Deleted my Facebook account a week ago -- crazy how addictive it was

[Recursion]

Turns out I was really, really hooked on the dopamine or whatever from those likes. And I still have the muscle memory of just flipping it on in my phone when I have nothing else to do (that spot on my home screen is now my guitar tuner app, so I'm getting much better at humming the note E).

I still have Whatsapp because I live overseas, so I'm sure Facebook still spies on me, but I hadn't realized until I broke the cord just how much it was impacting my behavior and mental well-being.

[JonLP24]

1. I hate the likes follows/friends part of social media

Say something someone doesn't like and you lose a friend. I think it leads to a lot of self censorship or it does for me which is why I spend more time on message boards like DU.

[hlthe2b]

2. Congrats...

This is well worth your cancelation, IMO.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/21/facebook-white-nationalists-ban-vdare-red-ice
White nationalists are openly operating on Facebook. The company won't act

[Kaleva]

3. I rarely go on Facebook. There's little about it that attracts me to it.

I belong to a group made up of former shipmates which I check out from time to time and it has been handy for instant communication with multiple family members because of a death, illness or planned get together. The notifications about birthdays my wife and I get on our phones has saved us many times!

[dewsgirl]

4. Every single person I know is addicted to Facebook. I saw

a study once, people that use Facebook daily, are 13 percent less happy, than those that don't use it at all.
I loath FB and haven't used it since 2016.

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. I broke with too, and am elated. Congrats!

[Vdizzle]

6. Good for you!

I haven’t been on Facebook in 9 years. I originally joined when it was “thefacebook” and you needed a college email address to open it and you could only see people in your school. Then all the sudden it blew up and I was out!

[Roy Rolling]

7. Congratulations

It exists to put advertising next to the things you find interesting. That’s all. It sells advertising to the highest bidders—often corrupt governments with way more money than mom-and-pop businesses.

I didn’t delete, I just talk instead of listen to nonsense. I post interesting articles and move on. Or if I visit a few days later, I may or may not respond to trolls. Why? Because after a few days of comments then EVERYONE who posted gets a notification of a response by me.

Wherever you go, command the room. Control the conversation. Ignore the trolls.

[Dennis Donovan]

8. I deactivated mine over a year ago

What a waste of time.

[katmondoo]

16. I DID THE SAME ABOUT ONE YEAR AGO, COULDN'T TAKE THE tRUMP LOVERS ANYMORE.

sorry, caps were locked.

[Nuffer]

9. Facebook

Deleted 2 years ago ...it was extremely addictive...don't miss it...people are always one upping each other....the politics and the nasty behaviours were the reasons I left...Zuckerberg makes it quite difficult for the final deletion....of course nothing from the internet is ever gone for good! It can always be found!

[bluedye33139]

10. I leave every year during February

No posting, no signing in, no reading posts, not even using Messenger.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. Facebook is a corporate tracking device

It exists to extract data from you to sell to other corporations. It is designed to convince you to provide that data, continuously.

[The King of Prussia]

12. Facebook are scum of course

But it is my way of staying in touch with friends, some of whom I haven't seen on 40 years, so I'm loathe to lose it.

But the ads, largely from racist organisations that I was getting distressed me. So I took action. I deleted all my "likes". Then I set my age to 105 and my place of residence to Novosibirsk. After about a fortnight no ads of any kind. And if Facebook wants took track my movements, well so be it.

[pangaia]

44. Actually Novosibirsk is a very interesting city, and the area around it is

stunningly beautiful.

PLUS, it has the Trans-Siberian Arts Festival, founded and directed by Vadim Repin

http://www.transsiberianfestival.com/

[Kali]

46. major center for science, too

have a relative by marriage that lives there, retired science translator/writer

[pangaia]

47. It's a really cool place, especially in winter.

[The King of Prussia]

57. Hmmm

I like the sound of that. My 60th birthday is coming up in a couple of years, and we are planning a big trip. Originally it was going to be to Vegas to watch the Raiders. The US is off our list now, but Novisibirsk might be on .

