste of time. Of course, if you use it to stay in touch with frnds then it's a great tool, but there are other tools for that, if you can't get your friends on something say telegram's secret chat or signal (i hear it is peivacy focused) then it's a tragedy. I have been living peacefully without fb/whatsapp. Life is amazing when you realize the crazy volume of time we spend on whatsapp & the return on that time is nothing. We are superficially in touch with people
- harryf 9y agoBeen free of Facebook for more than 3 years. There's never been a single moment where I felt I was missing out. Even the staying in touch - for those that matter we found other ways to stay connected. The final straw for me was actually a girl from my elementary school who wanted to friend me. The chat went like this... Me: I have to ask you something. So we haven't seen each other for decades, the last time being when we were 7 year olds. Back then we probably exchanged less than 100 words. I don't mean to be rude but I'm genuinely curious to know why you want to connect with me? Her: Oh I'm sorry. Didn't mean to offend And that was it. She didn't have a reason other than "just because". That was when it really clicked for me what an utter waste of time Facebook actually is. Never looked back
- kkleindev 9y agoI agree that there are ways to stay connected with the ones who 'matter'. However to me, there are many people who 'don't matter', yet with whom I'd like to stay in touch. In other words, I see three types of relations instead of 2. And for this type of inbetween 'people who matter' and 'people who I generally know but whom I don't want to meet', I am not willing to pay the extra effort of maintaining the connection without facebook.
- devuo 9y agoBack in 2013, after a complicated break up, I decided that seeing photos of my ex randomly appearing with her new SO in our common friends posts was not helping me at all, and so, I left Facebook. After all these years I've not missed it one bit. You end up knowing who truly cares about you, as they will always reach you whether you are on Facebook or not.
- waibelp 9y agoJust a simple question: If Facebook is harmful why not cut it out of life and cancel the account? Done this some years ago being a lot more happier as a result... No need to read untrue postings from people claiming that they are the "winners of life" while everybody knows that they did not achieve anything for real...
- the_mitsuhiko 9y agoAddiction.
- waibelp 9y agoSeems like I'm just to old for that kind of addiction. Thanks for insight :)
- JamesAdir 9y agoI do think that like any other tool, it's should be handled with care. I do find Facebook useful for events (shows and concerts) and it's invaluable as a replacement for forums. Find it much less useful as a way to connect with friends.
- sgt101 9y agoSubstitute "World of Warcraft" for "Facebook" in the comments below! There were so many similar discussions about WoW years ago. I am afraid the fact is that some people are very vulnerable and games and social properties do not account for or accommodate that fact. Everyone else is reading this and thinking - "Oh yeah, I suppose I shouldn't be so bothered".
- stevewillows 9y agoI have dropped facebook for everything but events. I muted / unfollowed everybody, disabled all non-event notifications, and cleared out a lot of personal information. What set this off was seeing a a buddy I hadn't spoken with in nearly a decade. Typically bumping into an old friend and catching up would be great, but we both knew nearly everything about each other due to our investment in social media. We still had stuff to talk about, but I felt somewhat robbed of that moment. From day one I avoided adding people from high school or other areas of my life where I wasn't interested in sharing real-world social experiences. It might sound harsh, but I just don't care what these strangers are up to. Social media is fine for some people, but I've never been happier to be ignorant of my friend's lives until I spend real time with them. That being said, the event organization aspect of Facebook is great, and I know a lot of people who have stayed with the site for the same reason. The sooner a simple, centralized event organization platform becomes popular, the sooner we can start a proper exodus.
- dolzenko 9y agoTl;dr - reading FB makes you jealous so quit and read popular Google search requests instead and be happy about how big a mess everybody else in fact is.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lamby 9y agoIs "I don't have Facebook" the new "I don't own a TV"?
- yoasif_ 9y agoProbably not, because I'd guess that most people on Facebook still have TVs, and most people not on Facebook _also_ have TVs. (clearly this doesn't include areas where most people don't have TVs.)
- lamby 9y ago(I meant more in terms of it being a meme/posturing, rather than a literal truth)
- spacebear 9y agoYeah, I've been thinking that for a while now. Haven't seen a "Kill your Facebook" bumper sticker yet, though.
- wakkaflokka 9y agoI've found Facebook to be a great product for me. I went to an international school, and many of my high school friends are spread across the world. I'm not super-close with all of them, but close enough to want to know what they're up to (and visa-versa). Facebook allows that (as do many other things - which I also use). I've also got a lot of friends who purposefully stay off Facebook for the same reasons espoused in the posts on HN, and I understand that reasoning too. The only minor irritation I have is that a lot of events that go on in my city, or that my friends host, use Facebook events. I'll occasionally get a complain from a non-facebook using friend that they didn't get invited to ______, and it's usually just because they weren't on Facebook and the host doesn't know them well enough to go out of their way to invite them. And the person not invited usually responds along the lines of "well, apparently the party host is not a close enough friend to SMS or email or call me, so whatever," That might or might not be entirely true.. but either way, why are you complaining about not being invited?! Because you are using Facebook as some gauge of friendship, and now you feel this friendship isn't a 'deep' as you thought it was because they don't want to SMS you individually? Quite frankly, I love being invited to things by far acquaintances, because it just gives me an opportunity to meet new people. I don't use Facebook friending/event invites as any metric for the depth of a relationship. Just to find new stuff to do.
- ionised 9y agoI check Facebook maybe once a week now (via the Tinfoil app), for perhaps a minute or two. This is just to check messages that my friends sometimes send out when trying to organise meet-ups. This is the only utility I get from Facebook now. Anything else is just akin to endless spam, except it's from people I know (some well, some not so well). I made the mistake when I first opened an account of adding all my family and colleagues. Man, that was quickly realised as a grave mistake.