Do you regret deleting FB or IG or any social media?

I removed FB after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke out. I still had WhatsApp messenger for a few years since I have a very active high school friends group on it. When WhatsApp started changing their privacy policies I just removed WhatsApp as well. We also have a Signal group. My friends and colleagues know how to reach me for anything important, so I don't think I have missed out on anything.

Google is the next big privacy ignorer that is in my radar. The only Google product I depend on is Chrome and I am considering options to de-google my life.

So, my advice is delete FB and don't look back. You will appreciate the time you get back on your hands.

Switching from Chrome to Brave was one of the easiest things I've done.

Yes, I read about Brave quite a bit. Somehow, I haven't been brave enough to switch to Brave yet due to lurking suspicion about their browser native crypto integrations.

Some prior HN discussions on Brave were not confidence inspiring.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19129086

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32110993

Yes. This is why I got back on these platforms, because much as people on HN might say to use Signal or Telegram, the reality is that network effects are incredibly strong. I missed many, many things being outside of those circles, simply because people will not go out of their way in their day to day life just to cater to you. Once or twice, or perhaps for important things like weddings or birthdays, but the biggest thing that's lost is spontaneity of interaction.

Since rejoining, I've had many nice experiences catching up with people based on their Instagram or Snapchat stories, or being in Facebook Messenger group chats, something I would not have spontaneously been able to do had it not been for these platforms.

I deleted my FB and IG accounts about a year ago and have no regrets. I find myself spending less time on my phone and not reaching for it every time I have a free moment. If I need to find the contact info for someone, I use LinkedIn.

What I miss the most is getting birthday reminders and event invites. What I miss the least is the negative feelings social media gave me about my life and the world more broadly.

What I have found is my connections with the people I keep in touch with is much deeper because I don’t let a “like” replace a true interaction. I am intentional about adding birthdays to my calendar now and once my friends realized I wasn’t hearing about events, they made sure to let me know.

I highly recommend it. Both platforms allow you to recover your account within a time frame so it’s kind of a no lose situation if you want to try it out. One recommendation before you do: make sure you download all of your pictures, videos, etc… first.

I sincerely hope you do this and wish you the best of luck if you do.

Edit: lowercased an AND and deleted and incomplete sentence

I have noticed quite a few friends stopped showing up in my feed and when I look for them, they have completely disappeared from Facebook. These are friends from college who don't live nearby anymore, or former coworkers that I would see maybe once a year at kids' birthdays. I miss seeing updates like when they take a cool vacation or their kid wins a baseball game. If there were a way to still get and share updates like these without all the other BS that comes with social media, I'd be interested.

I still have it but rarely login and have unfollowed most “friends”. I don’t belong to any groups or anything, so it’s pretty boring. The main issue is the same messenger. Occasionally I get a message which I only see after a month or two, because I can’t seem to appear as “I don’t use this” mode. My wife asks me to keep the account so that a) her married status goes somewhere b) in case she needs to share something. I rarely see any posts to be fair and she will keep me updated on any relevant things happening. I don’t need to check for myself. I have a personal feed curator ;)

Had a few instagram accounts and deleted them all now as it just got boring after a while and nothing much of value. I had an account to enter competitions but with each one being “tag 4 friends” it was difficult as I generally just followed companies or people I didn’t feel like I could tag.

Had a twitter for a while but it became too much work trying to keep up with all the posts and eventually also tired of the same old content.

I use WhatsApp because of the network effect, as well as signal for another group of friends.

Never quite got mastodon or others of that ilk either as no one I know or wanted to follow is on those.

LinkedIn also had zero value and I ended up getting “friend requests” from my mum who I know doesn’t have an account. The dark patterns like this were enough for me to shut the door on that too.

People always complain why they can’t contact me on Facebook etc. I say you can call me, email me, WhatsApp, signal, SMS, or write me a letter. That should suffice. Really.

I haven't had a FB account for over a decade and am loving it. I don't have any social presence online, except I do have a Twitter account that is used twice a year.

If this is what you want to do, truly, being honest with yourself; remember you'll need to fill the hole with something, so it's a change that comes from within.

Don't just delete it and change nothing else in your life. There are long learned habits you'll need to break. Time will need to be filled. It's like quitting cigarettes. Hard if you sit there and think about how agonizing it is, or if you're out using your lungs, finding other ways to deliver pleasure to your brain, you don't think about it (as much). Watch people around you. Do you want to become like that? Kinked neck, staring at your phone in every social setting, making sure you've got the most perfect picture to share.. stop retaking photos and just enjoy the damn view..