[pangaia]

60. My 2 probably favorite cities are Kyoto and St Petersburg.

Utterly different , but... somehow to me have similarities...

[Johnny2X2X]

13. Facebook execs are pure evil

There will come a day in this country when greedy rats like Zuckerberg are rotting in prison. He sold his country out for power and money. He's a traitor and pure scum, he'll answer for his crimes some day.

Facebook has so much blood on its hands, from genocide to promoting hate crimes, it does nothing to stop people from using its tool to slaughter.

And Facebook doesn't inform its users of what it is doing to them and their minds. Know this, Facebook follows you, it follows you on your phone, it follows you on the internet wherever you go. And it's not just recording and monitoring your habits, it's actively trying to change your behavior and beliefs. And it's incredibly effective at changing behavior and beliefs whether users realize it or not.

&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR13zCWVdVdklQc4m9VNe9NkFRLeTHUfbwASSgVE05chafeMWxW1E58_JYE

[defacto7]

14. A smart move in every way.

[DownriverDem]

15. Found

a lot of left leaning folks on FB that I would have not known.

[Augiedog]

17. My wife and I quit ours years ago. Have not regretted it one bit.

[True Blue American]

36. I am on it

Accepted few friends, but Dear Lord I am sick of the daily kids pictures.

[yaesu]

18. I quit using fascistbook years ago, twitter & snap are the only thing I us to keeo in touch. nt

[dalton99a]

19. Anything that weakens not strengthens the monster and his corporate sponsors

[Thekaspervote]

20. Good for you! Now if we can a few million more on board

[DaDeacon]

21. If People Left Parties Like They Leave Facebook

[Recursion]

23. I see you didn't read my post

It's not "ooh I'm so cool I left facebook". It's "holy shit they were using the same techniques on me casinos do to keep gamblers and I only noticed it now".

[LanternWaste]

42. "Sorry if you don't understand that decision or rather I fear you have chosen to ignore it."

Weird... sometimes the best irony lies in our own thoughts.

[cwydro]

52. Lol.

So very true.

[PatSeg]

22. I guess everyone's experience with Facebook is different

I know some people who have left or have threatened to leave and I do understand why. I've been thinking about why it hasn't affected me the same way. I believe one of the biggest differences is the smartphone. I don't have one, not because I am technology averse, but because at this point in my life, I really have no need for one. Meanwhile, I've watched gatherings of intelligent, personable individuals sitting around staring at their phones when they could be engaged in conversation.

How you use Facebook, what you expect from it, and who you choose to "friend" could affect the overall experience. I accept very few friend requests and I keep my politics primarily in private groups. One is a handful of friends I met at Democratic Underground years ago and another is actually called Democratic Underground. I don't discuss politics in my newsfeed and don't engage with relatives who want to debate politics. I have unfriended or blocked a few friends who's politics I found offensive or racist.

My friends list is well under 100, many are long lost cousins and friends that I would not have found any other way. I have a quote from an Audrey Hepburn movie on my page, "I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else." Reggie Lampert, Charade. Sadly, some of my friends have passed away and their pages have become sort of a memorial to them.

I spend more time as a rule on Flickr than I do on Facebook, but my Vintage Photos in Color page on Facebook gets far more traffic. Even if I chose to quick using Facebook, I wouldn't want to give up that page, as photography is such a big part of my life right now and I've engaged with a diverse group of people, I'd have never met otherwise. That's long story for another time.

I am not defending Facebook. I wish there was a better alternative for people like me or that Facebook were better regulated, but I don't see it ever going away. So in the meantime, I use it very consciously, do a lot of fact checking, correct false narratives when I find them, and keep any personal identifying information minimal. Being it will probably always be there, it would be better to work to change it through legislation and public pressure, at least from my perspective.

[maxsolomon]

24. everything in moderation

but some people need to go cold turkey.

it helps when no one "likes" what you have to say.

