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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

I have been on Facebook for a decade and can count on one hand the number of events I cared about that I was invited to on FB. Maybe this is because I'm "old" (late 30s). Or maybe some friend groups simply do not use FB in this way. Most events I'm invited to are via email, evite, or text.

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That makes sense, I wonder if it is just a generational thing (late 20s). While I'm aware of evites, I've never received one, and my circle of friends seem to basically set up a Facebook event and then forget about it.

I don't think I've ever received an invite to a casual event over text/email/phone either, except in conversations of the "Hey, what are you up to?"/"Going to a party, want to come?" ilk.

I am also younger (mid 20s) and I've had my FB deactivated for several years now; I also don't have Instagram or Snapchat. I admittedly do use Meetup.com and its app. Initially, I deactivated FB because I felt it was an addictive time-sink (as Semaphor mentioned elsewhere). Now, I spend a lot of time wondering whether I should completely delete it, because I honestly don't feel like I'm missing much.

I just text everyone I want to talk to.

Maybe it's because I went to a decently sized high school (a little under 2000). Or maybe it's because I currently live in a large city (top 20 populated city in the U.S.) Or maybe it's because I'm an extrovert.

But I would probably be overwhelmed by the sheer number of events my social network would produce on FB. I already accompany friends to events thrown by friends of friends pretty frequently.

How often do you go to these birthdays of people you barely hang out with? The average person has like 300 friends on FB. The median number is about 150-200. That's a lot of birthdays.

Friends on facebook doesnt mean friends in real life. Most peoples circle is less than 50.

Me too - I'm 38, live & work in London, still go out 4 or 5 nights a week (especially weekends) and everyone I'm "friends" with runs their social life almost exclusively through Facebook, as do I, with the exception of dates and just catching up with friends on a 1-2-1 basis (99% of which is arranged via WhatsApp).

So if I left Facebook I'd either never know about any of what's happening, or everyone would have to go out of their way to invite me especially, which I don't see as a viable long term thing for me or for them, over time they would increasingly forget to invite me - I've seen it happen with others who've tried to leave and had to return to get back in the loop!

Plus even if I posted to say that I was leaving Facebook my post wouldn't be seen by everyone so they wouldn't know, and if I disabled my account the post would disappear altogether.

So I'm locked in for the foreseeable future out of social necessity.

PS - I've never heard of Evite, until I just realised I thought it was being used as shorthand for an electronic invite, not an actual website.

I'm younger (early 30ies), I've never even heard of evite, I've probably gotten one e-mail invite in my life and haven't gotten a text invite pretty much since FB became open for everyone. A few invites arrive via snailmail, but the vast majority of invites are on FB. And that's not even mentioning public events, what do you do, look through all clubs and bar websites individually when you want to go out?

Never heard of Evite, that's incredible! I didn't realize that 5 years could make that big a difference. As for clubs and bars, I have a 4-year old so not hitting those much. But even before that, I never "liked" businesses on FB anyway, for privacy/tracking reasons.

I would think that this is more a cultural thing. Evite seems US-focused or at the very least English-only. While I use FB in English, I know most of my friends use it in German.

Evites aren’t very flexible though; one of the very useful features of facebook events is for organizing the members, e.g. “what are people bringing to the potluck?” “Does anyone have food restrictions?”

Evites have comments also. But I will say that the last time I used evite, the message went to the spam folder for several gmail users. Next time I'm going back to email!

It’s more than just comments - usually stuff like this is organized in the form of a pinned poll with a comments thread below. As people add comments they also change their poll selection. So you end up also having a real-time view of what people are bringing as well as an audit trail.

You could have the same thing in an email thread if you linked a spreadsheet in an email, but people are less likely to keep both in sync because the things are in two different contexts. And even so, what would you use? Google Apps? That’s just trading one data-hungry overlord for another.

Since we have so many examples of age and usage...

I'm 40. For me it depends on who is sending the invite. My wedding invites about 4 years ago were via email with a bespoke RSVP website (my first foray into react.js). 150 out of 180 people showed up from around the country of ages ranging from the upper-teens through the upper eighties. We shared the photos via Facebook (with links to S3 for originals if anyone wanted them)

My older friends and family (50+) send evites if they're savvy or call.

Most of my friends and family who were born / raised / never-left Chicago aren't even on Facebook unless they run a business that does well to promote there (tattoo artists, for example). For them, it's text, pre-announced phone calls, and drop-ins. The rest are like...

My friends and family from NYC, Austin, Seattle, and elsewhere who are within a decade of my age generally use facebook for larger events and text for smaller ones. Sometimes email. Sometimes a whatsapp group. It changes often.

This past NYE was at a bar in Indianapolis and we were invited by way of an SMS with a link to the Facebook RSVP (and ticket purchase) page. It was a 90s night, so I suppose that places the age group.

The people I know under 30 or so stopped inviting me to things after I got married. Their loss; we still like to party.

So... many many ways. I don't love facebook, but if everyone's using it, I suppose I can live with it.

If more than a few people I. Your group are not on Facebook people will invite using alternate means because otherwise they won’t be there, of course. That’s the network effect.

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