Deleted FB well over a decade ago, probably more like 15 years.

Don't regret it at all.

I was at a family gathering today with family I don't see terribly often (some I haven't seen in 20+ years) and got introduced a few times as "that's adam, the one without the facebook account" The net effect of it was that I got to interact and tell people about what was going on in my life and learn about what was going on in theirs, they hadn't already heard it all from Facebook.

The dog does have an instagram account though. Can't get him to delete it.

https://www.instagram.com/stupendousoliver/

I deleted my FB account about 10 years ago. At the time all contacts were family/friends. Fast forward to today and I only see Facebook as a place for the loonies of this world.I've tried to browse it a bit a couple of months ago using my wife's account. The whole spectrum of conspiracy theorists and useful idiots on any subject. Granted, not everyone's like that, but the crowd sentiment is huge. I also got very annoyed that my daughter's nursery uses FB group to discuss day to day stuff & had one software product where the whole support community was based on Facebook. All in all I feel I made a good decision to quit it.

Not at all.

In fact, I am now a fully functioning human being and not a human doing.

would your real friends not phone you for 3-4 years. They are not your friends.

Facebook's idea of friends is not the same as having real human friends.

I didn't miss a single thing about leaving Facebook, google, Amazon and all social media including anything that collects unnecessary personal data

I have real friends now.

I am aware of the inner sense of excitement I feel when I see one of my friends calling me to have a conversation on my phone.

In comparison to reading a Facebook message about what food they just ate or when they last wiped their arse.

utilise some other means of contact

signal element Matrix Trifa

No regrets. (Deactivated in 2018.)

You're not wrong, there was a time when Facebook was an essential utility. I made heavy use of events, for example. That time has passed.

You should just deactivate it today. You can always reactivate if you regret it so there's no downside, but I think you'll be shocked how little you miss it.

I don't know about becoming more productive, but it's worth leaving because it's primary function these days is to waste your time and give you nothing in exchange.

I deleted my FB account about 8 years ago. The only thing that is a minor inconvenience is when people organize events over FB. The events I'm talking about is never from family or friends and usually for local groups or businesses.

Keeping in touch with family is pretty easy through calls/texts.

By the time I got rid of facebook, my feed was just full of spam and hot takes from people I didn't really interact with IRL anymore.

I killed FB in 2019 and Twitter in 2020.

No regrets, I am a bit out of sync with the mainstream, but when the mainstream is all about the "outrage of the day", it might actually be a net positive.

When it comes to social contacts, my life has reverted to the 1990s standard: if you don't meet somebody in meatspace, you slowly forget about that person existing. Not totally, but "out of sight, out of mind" works.

In college I proxied thru Indonesia so that I could remove my last name and simply go by my last name. 5 years ago Facebook decided that was unacceptable and disabled my account, and now the only way to reinstate it is to send a copy of my license which I think is silly.

For the most part, I think my life is better without it. On the other hand, it really sucks not having access to FB marketplace.

4 August 2019. India government fucked me and my land of 8 million, banned internet for 8 months and started persecuting anyone "misusing social media " which is doublespeak for criticizing the government. I haven't logged in to my Facebook since because I will write some nasty stuff and I do not want Facebook to rat me out. I do it on reddit or hn

Jesus christ man, I can't imagine how fucked that situation must be. Understandable why so many people there want to abolish the state.

>Understandable why so many people there want to abolish the state.

WTF does that mean?

I think he means govt in general, not J and K state.

Also apropos of your question in another thread about the Amish, those stories you are talking about are about a specific Mennonite group in Canada. Amish are different from Mennonites (more conservative)

Sorry I might have meant Hutterite

Partially. Deactivated account 9 months ago.

One guy I met on the train told me he was a fan (I have fans?!) and asked why I didn't post on FB anymore. I kept IG alive and noticed a lot of people I used to talk to but never did anymore.

So I reactivated FB. Comments on everything on FB is still fucking toxic, probably worse than say, 4chan. I love reading comments (hence HN) but opening comments on FB is a very bad idea. A lot of people are also toxic; sole purpose is to sell something (often a political opinion or "personal branding"). So they're generally not interested in you or the conversation, only interested in looking good.

My wife told me to keep the FB active, just unfriend everyone except her. Not a terrible idea.

Trying to unfriend about 90% of friends now, down to Dunbar's number. And remove most followed pages. It becomes clearer who matters and which pages/groups matter.

