In march, at the peak of Facebook popularity, I quit. | Hacker News Reader

In march, at the peak of Facebook popularity, I quit.

adbusters.org

25 pointsmapleoin20 comments

The author reportedly quit Facebook because his (her?) usage of it made him feel egotistical and/or narcissistic. After quitting, he wrote a lengthy article to make sure everyone knew his exact thought processes and feelings, and used some historical references to back up and legitimize his newly-found outlook on social networking. Seems like he hasn't yet solved his problem.

What problem? Authors have to use their issues.

Think method acting.

Yes, they do, but the point of the OP is that this person is still suffering from heavy narcissism, as evidenced by their writing an article about their experience regarding Facebook.

It was an interesting article - a bit obvious, but still worth reading - and I thought that the OP's comment was spot-on.

Narcissism is healthy and good - it pushes people to achieve.

I agree. Narcissism is healthy. But when the point is the article is "how I became less narcissistic by not paying as detailed attention to Facebook," and it's an article that pays deep attention to his personal experience on Facebook, then an accusation of hypocrisy makes a wee bit of sense.

I think you're confusing ambition with narcissism.

...with four swift clicks of the mouse, I canceled my account. Gone was the entire online persona I had created for myself – profile pictures, interests and activities, work history, friends acquired

Maybe! But all of those pictures, interests and activities, work history, and friends are still sitting there on Facebook's database waiting to be made visible again with another 4 quick clicks of the mouse...

Hah! I thought he meant he quit the company! And then I realized it was his account.

After the first sentence, at the peak of the article, I quit.

I mean no disrespect; just lost interest. :)

Some people always have to bail on something as soon as it becomes popular otherwise they don't feel cool any more.

"Nothing is any good if other people like it." http://store.dieselsweeties.com/products/nothing-is-any-good...

What a great quote:

“We are what we repeatedly do.” - Aristotle

While the quote is insightful and galvanizing, it's actually a paraphrase of Aristotle's ideas written by Will Durant. See:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Misattributed

Thanks for pointing that out, the expanded (and properly attributed) quotation is even better.

I guess that means I am sleep and eat.

After reconnecting with several friends I had lost touch with, a few admitted to thinking that I had either ended up in jail or died because of my complete lack of online presence. (No Myspace, facebook, blog, etc)

This is vaguely disquieting.

The author missed a trick to unwind some of the self promotion by keeping the profile and exercising a bit of self defamation.

danah boyd’s academic papers about this subject are significantly more insightful than the blog post of one disgruntled user.

I love the comments by Numble

One can also look at other profiles on Facebook. I rarely make changes to my profile and spend most time on Facebook (usually about 2 hours a week or so) looking at other people's profiles. Guy is just a narcisist, I think.

I don't spend much time actually ON Facebook: I use the live feed, and keep my friend count down so I don't get overwhelmed. But yeah: I haven't edited my profile in something like half a year.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com