

Ask HN: Why are you off Facebook? - johnnewell

Privacy is cited a lot but I&#x27;m curious if there were other reasons that prompted you to stop using Facebook.<p>P.S: Please clarify whether you&#x27;ve deleted your account completely or just stopped using it.
======
Red_Tarsius
I have a facebook account, but I don't use it anymore.

I hate to see how awesome other people's life seems. I can't stop but get
envious and disappointed. Yet, I kept coming back for more. I had the
unhealthy compulsion to keep scrolling through the happy stuff, while feeling
bad for my "mundane" living.

I stopped using facebook. I feel much better.

~~~
computerjunkie
Agreed. I think its not about hate and envy, but the "my life is perfect"
image shown to you when in actual fact everybody has their own insecurities or
are going through tough family, friends and relationship (personal and
professional) issues. We all know life has its ups and downs, but we pretend
like the downs never exist.

The majority of the population never speak about the "bad" things happening in
their lives, because it makes you vulnerable which is a feeling we refuse to
show in todays world.

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jcjevs
I just slowly trailed off using it. I wish I could say something more defined
like other posters in this thread, but I just stopped. I first just never
logged in on my computer (I think I may have Firefox private browsing and Do
Not Track to thank for this since I had to enter my password every time I
wanted to go on rather than just hit the URL). It wasn't as interesting at
work for a quick break as Hacker News or USA Today, etc. I still had it on my
phone and would look at it when I was waiting for the bus, sitting at a
restaurant waiting for someone, or in the washroom. But then I started using
Twitter and Instagram. All the news that I was interested in was on Twitter,
and all the pictures of friends I wanted to see were on Instagram. So all that
was left on Facebook was articles form Buzzfeed and ads. One day I realized
that it was just taking up space on my phone's home screen. I deleted it so I
could move Slack and Snapchat up to the first screen. I still like Facebook
Messenger, and keep that app on my phone. Its good to always have
<i>something</i> to get in touch with friends with (especially when
traveling). The irony is that I deleted WhatsApp so I could move Messenger up
to my phone's home screen. So Facebook and Facebook-owned companies are sort
of replacing themselves for me.

~~~
jcjevs
Sorry, just re-read the full question. To clarify, I still have an account. I
do not log in anymore. I deleted the app off my phone and do not visit the
site.

------
keville
As a Web developer and Internet Citizen (TM), I can't wait for Facebook to
complete their AOL-ification, which will surely include its eventual death
spiral.

Rage-deleted my account after getting tired of being constantly presented with
reminders of parts of my life that should have been moved-on-from, except
Facebook decides what parts of your life you should be seeing.

If Facebook hadn't steamrolled Evite due to the sheer percentage of general
population with accounts, I don't think I'd have any regrets whatsoever.
People have to go out of their way to invite me to things, which has
definitely had an effect on my specific social network.

~~~
marssaxman
Invitations are the only reason I signed back up after deleting my account,
several years back.

------
o_syn
I've deleted my account completely.

Time is a finite resource. What is the most economical way to spend it?
Watching The Shawshank Redemption is probably more economical than reading
Facebook memes. And similarly, there are hundreds of other things you could do
at any given moment with more entertainment value than Facebook.

Now, you could say, "facebook is not entertaining, but is useful". I do not
find Facebook useful. If you're interested in networking benefits, there's
LinkedIn and email[1]. If there is no answer you can give to the question "Why
are you on Facebook?", then you should probably not use it (I'm assuming it
has a very low entertainment value for you, which may or may not be true).

"because everyone else is on it".. is not a good enough answer for me.
Therefore, I deleted my account completely.

[1] EDIT: and instant messaging.

------
tuscarok
Jealousy, for the most part.

Now that I've stopped using it I find that I'm in a better, more stable mood
throughout the day. Not being reminded of my inferiority means I find I can
concentrate better on self-improvement i.e. the things I should be doing if I
want to be as successful as these people I'm so jealous of.

------
kazinator
Never joined.

Facebook has too much central control.

Social networking should be based on a decentralized system of independent
nodes such that no single authority owns the whole damn thing and makes
everyone obey their rules, and has everyone's personal info. (And all
protocols documented, and implementations open-sourced, needless to say).

~~~
johnnewell
The fastest way to fan out messages efficiently between a group is through one
node that is always online. I think no decentralized architecture can be more
efficient compared to a centralized system.

Again, a social network only needs to know whom to send your message to and
need not know about the contents of the message, If USPS opened our letters,
would we argue for a decentralized architecture where we individuals ourselves
drove around delivering letters in our spare time?

How were so many of us tricked into handing over so much control?

~~~
keville
> The fastest way to fan out messages efficiently between a group is through
> one node that is always online.

I am curious to know what you're basing this statement on --"Fast" and
"efficient" are not necessarily related.

(For instance, there seems to have been an explosion of decentralized message-
queueing mechanisms available for coordinating distributed software systems. A
centralized system can suffer from efficiency issues as easily as a
decentralized one.)

~~~
johnnewell
Routing messages between peers in a decentralized system need to take into
account that both senders and receivers could be online and offline at
multiple times.