I wrote about this a few years ago: https://herman.bearblog.dev/quitting-social-media/

It still holds up 3 years later.

No. All of the friends I had before social media are still my friends. We might only catch up a few times a year, because we live so far apart but the connections are more real. It's like removing a filter, you get to know who your real friends are. I have 0 regrets. Maybe it's age though? FB wasn't a thing for me (or most of my close friends) until after college. We grew up with phones and face to face relationships. I imagine that could easily affect one's response towards cutting the cord.

I didn't delete FB and never had an IG. But I don't use FB any longer. I miss it not at all. I jump back on if I'm looking for someone, but that's it. I can still use FB once in a blue moon to find someone, but often enough I can reach them on LinkedIn as well. The whole platform seems to be a mass of people trying to attract attention / likes, spam, and a pit of political stupidity.

I can find enough stupidity at the local pub, thank you very much!

Never had FB, Twitter, or any social media. Experiences late 90ies made we well aware of how placing screens in the middle of human interaction isn't exactly bringing out the best in us, so I've been, except for a single forum, not interested in it. I did use WhatsApp, but in 2018 decided I did not agree with their new terms, Gmail ideam. No big tech communication software for me ever since.

If you want to cut down, consider occasionally pruning your FB friend list and feed. I kept their email address or phone number where possible.

After a few years, I'm left with just my elderly relatives on Facebook Portal (a great device that they can use) and ~5 friends that I actually care about but can't persuade to use Signal.

Didn't have to delete because I never signed up for one.

No regrets, however, other people using social media by the very fact that they have me as their contact had affected me adversley. Maybe there is a need for a privacy credit score thing to block people that allow anti-privacy apps to use their contacts and messaging history.

No, but I never used social media all that much in the first place. Sites like HN fill any gap that might have been left in my electronic social needs, and I'm trying to whittle these down too. Using dedicated devices for different tasks has helped me a lot in compartmentalizing and avoiding distraction.

I used especially instagram a lot. But years ago Apple released screen time statics for the apps/sties I spend my time. The first results were shocked me enough. I delete them(instagram and reddit) and now I use only via browser. Which means less than 30 Min a week. I got my life back :)

A bit of a deviation from the original question but I regret hard deleting my MySpace profile only because of all the pictures lost and it’d be a cool time capsule. Because of that I maintain fb/ig but haven’t signed onto either in years - it’d be nice to delete them though

Jdownloader2 or some similar app, there's got to be a way to establish a local copy easier. I also use linkclump (extension) for copying URLs en-masse from the web. JD2 will scrape page for content.

Unfortunately it’s easier for me to do nothing with the accounts rather than backup the data and delete them :/

I deleted FB nearly 10 years ago after a divorce left me unhappy and uninterested in sharing what I had gone through. Zero regrets, haven’t thought about it for years until reading this post.

It was annoying that some dating sites required it I recall though so do consider that.

I deleted Facebook several years ago, a year or so after me and my school friends went off to college, and I feel like it hurt my ability to remain close to people I was good friends with in school and overall weakened my social circle as an adult.

Not at all. After noticing how often I boredly reached for the FB app out of habit after deleting it, it further enforced how much time I was wasting for literally zero gain to my life.

It's been a few years now, don't miss it at all.

If you have other means of communication for your catalog friends, go for it. The only thing I miss from deleting my FB is feeling "in the loop", especially for event planning.

Got on FB in middle school, deleted it at the end of high school. Now I’m like 6 years into my career post college and haven’t looked back

Shortly after FB was created my friends convinced me to try it out. Right away I was being spammed with these mini games that individually had sub-sets of questions nearly identical to psych-eval tests given in the military for specific access requirements. All the mini games put together were one full test. I warned my friends and also showed them how to delete their account. I was laughed at. I deleted my account and never regretted that decision. Even with anonymous access I could see how some of my friends were destroying their relationships using FB. FB exposed a side of people I did not need to see.

I never could figure out how to get people to see the manipulation machines they were sucked into. It felt like I was in an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. [1] With time the world started to see social media platforms for what the are but many continue to use it just accepting the risk/rewards. Not my cup of tea. HN is about as social-media as I get and even then I try to limit my time.

TL;DR: No regrets deleting FB. Never tried Twitter, Reddit or any of the other platforms.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is12anYx2Qs [video]

Not in the slightest.

No I have not missed it at all.

Deleted Facebook 5 years ago, have not gotten laid since.

No

I've never had a social media account unless Reddit and HN count, and I don't ever regret not joining.