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I've been thinking about quitting Facebook but I haven't convinced myself of it yet. Over the last year I've been trying to eat better, trying to be more produc

I've been thinking about quitting Facebook but I haven't convinced myself of it yet. Over the last year I've been trying to eat better, trying to be more productive with my time....is it time to quit?

hkmurakami 12y ago
If love to quit if I had another way to keep in touch so easily with friends around the world. :( It's hard when I have lived in three continents and while I could go back to an era when we got by with phone calls and the occasional letter, I really think my life would be poorer if I do that.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
gopher1 12y ago
Why not keep the account but only use it if someone messages you or requests to be a friend? To me that's the useful part of Facebook. The news feed is just nonsense.
samnardoni 12y ago
It doesn't have to be binary. Just use it less if you don't want to. Use it more if you want to.
- geebee 12y ago
  Yeah... maybe. Social media is very new, and so much of it is getting sorted out. Some people need to treat alcohol as a binary, for instance, but most people don't have to.
- normloman 12y ago
  If you can't seem to control yourself, it absolutely should be binary. For others, practice in moderation.
x1798DE 12y ago
I deleted my facebook account when I started looking for jobs during grad school (trying to cut down on my "searchability footprint"). I've barely noticed its absence. Post a message with your e-mail and GPG key or whatever for a week before you delete your facebook so people can get in touch with you I suppose, but I recommend it.
wutbrodo 12y ago
You could just try treating it like an inbox (which is basically what I do). I feel like people always talk as if the trade-off is between wasting hours of time on the newsfeed or being harder to reach, but this is a false dilemma. I log onto FB in an incognito window once every two or three days to check my messages (I've turned off email notifications). I spent all of 1 minute there, and I haven't looked at the newsfeed in at least a year or two. If I were to close my account and lose its function as an inbox, there's a lot of messages I simply wouldn't get. For example, it's happened more than once that extended family visiting my city from overseas want to grab lunch in < a week; this has happened more than once and I would hate to miss a message like that. Sometimes these people won't go to the effort to hunt down the chain of phone numbers across a few continents to get to my phone number, and that's totally understandable when Facebook is a convenient alternative in terms of messaging.
- mreiland 12y ago
  I usually check once/day, and I have I think 10 people on my friends list. 1 of them someone I'm dating, and the rest are either friends, or their wives. It takes me minutes to catch up on what everyone has posted, and about the only thing I'll ever post are funny images of the variety that you would normally send around in an email for everyone to get a kick out of. I don't get using FB for more than that, honestly. I just can't take it seriously as anything other than a play area where I'm able to communicate in a non-intrusive way with a small group of people. I just don't understand having 100+ 'friends'. Who can keep up with all of that?
- mercer 12y ago
  I treat Facebook in much the same way. However, I don't completely agree with your statement that: > I feel like people always talk as if the trade-off is between wasting hours of time on the newsfeed or being harder to reach, but this is a false dilemma. I've often argued the same when friends of mine closed their facebook account and became harder to reach. Then I realized that this choice of 'moderation' can be very difficult for many people, in the same way that for some people it can be really difficult to stop drinking once they start, and in the same way that for me it's really difficult to start watching a new show without binging on it. That said, ideally I'd propose your solution. On mobile this is easier if you just install the messenger app without the facebook app (assuming that's possible).
Nickoladze 12y ago
I quit when it got to the point where nothing on my feed interested me, I never posted anything, and I had trimmed down my friends list so far that it was only people I actually talked to regularly outside of Facebook as well. Some people continue to use it as a way to keep in touch with distant friends and relatives, but I cut ties pretty easily. You just have to deal with being haggled at every family reunion when some distant aunt asks why you didn't see the pictures of her new dog.

hkmurakami 12y ago

If love to quit if I had another way to keep in touch so easily with friends around the world. :( It's hard when I have lived in three continents and while I could go back to an era when we got by with phone calls and the occasional letter, I really think my life would be poorer if I do that.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

gopher1 12y ago

Why not keep the account but only use it if someone messages you or requests to be a friend? To me that's the useful part of Facebook. The news feed is just nonsense.

samnardoni 12y ago

It doesn't have to be binary. Just use it less if you don't want to. Use it more if you want to.

geebee 12y ago
Yeah... maybe. Social media is very new, and so much of it is getting sorted out. Some people need to treat alcohol as a binary, for instance, but most people don't have to.
normloman 12y ago
If you can't seem to control yourself, it absolutely should be binary. For others, practice in moderation.

x1798DE 12y ago

I deleted my facebook account when I started looking for jobs during grad school (trying to cut down on my "searchability footprint"). I've barely noticed its absence. Post a message with your e-mail and GPG key or whatever for a week before you delete your facebook so people can get in touch with you I suppose, but I recommend it.

wutbrodo 12y ago

You could just try treating it like an inbox (which is basically what I do). I feel like people always talk as if the trade-off is between wasting hours of time on the newsfeed or being harder to reach, but this is a false dilemma. I log onto FB in an incognito window once every two or three days to check my messages (I've turned off email notifications). I spent all of 1 minute there, and I haven't looked at the newsfeed in at least a year or two. If I were to close my account and lose its function as an inbox, there's a lot of messages I simply wouldn't get. For example, it's happened more than once that extended family visiting my city from overseas want to grab lunch in < a week; this has happened more than once and I would hate to miss a message like that. Sometimes these people won't go to the effort to hunt down the chain of phone numbers across a few continents to get to my phone number, and that's totally understandable when Facebook is a convenient alternative in terms of messaging.

mreiland 12y ago
I usually check once/day, and I have I think 10 people on my friends list. 1 of them someone I'm dating, and the rest are either friends, or their wives. It takes me minutes to catch up on what everyone has posted, and about the only thing I'll ever post are funny images of the variety that you would normally send around in an email for everyone to get a kick out of. I don't get using FB for more than that, honestly. I just can't take it seriously as anything other than a play area where I'm able to communicate in a non-intrusive way with a small group of people. I just don't understand having 100+ 'friends'. Who can keep up with all of that?
mercer 12y ago
I treat Facebook in much the same way. However, I don't completely agree with your statement that: > I feel like people always talk as if the trade-off is between wasting hours of time on the newsfeed or being harder to reach, but this is a false dilemma. I've often argued the same when friends of mine closed their facebook account and became harder to reach. Then I realized that this choice of 'moderation' can be very difficult for many people, in the same way that for some people it can be really difficult to stop drinking once they start, and in the same way that for me it's really difficult to start watching a new show without binging on it. That said, ideally I'd propose your solution. On mobile this is easier if you just install the messenger app without the facebook app (assuming that's possible).

Nickoladze 12y ago

I quit when it got to the point where nothing on my feed interested me, I never posted anything, and I had trimmed down my friends list so far that it was only people I actually talked to regularly outside of Facebook as well. Some people continue to use it as a way to keep in touch with distant friends and relatives, but I cut ties pretty easily. You just have to deal with being haggled at every family reunion when some distant aunt asks why you didn't see the pictures of her new dog.