This means the storage location of the messages you are supposed to receive
could change often, making retrieving messages a two step process, looking up
the current online location and then retrieving messages. The place to lookup
messages is fixed in a centralized system, hence you'll receive messages
faster.

This can definitely be sped up by increasing the number of times the messages
are replicated in the decentralized system and a constant shuffling of the
message between nodes to ensure it is always available for the receiver when
they come online, hence inefficient.

~~~
keville
Thank you for your detailed and informative response!

------
MilnerRoute
I'm trying to avoid Facebook as much as possible. Partly because it cuts into
productivity. (The "rabbit hole" effect, where a few seconds of reading a
blurb lead to a longer article or video...)

But I also do believe the gist of that study which claimed that people feel
more depressed after using Facebook. If you're craving human contact, visiting
Facebook is a temporary distraction at best -- and the second you leave,
you're no better off than you were before. In fact you probably feel worse,
because now that temporary distraction is also suddenly gone....

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fatjokes
It made me feel sad. FOMO and all that. At the end of the day, I just didn't
like who I was after using it. I'm a happier person without it.

------
jCamel
Deleted permanently. It isn't interesting anymore, unless you enjoy only
seeing posts that involve mundane bs mixed with advertising. Sad how it went
from being an exclusive university friends only joke to a "serious enough to
apply for employment with" joke of a site that everybody's grandmother uses
regularly.

------
hawkice
I shut down my facebook account about two years ago.

I did it because I can't figure out why I should spend time reading something
that no one cares whether I read or not.

Since I left, I noticed something. I think the word 'poser' has been overused
and turned into a bizarre cliche, but surely there is a lot of posturing on
facebook. I think the I-know-you-knows are a lot of the appeal, and that
element is certainly lost with IM/Email. Personal tastes vary, and spending a
lot of time on cheap social signals seems to be a pretty human passtime, but I
just don't enjoy it.

------
camhenlin
I just don't like it. It's a big boring time sink. My friends who I actually
care about what they have going on in their lives, I just talk to them the
people did "back in the old days". I do however still have a Facebook account
so my friends can tag me in whatever thing they have going on, but I don't
install the app on my phone, nor do I log into the website, and I have
everything setup to not send me any type of notifications

------
tdkl
After being an user from 2007 I've deleted my account in February 2013, then
re-registered in October 2013. It doesn't contain any private data now, only
close circle of friends and acquaintances and is primarily used as a contact
holder/event responder.

It might be a generational thing, maturity or otherwise, but IMHO Facebook
(and other social networks) has impacted our lives in unhealthy ways, more
then being useful. Specially since businesses and everyone came on it
(parents, relatives). This switched it from a cool place to hangout to some
serious business.

Those two articles explain it more:
[http://seersuckermag.com/opinion/read/facebook-isnt-
giving-b...](http://seersuckermag.com/opinion/read/facebook-isnt-giving-back-
what-we-put-in)

[http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-facebook-makes-
us...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-facebook-makes-us-unhappy)

------
oswego
I created an account back in 2005. It started out being a great way to re-
connect with friends that I had lost track of and then to keep in touch. I
deleted my account two years later for the following reasons.

1\. I had come to believe FB couldn't be trusted with my data.

2\. The more friends I gained the worse the experience became. It went from
people showing their vacation photos, which I was ok with, to a stream of
meaningless nonsense that I didn't want to see. I.e Yeah, OK, you had a coke
at lunch, but should I really care?

3\. It became an unpleasant chore having to keep on top of even the valid
activity.

It's worth noting that in the last year of use I just put a status up
declaring that I no longer actively used Facebook so please contact via email
instead, but the distrust of Facebook grew to a point where I ultimately
decided to delete my account.

I'll never go back, and I hear they're full of ads now.

------
mcmire
I deactivated my account. It's still around, of course, and I can log in again
when I want. But I didn't want the distraction anymore. I found that checking
the feed on my phone became an automatic habit for no observable benefit. I
don't mind so much the whole privacy thing, because I don't think Facebook is
that evil. Your information is public somewhere, and you're being tracked by
someone, whether you like it or not. And this happens outside of the internet
-- it's how business works. So it's not a big deal to me.

The usefulness of Facebook _is_ a big deal though. And it's just not useful
anymore. My friend group tends to be pretty selective, and is mostly made up
of people I know and interact with in real life. So I do that instead.

------
computerjunkie
I used to be a heavy facebook user. Now I log in once a week for messages.

Privacy was not the major contributing factor of me stopping the usage of
facebook, but how "nosy" I felt in other peoples lives when I don't even talk
to them. The more I used facebook the more alone I felt.

Another issue was the cluttered feel to it. The addition of a twitter clone
feed made everything feel like an "all-in-one" solution.

After going on a month long without Facebook, whenever I met my colleages, I
would have _a lot_ more to say to them and genuinely ask questions about whats
going on in their lives. I default alot less to my phone after I meet with
friends.

------
Mimu
I stopped using it when I realized that 99% of what my "friends" were posting
was total shit. The 1% interesting stuff I can get with a phone call or stuff
like that.

