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Comment by noncoml | Hacker News Reader

It's been years since I deleted my Facebook account, I do use WhatsApp though, and I don't feel like I am missing up on anything.

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Deleted my Facebook account two months ago, but kept the Messenger for keeping up with a handful of friends. Haven't missed the newsfeed spam a day since! Rest assured you're not missing out

Is it actually possible to keep messenger without Facebook? Because Facebook is a complete time wasting, spam filled, mind dulling echo chamber platform that I keep going back to due to habit. If I log out or deactivate I completely don't care after a few days, but messenger is essential to me.

Yes, and I didn't know that either until I tried it out. My regular FB account is "deactivated", but Messenger works just fine. They seem to have decoupled both products some time ago.

Wait, that's awesome. I've been using news feed eradicator but now you're telling me that I can delete my Facebook account and still have a messenger account?

Does that messenger account work for "sign in with facebook" buttons? For example, the only way to authenticate with Tinder is a Facebook account.

No, you can't use the Messenger account for authentication. At least for Tinder I can confirm it doesn't work, maybe there's an OAuth provider for Messenger that no one uses, idk

No you cant sign into any other accounts with facebook, well you cant without reactivating it. If you sign into a deactivated facebook account even into a game, or something similar, it will count that as a account sign in and reactivate your account. If you fully delete your account, you wont be able to sign in at all.

They removed that possibility some time ago. Now if you disable your Facebook account, it's reactivated as soon as you log into Messenger. Tried it just a few days ago.

I just tried deactivating, and upon logging in to Messenger (which works) it logged me into Messenger, but not FB.

Sweet!

Most people I know dislike FB. But there are hundreds of millions out there for whom FB had become an addiction. B

Research shows that most people use FB to keep in touch with their close friends and family. I don’t think it’s bad to be addicted to that.

Edit: Some references for the people who downvoted:

     http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0193397308000701 (also talks about how FB is a good help for people with low self-esteem)
     http://www.cairn.info/revue-sociologie-2017-1-p-57.htm (French)
     http://www.cairn.info/revue-sociologie-2017-1-p-83.htm (French, talks about how people in their 40s use FB - spoiler: to keep in touch with close friends and family)
     http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2014.01.002
     http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/

That's what it was supposed to be for me, at least in the beginning.

Then I realized that I keep in touch with the people who I want to keep in touch using direct messages, phone calls, email, etc.

Yes; I wonder how the separation of Messenger and FB itself has changed the general user’s FB usage.

That's my experience. I use it to keep in touch with friends and family, and to keep on top of events being held in my community and by my friends. I'm not sure what I would do without the Event and Group parts of facebook, as many of my friends and communities I'm a part of use those to plan/organize social activities and it works pretty well. One of my close friends who never checks his facebook is constantly out of the loop on that stuff.

In my experience most people idly browse through the news feed for a couple minutes a few times a day. I doubt that a large portion are actually addicted to it.

I think the more dangerous problem than being addicted to it, is the affect it can have on you even if you are only on it for a few minutes a day. I find social media causes people to only see the best parts of other people lives and therefore wonder why their life is not that great, and than theres a nice downward spiral of discontent and depression.

Social media, used by some only to keep in contact is okay, but the subconscious comparison of your real life to others social media life, can be really harmful.

> but the subconscious comparison of your real life to others social media life, can be really harmful.

Do you happen to have some papers on that subject? I’ve seen papers on how people present themselves on FB; not on how they "judge" others’ feeds.

Not anything more than various blog posts or web articles that I've read. I should have been more clear that I was mainly speaking from a personal perspective and what I, and those around me, have discussed and experienced. Sorry for being misleading.

Facebook wants you to believe that it "enables" communication with friends and family, but in practice they work hard to maintain a stranglehold upon that vector, excluding or absorbing alternative tools to ensure that they can gather personal information and insert advertising.

Communication isn't a problem, but communication mediated by a predatory middleman and augmented with addictive mechanics absolutely is.

I agree that FB is a valuable tool to reach to individuals and communities and keep in touch with friends

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