8 ms·

I quit Facebook right around the time my son was born. It wasn't for privacy reasons (and frankly, it never bothered me), but rather for the enormous energy and

I quit Facebook right around the time my son was born. It wasn't for privacy reasons (and frankly, it never bothered me), but rather for the enormous energy and time sink it had become. Truly, it was as if I was a dopamine junkie and Facebook was the pusher of those sweet, sweet red circles with a number in them that meant someone, somewhere vaguely agreed with something you posted. I noticed I was not present in the moment with my newborn son, but rather my brain was hunting for the next quip to post or cute/smug/humblebragish picture to upload. I quit cold turkey and have never looked back. I'm off all social media today (except LinkedIn) and have weeded out a lot "friends" who really were just co-enablers in the dopamine rush hunt.

keganunderwood 9y ago
LinkedIn is perhaps the worst of the bunch though. I see people in "people you may know" that I've already tried to add but LinkedIn will show them to me because I assume they're not the ones spamming if it happens due to me clicking a button. All for a blip in user engagement.
- ljk 9y ago
  definitely agree for linkedin. another thing about linkedin is that people lie on there all the time and exaggerate their accomplishment
- taftster 9y ago
  The thing is, with Facebook, we all knew it was mostly public information and that you'd be a dolt to reveal everything sensitive about yourself in your profile. Most people instinctively know to leave certain tidbits about themselves off of their FB profile. Whereas with LinkedIn, we are willing to give up much more sensitive and accurate profile data, such as all of our past employers, addresses, phone, email, birthdate, professional experience, headshot, school information, coworkers, etc. The initial content of a typical LinkedIn profile is much more rich than a starter FB profile. There is no need-to-know for Facebook to have as much "real" information about you as LinkedIn has. I feel that LinkedIn got in through the backdoor with the information most people have provided to it. Though Facebook undoubtedly has more of your day-to-day activities than LinkedIn, which might be more dangerous. I never personally got suckered into a Facebook profile, one of those (lucky) few that have continued to live on planet earth without a FB account. But LinkedIn is another story, I totally got swooped up in that one for sure.
  - jacobwg 9y ago
    In my experience, people do not always "instinctively leave certain tidbits" off of Facebook - in fact, people often feel like Facebook is in many ways a private space. Like "it's just my friends," even though the friends and friends of friends circles are massive, not to mention privacy controls that make many things public by default. Also, FB prompts for things like employment history and educational history in the same way as LinkedIn, but goes further to ask for personal info, geographic history (where all have you lived), etc. Combine all this with the fact that there are so many FB users and many of them are children who wouldn't otherwise have a LinkedIn account (and are more comfortable with sharing personal info online). So, while I agree that LinkedIn is in the group of data collectors, I don't think they're quite on the scale of FB.
- CalRobert 9y ago
  Except Linkedin is boring, inane drivel from "thought leaders" so I'm not even tempted to have a look. At least FB has the occasional picture of someone I care about, or a political link (that inevitably agrees with my already-established view of things)
  - dabockster 9y ago
    > inane drivel from "thought leaders" I think you mean "innovators". Even though 9/10 times they claim ownership on things they've contracted out on their parent's cash.
ssttoo 9y ago
Forget "friends". Sharing with your family/relatives is a different thing though. No wise "quips" required. A picture says a 100 words :)
- timrichard 9y ago
  Good point... for this, I'm still using Google+. One circle for immediate family, another for wider family... I don't think I bother sharing photos to any wider circles than that at the moment.
  - qwepoiru 9y ago
    except nobody has any family on google+! the whole world uses whatsapp exactly for that use case you describe. Sadly both options are awful.
    - tyfon 9y ago
      I have all of my family on g+ actually. In the beginning, we just said "if you want to see baby pictures, sign up here and add us to your family circle". Blackmail works :)
Swizec 9y ago
I too feel exactly this way with almost everything. Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Email, Messages ... it's kind of tough to escape. Impossible even. And here's the worst part: We grew up with this shit. My generation was one of the first (1987) to have their formative social years immersed in this shit. That means we'll never escape. Ever. We're literally wired to seek approval of strangers on the internet instead of the people around us. It feels more ... correct? Real? True? That red circle with a number literally gives more enjoyment than a close friend saying "Heh that's cool". The worst part is that there's likely no cure. Rehab, maybe. But rehab for this shit doesn't exist yet. Plus try explaining to your boss that you're not reading email and slack and you're never coming back because you're in notification rehab. Simon Sinek explains it perfectly: https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU?t=195 https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU?t=195
- avaer 9y ago
  Impossible is hard to square with the people in this thread (myself included) that did it. You don't have to tell your boss you're not reading notifications. You just have to eliminate the notifications that serve no purpose except a high. Facebook still spams my email; it's filtered to the trash. Business carries on.
  - Swizec 9y ago
    "You can totally quit heroin! Just stop taking it" "Oh and if all your friends are doing it and are wondering why you're not having fun with them, just ignore them" Sure you've quit Facebook. But did you quit dopamine-seeking technology use? What I've found in myself is that when I pry myself away from Facebook, I spend more time on Twitter. When I pry myself off that as well, suddenly my HN engagement goes up. When I manage to ignore all those, then I check Slack every 2 minutes. If I avoid even that, then I refresh my email all the time. The medium isn't the problem. The behavior is the problem. There's always another medium you can switch to. I mean, it's not like I was on Facebook when I got hooked to social media at 14, 15, 16. I was on internet forums and MSN Messenger. The draw was and still is that it broadened my horizons, exposed me to different people, and sometimes I learned really useful things. Hell, it helped me build my entire career.
