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Comment by Aelinsaar | Hacker News Reader

I understand why some people use Facebook, but I've managed to avoid it and have never heard someone in my real life express happiness that they made a different choice. It always seems to offer benefits in theory that don't pan out. Mostly it just seems to make people unhappy.

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I'm going to copy paste a comment I made a while back that I still stand by:

""" I [deactivated Facebook for] three years and regret it. I realize now that I should have just shaped my use to fit my needs: unfriend or unfollow people I don't care to follow, write more messages rather than scrolling through the newsfeed, and join events and groups more deliberately.

Now I actually use it to keep in touch with people I care about, rather than just pretend that's what I'm doing. I missed out on some things during my three years with Facebook off, and although I learned so much from having done it, I wouldn't do it again. """

I'm thinking about doing that. If I can just get the guts to delete half my "friends" FB would be awesome again...

I wouldn't recommend hanging out on Facebook, but if it puts you in touch with lost acquaintances that can be valuable.

That's exactly it, and why I don't have the, "Facebook = Bad" mindset. It just seems to be bad for most people, in practice, over the long term. Once I found any lost friends I would try to move it over to a better forum for extended contact.

That part has mostly just been sad. Time really wears people down.

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