I'd be totally fine without the routine of going to Facebook. My problem is that there's not a clear substitute for the specific typos of info I use it for, for the specific relationships I maintain through it, and for the reach I get for things I share.
How do people survive without Facebook? How do I keep up with what everyone's up to? Sure, there's a lot of mindless posting on there but for me the good outweighs the bad.
You can do all of those things without Facebook. I'm not saying one way is right or wrong...I'm just saying.
I haven't had a Facebook since 2011 or so and I don't even remember why I got rid of it...but there has been no compelling reason for me to use it since.
It is perfectly easy to go through life without a Facebook account. Yet people choose to use it. This suggests to me that they feel they are getting some utility out of it.
I did this. The only thing it gave me was social isolation. People look at you funny when you tell them you don't have a facebook account.
If you have a well-developed circle of friends, sure. But this only holds for what, half of Americans? I don't know people well enough that I'd have a functioning social life without Facebook, unfortunately. I think this holds for many other people as well.
Who here has frequently used facebook and then got off the platform? What's been the hardest part without it? Was it hard? Do you feel disconnected or has communication actually been affected with the people who matter to you?
I left Facebook. But mainly because I realised that it's a real poor way to keep in touch with anyone. Gives you the feeling that you are keeping in touch when in reality you are just sharing photos and quotes in a medium that's very noisy with adverts.
I deleted my FB account almost a year ago for a couple reasons. One of which is the sheer insanity of a single corporation knowing so much about us all and our relationships. Another is that checking Facebook all the time became a bad habit, like a twitch, something I felt the urge to do but then got no relief through doing. Another is probably spite - a rejection of the idea that having a FB account is necessary, something to be taken for granted.
Some observations:
- I have no idea what's going on in the lives of many people I'm not in close contact with. I have no problem with this.
- My wife tells me about extended family stuff, and shows me the occasional photo. I'm okay with this.
- Instagram has replaced FB to a great degree, for me. But instead of being built around a growing social graph, my Instagram experience is built around a handful of friends and networks of interest. But my usage is nothing like the way I used FB. I post only when I have something to share, and I open the app probably once a week to peruse. I miss tons of stuff, and I'm okay with that.
- I'm involved with a bunch of athletic groups that use FB for events and communication. This is a problem. The degree to which FB has replaced email in this regard is crazy to me. I hope Slack etc. will prove effective at minimizing this.
- I'm launching a business soon and I was concerned that I'd _need_ to be on FB in some commercial capacity. But I honestly think that era is over. Other companies in my industry have anemic feeds that point to the low, low level of engagement through that channel.
- When I feel the need to waste time, some remnant of the FB 'twitch', I look at old faves like englishrussia.com or subject-matter porn like landandfarm.com or everydaycarry.com
I'm similar. I use it to keep in contact with some far-flung family, but without Facebook I'd be using Skype more than I already do, or I'd just go oldschool and pick up a phone and call on a weekly basis.
Facebook is a mild convenience to me, like finding a good time to make an international call was a mild inconvenience. Once it becomes a mild inconvenience, facebook will be long gone.
FB has, over the years, gradually lost my trust until I deleted my account in November 2010 after having been a member since late 2004 when FB was college-only.
As a 20-something living in SF, it's a daily thing now: I don't get invited to parties, I don't know about birthdays, I don't see my friends' photos, I don't have any contact with anyone from high school or college anymore.
There is a real social cost for someone in my situation to not be on FB. I struggle to quantify the harm, but it's there. I struggle too to explain to my friends why I'm not on FB. And yet I still think I'm better off without it.
The whole situation contributes to the isolation I already experience as an introvert and someone who doesn't much care for bars, clubs, or alcohol -- though I suppose I don't need to remind this audience that being alone != loneliness.
I guess it doesn't matter much anyway, since FB is still collecting information on me (and other 'shadow profiles' of users not on FB).
I've been on the fence about quitting Facebook for a while.
On one hand, it feels like junk-food-friendship: it feels like you're connecting and communicating, but in reality the time you spend scrolling lists on your phone could be spent with something far better: closing the FB app and calling a buddy.
On the other hand, so many people use FB that it's tough to completely pull away from it. It's where my generational cohort shares photos, so I can't fully walk away unless I want to miss out on the photos from last week's camping trip, etc.
It's amazing how much I miss out on because I don't have a Facebook account. I accept that this is a choice I made, but it's amazing how much of a second-class citizen it makes you feel like these days.
I've also quit FB recently - and most other social networks I've left before or at least abandoned. It's really funny, I thought I would miss it more but I don't. Just an extra tab that I can scroll through like HN or a news aggregator. There are so many buttons but most I didn't click, also I stopped posting virtually anything 1-2 years ago. The thing is also: the things that I'm deeply interested in get hardly any likes anyways.
Apart from that, when meeting people and continuing to meet them, I usually use the good old phone to communicate with them. The people I interact the most with on Facebook are at the same time mostly those I meet the least in the real world.
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