tomduncalf 9y ago
I felt the same - I was alarmed when I realised how much time I spent scrolling through a feed of inane posts, and how Cmd-T, f, down, enter had become almost a reflex. Most of my "real" friends seemed to have stopped posting on there, yet I was still addicted to scrolling through the feed while waiting for code to compile or whatever (clever design on their part, I guess!). However, also like you, the privacy side doesn't worry me too much (although as time goes by I do start to think about it more), and I still get some value from communicating with certain people on FB Messenger and being able to access photos from events etc., so instead of quitting, I unfollowed everyone (using a bit of Javascript - I'll try and dig it out). My feed is now totally blank, so I now only visit maybe twice a day for a few seconds to check for messages (I refuse to install their app - mbasic.facebook.com all the way!). I did think I could refollow people if I felt I was missing out, but surprise surprise, I don't at all. Of course, I've now replaced reading Facebook with reading Twitter while stuff compiles but at least that's relevant to my work ;) I'd highly recommend this approach if you feel uncomfortable with your use of Facebook but also value your network of friends on there.
- tomduncalf 9y ago
  I think I wrote my own Javascript in the console to do this, thinking about it, but the basic idea is https://gist.github.com/renestalder/c5b77635bfbec8f94d28 https://gist.github.com/renestalder/c5b77635bfbec8f94d28 (I've not run this so do check it before doing so)
wuschel 9y ago
What about HN (Reddit and like)? May sound funndy, but there are the also reward mechanisms at play when we visit these sites, and they can be affecting work/private life negatively as well.
- aninhumer 9y ago
  Yeah, I feel like a lot of people here are confused by the notion of Facebook addiction because they don't personally find the content on Facebook particularly engaging. I certainly don't, but I have experienced the same time sink addiction on reddit and HN.
- s_kilk 9y ago
  HN at least has relevant and educational content, much more so than the stream-of-minions-memes-and-baby-pictures that is Facebook.
  - tertius 9y ago
    At least you think it's educational... It depends on how you consume it. Often, very often, it's only infotainment.
jonathanstrange 9y ago
I quit my Facebook account around ten years ago, but somehow regretted it because I've got out of touch with many people - especially those I never knew so well. FB is definitely nice to somehow superficially keep in touch with acquaintances and old friends. However, in my opinion their EULA is totally unacceptable, so I cannot use it.
Sir_Substance 9y ago
>I'm off all social media today (except LinkedIn) You really should quit linkedin as well. Their security is like a screen door on a submarine.
agumonkey 9y ago
I'm quite surprised with everything the internet is teaching us on a personal and social level. I noticed on reddit I seek for shallow agreement too. And if a comment gets 0 I'm a bit disappointed. It also taught me that sometimes you get a few downvotes at first but later some people upvote, some even comment. Patience ..
HenryBemis 9y ago
Like you I also dropped it and never looked back for the following simple reasons: 1. It offers nothing while it takes a lot. 2. When something is free, then YOU are the product. 3. Massive violation of privacy (that "like" button on most websites and any other facebook element which now I block with ABP and NoScript)(and all known FB URLs on my hosts file). 4. I can still be in touch with my friend without informing FB (via facebook, instagram, whatsapp) who is my friend and when are we texting. 5. FB is the devil :)
- vgb2k11 9y ago
  > 2. When something is free, then YOU are the product. Debian Linux, Firefox, gcc, visual studio... The list goes on. I think the "you are the product" quip has become an overplayed meme of late. Mutually beneficial / co dependence and such themes are more applicable in more cases than not when it comes to free products and services, in my own view anyways.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    > I think the "you are the product" quip has become an overplayed meme of late. It's been overplayed for years. The problem with pithy phrases, even when true in their original narrow sense, is that they allow those who aren't willing (or capable) of thinking for themselves to substitute something that superficially looks like wit without having to actually think about what they're talking about.
  - ThatGeoGuy 9y ago
    I think it gets twisted partially because the quote is wrong. It should be "if a _service_ is free", not "when something is free." I don't think any of the examples you've listed would be considered a service, but rather either a platform (OS) or product. The quip is certainly overplayed, but I think the notion still stands. It is important to be aware of what intentions service providers and product sellers have. It's not so much a dig on libre / free software.
    - wutbrodo 9y ago
Delmania 9y ago
I find the posting, sharing, and status updates on Facebook to be not valuable, outside of keeping up to date with some family members. I've found the real value of Facebook to be Messenger and groups.
davidf18 9y ago
When I first starting FB, as one of the very first schools as part for the site, it worked really well. Now for some reason there are bugs that allow info I don't want not from my friends. I can't figure out how to turn the junk off. Does anyone know how? All I want is info from my FB friends. I've stopped using it because of all of this junk. They took something that worked well and made it not work well. Brilliant.
dleslie 9y ago
Heh, I _only_ keep Facebook around because it's the most efficient way to provide images of my daughter to our extended family members. Email is just too unwieldy, with many of our family claiming that they've long since forgotten their account credentials.
dabockster 9y ago
> those sweet, sweet red circles with a number in them that meant someone, somewhere vaguely agreed with something you posted Now, you get those whenever you join a group, save an event, have a friend like a post from someone you don't even know, etc etc etc. I've seen several of my "friends" leave Facebook over the last year simply because the platform isn't a "face book" anymore, but a rough media consumption platform susceptible to manipulation by advertisers, political opponents, nation states, and [dank memes]. It's basically become internet middle school in terms of post quality, and people are noticing.