[Heartstrings]

25. I'm waiting for the Facebook police to cut me off for this...

Hey Zuckerburg! What are you going to do about this threat that was sent to me? Anything? Yea, didn’t think so....coward!

[AkFemDem]

26. I wish I could

I have so many years worth of photos on there, I really need to get them off but it’s thousands of pics! Am thinking of maybe deleting the mobile app and just keeping on the laptop- I don’t open that much anymore.

[Canoe52]

27. I left 5 years ago but sure miss all the pictures of the casseroles my relatives posted

Not!

[True Blue American]

37. Or the recipes!

[lambchopp59]

28. RW nutjobs were already driving me crazy, just after Obama's election

Facebook was all the rage at a travel job in red, red, red Arizona. Tried to keep it light, funny and fun, but let the RWNJ's I didn't appreciate the racist posts Re: Obama, and soon found myself massively de-friended.
I finally just let it go over 10 years ago now, I don't appreciate the way some websites want your Facebook sign-in, so I just skip that.

[LeftInTX]

29. I find DU more time consuming!

I use Facebook as a social planner. Of course there is also the sharing of family and friends stuff, but it seems like much of my calendar is on Facebook. All I have to do is Click "interested" on an event and it is in my calendar.

I don't post awhole lot on Facebook. I'll share a silly meme if it's funny or if I have a really neat family pic...like it's my mom's birthday on Dec 2nd I will dig up a picture of her. The rest is just quickly shared from other posts. I do spend a bit of time with genealogy stuff on FB. (But I lurk most of the time. There are some real family soap operas out there!)

I generally don't write much pn FB and keep it simple. I like to look at pictures which gives me something to do when I'm bored. I would be doing the same on WWW somewhere else if it is wasn't on Facebook.

[seta1950]

30. Good for you

I cut the cord in 2016,when they got paid in rubles and said they didn’t realize it was russia or words to that effect.

[Ilsa]

31. I deactivated mine, waited a month,

then deleted it. I don't want to have anything to do with Fuckerberg.

[Catch2.2]

32. Deleted my Facebook a couple years back...

Best move i've made. Like you said, you don't realize it until you get rid of it. I encourage more people to do the same.

[Aussie105]

33. When Facebook first appeared

I tried to make sense of it. Where is the face, where is the book?

Followed some close relatives on it. Why are you showing off? Pictures of your kids, your dog, your goldfish, your pictures from your holidays in Thailand, Bali, wherever.
I refuse to fake enthusiasm and never do the 'like' thing. Stop trying to impress or prove how interesting you are!
But if they mention something interesting, a phone call or email response is more personal.

I follow my relatives on Facebook, not too closely, look at interesting Twitter stuff - Trump especially, to see his latest act of certifiable insanity and read reaction posts - but don't post myself.

The thought of mindless addiction has always been with me, for any social media.
Recent events adds manipulation through lies and attempted thought control to that.

Learn to live with social media and most MSM, especially Fox, and you will feel better!

[NCLefty]

34. I've largely stopped using it. I gave up screaming into the air about GOP+Trump. :p

But I didn't until the inquiry opened. That's when, I suppose, I felt I could finally relax. I'm still Fired Up, Ready-To-GO for voting in 2020, of course. Wild hoses couldn't drag me away.

[pintobean]

35. Seems to be the new DU purity test.

[Recursion]

38. People seem to get really defensive about it

I wonder why this is.

[pintobean]

39. Amused, not defensive.

Just more 'look at me.'

[cwydro]

53. It must be.

I don’t get why so many think it necessary to announce it.

What’s kind of funny is that at least one DUer who has announced they have left FB have not actually done so.

I won’t name names, but they know who they are.

[pintobean]

55. lol

Lying to get DU cred...
Awesome. 😂

[cwydro]

56. I know; it's very funny.

I suspect there’s more than one doing so.

[brooklynite]

59. Posted by someone who's made 54,000 posts here...

Addiction free!

[Ingersollman]

41. Never

had it. Never will.