I still have my account though, I just don't use it.

------
dougpetro
I only go on for college club/team notifications, other than that, I am off it
completely.

My news feed is polluted with ads and garbage news that have been shared by
people I hardly know. I've added so many 'friends' that are hardly
acquaintances now, and I don't feel like deleting them, because my real
friends hardly use Facebook either so its not worth it.

An additional annoyance is notifications for things that I don't care about:
invites to facebook games (why are they even a thing?), notification of
friends activity, and updates from pages I liked years ago. Its just become
more of a hassle.

------
alashley
Reading my wall posts became a list of people essentially saying "my life is
awesome and yours isn't, here's why", which was explained by photos, videos,
and wall posts.

One of the girls in my social circle at the time I had an account made herself
a "public figure", I'm not sure what the criteria is for that on Facebook, but
her offline life is anything but that of a celebrity/public figure. The level
of people "faking it" just gets annoying.

------
Backlash85
The problem not only resides on Facebook but to me all mainstream networks are
selling out to the "ad revenue model". I may be speaking for myself but let's
be honest the internet is wayyyy outdated. Most people can agree that after
surfing CNN TMZ stopping by Mashable and Twitter the day is pretty much done
with an occasional rinse and repeat. Where is the fun and innovation that the
internet first brought to us in the early 90s.

------
nolimits1228
Everything has it's time. Facebook had a nice run but something will
inevitably replace it. Social beings will constantly be craving what's next.
Exclusivity amongst college students was what ignited the fire, but younger
generations are gravitating away from this platform day by day because it's
too complex.

P.S. - people are lazy, and FB makes people work. It's cluttered and doesn't
have a core value anymore that Twitter or Instagram or SnapChat can't already
deliver. Best bet is to keep the acquisitions going to eliminate competition.

------
sjs382
I haven't deleted my account, I've just stopped using it. I log in and check
it out every month or two, but never stay for very long.

I don't use it because I don't find it very interesting. If I care what's
going on with someone, I usually keep in touch via other means. And even for
those people, I don't find their day-to-day posts very interesting.

Also, when there is something I need to know posted on Facebook that I haven't
heard about via other means, my wife usually fills me in.

------
partisan
Lack of meaningful connections.

Also, I don't want to participate in their facial recognition database. I find
this to be the worst in terms of the privacy I give up because I can be tagged
in a picture without ever posting a thing. Anonymity goes away once anyone can
identify anyone else through a simple picture. Then they can see who you work
for, where you live, your family life, your sexual orientation, political
beliefs, and so on. The downward spiral goes on from there.

------
monknomo
I still have an account, but I don't really use it anymore. Facebook is just
not very fun anymore. It's busy, sort of confusing and I never seem to get
things written on my wall, or see what people are up to right now. I see
popular stuff that is non-chronological, and I'm a little fuzzy on whether
walls are a thing anymore

------
sago
Lots of noise, and very little signal.

For every interesting announcement from a friend, I had to wade through weeks
of "What NATO country are you most like?" results, past their expiry memes,
political grandstanding, videos of puppies and people falling over, and
endless pictures of food. There's just no compelling use-case I can see.

------
o0-0o
Exclusivity. Facebook feels a lot like eating a burger at McDonald's. It's
just not that great.

------
jpetersonmn
I deleted my facebook account about a year ago. I got so sick of seeing all
the whining, political arguing, hoax type posts, etc... and if I blocked all
of the people that did that stuff, I wouldn't have anyone left on there to
follow. I don't miss it at all.

------
raarts
Using it less and less. It has just become like everything else: always trying
to get your attention.

------
rajacombinator
I pretty much only use it for messaging and the occasional event registration.
Mostly because I find my friends' updates uninteresting. Would much rather
browse strangers lives on IG or my own site.

------
carlchenet
Closed my account a while ago. Now using Diaspora* and quite happy with the
result.

------
junto
Here's a number of reasons why I (like the author) am not on Facebook anymore
(permanently deleted account 2 years ago):

[http://saintsal.com/facebook/](http://saintsal.com/facebook/)

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webaholic
Too many buzzfeed links from people who I have nothing in common with. It
takes a lot of effort to scroll through pictures of people you hardly knew
back in college. Being socially aloof does not help either ;)

------
plikan13
It's a junkheap of human banality -- deleted my account many moons ago.

------
Mr_OK
FB is a marketing tool that is operated by a company that want's to make
money.

I decided to take the marketing in my own hands and now have more control over
it and reach the right people.

------
bbcbasic
It is boring.

I occasionally use it as a way to contact someone if I don't have their
current email or phone number though.

So I still keep my account but I post a picture or status update roughly
biannually.

------
mariuolo
Keeping up with it is a full-time job and I already have one.

------
brogrammer90
Never had an account. I just don't really care what my former classmates and
associates are up to. Friends know my cell # and email.

------
freedevbootcamp
I love it

"I can't wait for Facebook to complete their AOL-ification, which will surely
include its eventual death spiral."

------
thejrk
I hardly use it to keep up with friends anymore. I only find myself on
facebook when I'm taking a shit.

------
nareshv
> deleted account completely many years back.

Felt that living life is so better than recording all of it in facebook.