keganunderwood 9y ago

LinkedIn is perhaps the worst of the bunch though. I see people in "people you may know" that I've already tried to add but LinkedIn will show them to me because I assume they're not the ones spamming if it happens due to me clicking a button. All for a blip in user engagement.

ljk 9y ago
definitely agree for linkedin. another thing about linkedin is that people lie on there all the time and exaggerate their accomplishment
taftster 9y ago
The thing is, with Facebook, we all knew it was mostly public information and that you'd be a dolt to reveal everything sensitive about yourself in your profile. Most people instinctively know to leave certain tidbits about themselves off of their FB profile. Whereas with LinkedIn, we are willing to give up much more sensitive and accurate profile data, such as all of our past employers, addresses, phone, email, birthdate, professional experience, headshot, school information, coworkers, etc. The initial content of a typical LinkedIn profile is much more rich than a starter FB profile. There is no need-to-know for Facebook to have as much "real" information about you as LinkedIn has. I feel that LinkedIn got in through the backdoor with the information most people have provided to it. Though Facebook undoubtedly has more of your day-to-day activities than LinkedIn, which might be more dangerous. I never personally got suckered into a Facebook profile, one of those (lucky) few that have continued to live on planet earth without a FB account. But LinkedIn is another story, I totally got swooped up in that one for sure.
- jacobwg 9y ago
  In my experience, people do not always "instinctively leave certain tidbits" off of Facebook - in fact, people often feel like Facebook is in many ways a private space. Like "it's just my friends," even though the friends and friends of friends circles are massive, not to mention privacy controls that make many things public by default. Also, FB prompts for things like employment history and educational history in the same way as LinkedIn, but goes further to ask for personal info, geographic history (where all have you lived), etc. Combine all this with the fact that there are so many FB users and many of them are children who wouldn't otherwise have a LinkedIn account (and are more comfortable with sharing personal info online). So, while I agree that LinkedIn is in the group of data collectors, I don't think they're quite on the scale of FB.
CalRobert 9y ago
Except Linkedin is boring, inane drivel from "thought leaders" so I'm not even tempted to have a look. At least FB has the occasional picture of someone I care about, or a political link (that inevitably agrees with my already-established view of things)
- dabockster 9y ago
  > inane drivel from "thought leaders" I think you mean "innovators". Even though 9/10 times they claim ownership on things they've contracted out on their parent's cash.