[kimbutgar]

43. I Weaned myself off earlier this year from looking at it multiple times a day.

Cold turkey. I just now look at it if I get an email about a friend posting an update, but not everyday and I turned my past posts to private. So nobody can snoop into my past postings.

As I hear more news of how Zuckerberg is colluding with MF45 I am getting closer to completely deactivating my account. I have the instructions on how to save my past postings but haven’t gotten around to it.

Facebook is evil as Zuckerberg.

[pangaia]

45. I use FB a lot, professionally, which also happens to be

pretty much where my friends come from-music and the arts throughout the world- from Chicago to Seoul to Kyoto to Singapore, Sydney, Rome, Oslo, Berlin, Moscow Muscat, Mexico City, St Petersburg, Tokyo, San Francisco, .....

Lots of great discussion groups from which we all benefit... couple of 'marketplace' pages..

I get ZERO negative ads, (actually, quite a few recently for...,. SHOES! ) no political ones.. almost never make a political comment, never post anything political... never ever see and RW posts,,and have no bizarro friends or acquaintances... at least not that I know of.

[LittleGirl]

48. I just can't

I live 5000 miles away from home so I need it to communicate with my family and friends. Nobody uses email anymore.
When my 87 yr old mother is gone, maybe then I'll stop using it. But she doesn't know how to use any other platform so facebook it is.

I've locked mine down pretty tight. I'm an old IT person so I can tweak it so that nobody can abuse me on it and I've unfriended most of the dumpster people I knew.

And it saved my health. I found some facebook groups that discuss my thyroid disease and their tips and doctor recommendations (when I lived in the states) helped me find a doctor that helped me regain my poor health. For that, I'm forever grateful to the facebook community of helpers out there.

[orleans]

49. that's great your mom uses fb

87 and on fb? i'm impressed.

i couldn't, for the world, get my mom to use the computer. i was hoping she'd come on du and browse around or post a little when i was at work (we lived together). she liked du a lot, i'd read her posts and replies, etc. but she wouldn't sit at the computer and learn how to use it. she passed ten years ago (she was 85) and because we lived together i guess i was enough of a social interaction for her. me, randi rhodes at air america, and keith olbermann's show, and then rachel maddow's show.

my neighbor & cousin tried to get me on fb but i had no interest until i found an old college classmate a couple of us were trying to get in touch with. so that's when i signed up. my daughter told me if i ever signed up on fb she would never be fb "friends" with me. (i didn't care--lol--we talked every day when she was at college so...). shortly after i signed up on fb my kid, for whatever reason, decided she wanted nothing to do with it and hasn't used it for years. i have around 25 "friends" --all open minded, mostly creatives, and democrats. it works for me.

[LittleGirl]

50. I lived with Mom

Back in 2000 so she watched me use it. When I moved to Europe 13 years ago, I gave her my old computer. I’ve replaced it with laptops twice since. Now she uses a kindle most of the time.

Her kids, grandkids and great grands are literally all over the world so she can follow all of us. It took her a long time to understand messenger and actually use it. We also have a google phone with a local number for her and as long as she checks the time difference, we can chat on the phone. Low cost communication makes it doable.

[Aquaria]

51. I have an account, but...

a) It’s not under my real name, but an alias I use. So that limits the people interacting with it.

b) I’ve never really used it for anything except as a contact source for college study groups, or for entering the occasional giveaways at assorted pen porn sites I enjoy (Pen Chalet, Goulet, etc).

I did need to create an account once for a medieval lit class project, which involved using FB like Isolde might have if she were alive in the modern era.

Other than that, I have no use for it. I cut ties with high school people decades ago, and the only family member I can tolerate is my mother, who’s 80 now, and still can’t figure out email.

So I never really “got” the FB concept, and thus it never became a habit.

[Sherman A1]

54. I like it very much for my hobbies

And information regarding events at local museums, botanical gardens and the library. I could do without the zillion memes posted, but I delete most and try to block the sources when possible.

[Nature Man]

58. I wonder how gambling machine research

and social media research intersect