Ask HN: Do you regret deleting your social accounts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you regret deleting your social accounts?

7 pointsRaed6677 comments

Around 2015 I had enough of Facebook and Instagram so I deleted my accounts.

I was very active on Facebook, my profile hit the limit of 5000 "friends" and was getting "followers" and getting a lot of engagement. But I couldn't keep that account for all the reasons you can think of, and I permanently deleted it.

Before doing so, I redirected some friends to my WhatsApp or email to keep in touch.

However, from time to time I miss that feeling of validation as I post something and get a flood of instant gratification in form of likes and comments. I miss the ability to passively see how my friends lives are without it having to be an active conversation. I miss that feeling of connection and possibility.

I'm fully aware Facebook today isn't Facebook 2015 (even then it was going downhill) but I'm not sure how I can get that passive peek into my friends life and that validation back again on any modern platform.

I used to be on twitter (wonderful thing, I know) for about a year during 2020-2021. I never really any social media accounts aside from that, but anyways, during that time on the site I felt so stressed, anxious, and manipulated that it actually kind of hurt me for a while. I was led into agreeing with things that I simply did not believe in, and that influenced a lot of bad decisions in my life.

I think it has changed me for the worst. I used to be a much kinder and more open person, and now I constantly feel inadequate or toxic. 2021 was also a pretty bad year for me. And plus around that time, the twitter communities I engaged with were absolutely ruthless with pushing political, SJW agendas, participating in movements they poorly understood, and enforcing their views on everyone. If you've been there you'll know what I mean

Seeing hundreds, hell even thousands of 14,15 year olds being "indoctrinated" by other, equally treated 14,15 year olds is so depressing and almost caught me. I deleted my account earlier this year and will never regret it. Sure, I had some popular tweets, but I don't care about that small hits of fame anymore.

If you engage in communities, or even small groups of friends, which you feel are uncomfortable or unhealthy, then all power's to you to leave, and I highly encourage you to do that if you want to.

On the third time FB changed my privacy settings, I left. Had to google to find out how (not trivial).

On Quora, I've had a few nice exchanges on matters that matter, but a continued bombing of my inbox lame questions like "My son is playing with himself. What should I do?" is seriously driving me in the direction of leaving.

I've got a tiny and very quite ecosystem running on Twitter; to keep it there, I'm very quick to mute jerks, and those who follow me who clearly engage in useless tweets. But, even there, the value to noise ratio is on a downward slope.

I don't even engage in any of the other platforms. I'm busy building a new kind of social network which is fully open source.

I quit using facebook about 4 or 5 years ago, but I haven't deleted my account, just let it rot.

In the last 2 years, I've deleted Quora (it was pushing right-wing agendas pretty hard), Unix and Linux Stackexchange (old answers need to go away, editing made my answers into someone else's), Nextdoor (racism and stray cats), and Twitter (don't want to enrich Dorsey or Musk). If I could delete my HN account, I think I would.

I have vaguely missed the pointers to palaeontology papers I got off of twitter, but other than that, no, deleting all of them was a positive experience, probably for different reasons for each of them.

Not at all. I dropped all of my accounts (except this one) years ago. I went back to talking to family and friends on the phone and in person. That feels more like a real connection, and I’m not getting into arguments about politics or social issues that cause stress and bad feelings. I’m not posting every trivial thing I do or eat or places I go so I don’t need or expect validation. Best of all I don’t waste time doom-scrolling through photos of food, memes, flame bait, and other crap I don’t care about.

I think it's healthy to lose touch with people as our lives evolve.

Keeping in touch with people you would otherwise forget about is depressing.

Seeing friends and family turn bitter and hateful is depressing.

Seeing friends and family fall down the mad rabbit hole of conspiracy theories or religious cults is depressing.

real world achievements produce /actual/ validation and status, rather than perceived validation and status.

so no, i don't miss them.

I don't regret never creating them.

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