ssttoo 9y ago

Forget "friends". Sharing with your family/relatives is a different thing though. No wise "quips" required. A picture says a 100 words :)

timrichard 9y ago
Good point... for this, I'm still using Google+. One circle for immediate family, another for wider family... I don't think I bother sharing photos to any wider circles than that at the moment.
- qwepoiru 9y ago
  except nobody has any family on google+! the whole world uses whatsapp exactly for that use case you describe. Sadly both options are awful.
  - tyfon 9y ago
    I have all of my family on g+ actually. In the beginning, we just said "if you want to see baby pictures, sign up here and add us to your family circle". Blackmail works :)

Swizec 9y ago

I too feel exactly this way with almost everything. Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Email, Messages ... it's kind of tough to escape. Impossible even. And here's the worst part: We grew up with this shit. My generation was one of the first (1987) to have their formative social years immersed in this shit. That means we'll never escape. Ever. We're literally wired to seek approval of strangers on the internet instead of the people around us. It feels more ... correct? Real? True? That red circle with a number literally gives more enjoyment than a close friend saying "Heh that's cool". The worst part is that there's likely no cure. Rehab, maybe. But rehab for this shit doesn't exist yet. Plus try explaining to your boss that you're not reading email and slack and you're never coming back because you're in notification rehab. Simon Sinek explains it perfectly: https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU?t=195 https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU?t=195

avaer 9y ago
Impossible is hard to square with the people in this thread (myself included) that did it. You don't have to tell your boss you're not reading notifications. You just have to eliminate the notifications that serve no purpose except a high. Facebook still spams my email; it's filtered to the trash. Business carries on.
- Swizec 9y ago
  "You can totally quit heroin! Just stop taking it" "Oh and if all your friends are doing it and are wondering why you're not having fun with them, just ignore them" Sure you've quit Facebook. But did you quit dopamine-seeking technology use? What I've found in myself is that when I pry myself away from Facebook, I spend more time on Twitter. When I pry myself off that as well, suddenly my HN engagement goes up. When I manage to ignore all those, then I check Slack every 2 minutes. If I avoid even that, then I refresh my email all the time. The medium isn't the problem. The behavior is the problem. There's always another medium you can switch to. I mean, it's not like I was on Facebook when I got hooked to social media at 14, 15, 16. I was on internet forums and MSN Messenger. The draw was and still is that it broadened my horizons, exposed me to different people, and sometimes I learned really useful things. Hell, it helped me build my entire career.

tomduncalf 9y ago

I felt the same - I was alarmed when I realised how much time I spent scrolling through a feed of inane posts, and how Cmd-T, f, down, enter had become almost a reflex. Most of my "real" friends seemed to have stopped posting on there, yet I was still addicted to scrolling through the feed while waiting for code to compile or whatever (clever design on their part, I guess!). However, also like you, the privacy side doesn't worry me too much (although as time goes by I do start to think about it more), and I still get some value from communicating with certain people on FB Messenger and being able to access photos from events etc., so instead of quitting, I unfollowed everyone (using a bit of Javascript - I'll try and dig it out). My feed is now totally blank, so I now only visit maybe twice a day for a few seconds to check for messages (I refuse to install their app - mbasic.facebook.com all the way!). I did think I could refollow people if I felt I was missing out, but surprise surprise, I don't at all. Of course, I've now replaced reading Facebook with reading Twitter while stuff compiles but at least that's relevant to my work ;) I'd highly recommend this approach if you feel uncomfortable with your use of Facebook but also value your network of friends on there.

