Hacker News Reader

Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

It'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?

View on HN

I don't think it's necessary to be off it, but I do believe it's necessary to be intentional how you use it and aware of how it impacts you. For my own part, I don't share updates about my life anymore and I now ignore updates from my close friends. This came after the realization that Facebook had become a substitute for small talk when we'd meet up. "How've you been?" and "What've you been up to?" started feeling like unnecessary questions when we already knew the answers. But what took longer for me to realize is that that kind of small talk was a lead in to deeper, more meaningful conversations. And when we stopped going through small talk exercise, we didn't get to those more important conversations nearly as often and it impacted how connected I felt with friends. Since that realization, I've started being intentional with how I use Facebook to avoid the sharing of those seemingly insignificant details between me and my friends and my relationships have all improved.

And that's what I see as Facebook's biggest problem. Humans are complex animals that have complex interaction patterns. Facebook is, for better or for worse, altering those patterns, and not always for the better. We need to be very aware of what we're losing when we choose to let Facebook do that to us.

I posted a poll to Facebook asking how many of my friends had deleted Facebook; apparently not a single person has deleted it.

Probably 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.

I use it and really like it to share photography and keep in touch, but I think its degraded a lot recently.

So many people share articles that they've never read, they're really just sharing a headline. Or post from useless meme pages (I can go to reddit or something for that). So I have hidden almost every article source ("Hide all from Buzzfeed/NYT/science memes page" etc)

All I want to see are people's mundane life updates and baby photos, personal projects, and other "lives of my friends" things. I love that facebook is an open letter system to your friends, I just wish more people would use it that way.

I wish there was an easier way to block out "external" content, I'm really, really not interested in re-shares of clickbait from newspapers and other sources, or the inevitably political outrage and bullshit that people share.

I just want the unique thoughts and photos of my Facebook friends to see what's going on in their lives.

I haven't actually deleted my Facebook account, but haven't used it in years.

I never made a conscious decision to stop using it. I got really annoyed by Facebook emails and phone notifications, so I created a filter for Facebook email, and turned off notifications. Once it stopped constantly bugging me to look at it, I kind of just lost interest. At some point, I just realized I hadn't logged in in a long time, and noticed that I didn't miss it at all.

I quit FB because I wasn't comfortable with the company knowing as much about my network and online behavior as they do about all of their users. I'd suppose the more technical you are, the more this is likely to bother you, but that might be my own confirmation bias.

The peace of mind that came with stepping away from the constant barrage of useless information that I couldn't ignore or make go away to b/c it came from 'friends' was an added bonus.

Now several years later I created a FB account using a false last name and use it only for real-world groups I belong to that rely on FB groups/events features (athletic groups, my CSA, etc). My profile explains that "I only use FB for groups. But we can be friends in real life."

I've only ever used Facebook on one occasions: For a brief time after they opened it up for non edu accounts, at that point it was more or less identical to a German alternative, so there was no good reason to use it because none of my friends were there. I think that account might still be around but is tied to an email address I stopped using soon after. I kind of expected it to remain something used only by college kids and Highschool students, because it facilitates the kind of superficial, gossipy interactions that immature people tend to like.

Different 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.

I deleted my account around 2010 or so, but started again to help friends with social media marketing and apps. FB pretty quickly resurfaced all the old connections and now it's back to where it was before... annoying as ever.

Just 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.

Still on it, but only for the memes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com