tomduncalf 9y ago
I think I wrote my own Javascript in the console to do this, thinking about it, but the basic idea is https://gist.github.com/renestalder/c5b77635bfbec8f94d28 https://gist.github.com/renestalder/c5b77635bfbec8f94d28 (I've not run this so do check it before doing so)

wuschel 9y ago

What about HN (Reddit and like)? May sound funndy, but there are the also reward mechanisms at play when we visit these sites, and they can be affecting work/private life negatively as well.

aninhumer 9y ago
Yeah, I feel like a lot of people here are confused by the notion of Facebook addiction because they don't personally find the content on Facebook particularly engaging. I certainly don't, but I have experienced the same time sink addiction on reddit and HN.
s_kilk 9y ago
HN at least has relevant and educational content, much more so than the stream-of-minions-memes-and-baby-pictures that is Facebook.
- tertius 9y ago
  At least you think it's educational... It depends on how you consume it. Often, very often, it's only infotainment.

jonathanstrange 9y ago

I quit my Facebook account around ten years ago, but somehow regretted it because I've got out of touch with many people - especially those I never knew so well. FB is definitely nice to somehow superficially keep in touch with acquaintances and old friends. However, in my opinion their EULA is totally unacceptable, so I cannot use it.

Sir_Substance 9y ago

>I'm off all social media today (except LinkedIn) You really should quit linkedin as well. Their security is like a screen door on a submarine.

agumonkey 9y ago

I'm quite surprised with everything the internet is teaching us on a personal and social level. I noticed on reddit I seek for shallow agreement too. And if a comment gets 0 I'm a bit disappointed. It also taught me that sometimes you get a few downvotes at first but later some people upvote, some even comment. Patience ..

HenryBemis 9y ago

Like you I also dropped it and never looked back for the following simple reasons: 1. It offers nothing while it takes a lot. 2. When something is free, then YOU are the product. 3. Massive violation of privacy (that "like" button on most websites and any other facebook element which now I block with ABP and NoScript)(and all known FB URLs on my hosts file). 4. I can still be in touch with my friend without informing FB (via facebook, instagram, whatsapp) who is my friend and when are we texting. 5. FB is the devil :)

vgb2k11 9y ago
> 2. When something is free, then YOU are the product. Debian Linux, Firefox, gcc, visual studio... The list goes on. I think the "you are the product" quip has become an overplayed meme of late. Mutually beneficial / co dependence and such themes are more applicable in more cases than not when it comes to free products and services, in my own view anyways.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > I think the "you are the product" quip has become an overplayed meme of late. It's been overplayed for years. The problem with pithy phrases, even when true in their original narrow sense, is that they allow those who aren't willing (or capable) of thinking for themselves to substitute something that superficially looks like wit without having to actually think about what they're talking about.
- ThatGeoGuy 9y ago
  I think it gets twisted partially because the quote is wrong. It should be "if a _service_ is free", not "when something is free." I don't think any of the examples you've listed would be considered a service, but rather either a platform (OS) or product. The quip is certainly overplayed, but I think the notion still stands. It is important to be aware of what intentions service providers and product sellers have. It's not so much a dig on libre / free software.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago

Delmania 9y ago

I find the posting, sharing, and status updates on Facebook to be not valuable, outside of keeping up to date with some family members. I've found the real value of Facebook to be Messenger and groups.

davidf18 9y ago

When I first starting FB, as one of the very first schools as part for the site, it worked really well. Now for some reason there are bugs that allow info I don't want not from my friends. I can't figure out how to turn the junk off. Does anyone know how? All I want is info from my FB friends. I've stopped using it because of all of this junk. They took something that worked well and made it not work well. Brilliant.

dleslie 9y ago

Heh, I _only_ keep Facebook around because it's the most efficient way to provide images of my daughter to our extended family members. Email is just too unwieldy, with many of our family claiming that they've long since forgotten their account credentials.

dabockster 9y ago

> those sweet, sweet red circles with a number in them that meant someone, somewhere vaguely agreed with something you posted Now, you get those whenever you join a group, save an event, have a friend like a post from someone you don't even know, etc etc etc. I've seen several of my "friends" leave Facebook over the last year simply because the platform isn't a "face book" anymore, but a rough media consumption platform susceptible to manipulation by advertisers, political opponents, nation states, and [dank memes]. It's basically become internet middle school in terms of post quality, and people are noticing.