
Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook - elliekelly
https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/02/29/top-economists-study-what-happens-when-you-stop-using-facebook/
======
frereubu
Related to reducing media exposure and the attendant increase in the sense of
wellbeing, this is a lovely article by the Serbian / American poet Charles
Simic, about discovering how his dad had attained "Olympian calm":

"Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived
through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and
would regard the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old
movie I had seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet. My late
father, in the final year of his life, claimed that he finally found that
long-sought serenity by no longer reading the papers and watching television.
Even then, and I was thirty years younger than he, I knew what he meant. What
devotees of sadomasochism do to their bodies is nothing compared to the
torments that those addicted to the news and political commentary inflict on
their minds almost every hour of the day.

My own inordinate interest in what the lunatics are up to in every corner of
our planet has to do with my childhood. When I was three years old in
Belgrade, German bombs started falling on my head. By the time I was seven, I
was accustomed to seeing dead people lying in the street, or hung from
telephone poles, or thrown into ditches with their throats cut. Like any child
growing up in an occupied city during wartime, I didn’t think much about it. I
was as serene then as I will ever be, sitting among the ruins smoking my first
cigarette, riding on a Russian tank with a friend, or watching our school
janitor hang the portraits of Marx, Stalin and Marshal Tito in our classroom
after the liberation."

[https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-
serenity/](https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-serenity/)

~~~
pjc50
I'm not sure this distinguishes between wellbeing and post-traumatic stress
disorder.

~~~
Nasrudith
Detachment has its place in mental health but that is more when realizing
"this is bullshit and doesn't matter". Like keeping up with the Joneses. If
you don't actually enjoy any of that or find it useful just saying "fuck that
and fuck you" to the social pressures is being anomalously sane.

To be honest all of the 1950s Zeitgeist reeks of suppressed trauma addressed
in an unhealthy way. The whole lawn obsession reached a zenith from
homesickness in Europe and POW camps - and that is just one of the milder
examples. Kids ended up taking this state as a deeply unhealthy norm.

------
mlang23
I totally quit television about a year ago, and it had a very noticeable
positive impact on me. I also mostly quit Facebook with the end of last year.
I say mostly, because I still use its event calendar, and occasionally check
my stream. But I significantly reduced the amount of comments I leave on that
platform.

I feel like, while the criticism of FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit and co is pretty
much warranted, we managed to push aside the biggest time sink we already have
since the 60s. TV, and Netflix, for that matter, is wasting our time since
many many years.

~~~
tyfon
I stopped watching regular TV around 2005 due to the influx of "reality-tv"
and other crappy formats. What I used to watch before was real documentaries
on discovery and it's family of channels.

Now I just watch Festival of Science or Royal Institution lectures on YouTube
and some anime on wakanim :)

There are also a lot of real in-class lectures filmed on various topic on
YouTube that I find very nice.

I don't miss regular TV at all.

I quit facebook around 2012 (deleted and purged the accont by waiting 6
months) and I don't miss that either. I still have contact with the friends
that I care about via phone, I just don't look at their fake lives on facebook
anymore.

~~~
a3n
I vaguely think I stopped watching TV, modulo Netflix, around the same time as
you. Now when I see it in a trucker's break room or similar, it strikes me as
shockingly vacuous, and so filled with commercials.

And now I'm living the irony, driving a truck and hauling all that stuff that
the TV is waving in front of us. Just as some of you are living the irony,
spending your hard earned educations building the infrastructure that
implements the waving.

"Now:" I'm pulling a trailer from Illinois to Ohio, filled with "cereal, dry,"
from a maker to a big box chain's distribution center. Eat up! Eat!

~~~
Mr_qwerty
To digress, I'm curious about your life as a truck driver. What do you do with
all the time in the truck? Podcasts? shortwave radio? And what are your
thoughts about the industry as a whole?

~~~
a3n
Gonna have to answer later today, I want to be further on before I relax and
think. (And I guess that's the first part of the answer.)

~~~
a3n
I was a software dev and SWQA since 1988, with a few years taken off in the
middle to deal with some externalities.

I rage-quit my last SWQA job, then discovered that a 60+ year old B player
ought not to have done that. And so I drive.

What do I do with all the time in the truck? Drive, watch the road, watch out
for you all (you all are cray, and are probably gonna die, I'm just sayin').
Watch my time from various perspectives: time/miles to pickup, time/miles to
delivery, time left on my allowed driving time, gallons of diesel remaining,
will I make it on time, do I have to warn of late arrival, should I pull off
and shut down for wind, rain, snow, ice, fatigue, when will the local troopers
open the highway to trucks again, am I speeding or following too close, am I
holding people up behind me, _are you f 'ing tailgating me_, are my brakes on
fire, what's going on way up there (I can see pretty far with my head ten feet
off the ground) ...

I don't care what you're doing in your car, and I virtually never look, except
once in awhile I'll look at your head (or search my spider sense) to see if
you're paying attention. To the road. Not to your phone.

When I'm not doing that stuff: I don't have a CB radio. Sometimes I don't play
any audio and just think, or enjoy the scenery. It's an incredibly beautiful
and interesting country. Sometimes I chase NPR across the radio. Wyoming is a
pretty good state for NPR, because they have translators all over. Once in
awhile I'll drive through a college or tribal radio station that really does
just play what they feel like, those are good.

Sometimes Pandora. I've been trying to listen to podcasts, but it's not a
great experience. I can't seem to manage podcasts via Pandora or Spotify very
well. I don't like pre-downloading, I'd like to just listen via a stream (most
recently VLC on Android, bluetooth to my radio, but the casts often just end
in the middle (lost cell signal?) and go to the next one).

My thoughts on the industry as a whole are, I can only see a tiny sliver of
the industry. There seems to be an infinite number of ways to get stuff from
here to there, and all I really know is working as a "solo" (not part of a two
person team), "company driver" (not an owner-operator) for one of the large
truck companies.

When I started two years ago there was a huge trucker shortage. Now some
companies have gone out of business, but "they" say that it'll pick up again
soon. I believe large companies are still hiring, because industry turnover is
huge. Lots of people decide they don't like it. I like it a lot.

It's a really good job for me, as I'm not very sociable. I'll go months
without going home (divorced, one grown son). Most long distance drivers take
3 or 4 days a month in "home time." Some drivers are regional or local and
they're naturally home more often and more regularly.

I drive a 2017 Kenworth T-680, 15 liter straight-six Cummins engine, 10 speed
Eton automatic. I mostly pull "dry vans," the 53 foot closed rectangular
trailers that you mostly see. Sometimes I'll pull a "reefer," refrigerated
trailer, basically the same as a dry van but you also have to pay attention to
the reefer operation and temperatures (multiple compartments inside the
trailer).

I typically have about an hour of time at the end of the day, and an hour in
the morning. Sometimes a little more. Rarely a lot more, when the company
hasn't found any freight for me to haul. The longest I've spent without
freight has been a weekend, and that's rare. I only get paid for miles driven
in service of an assigned trip.

During my typical two +/\- hours/day I eat, clean, read, communicate with the
fam. I've written hundreds of emails home, with pictures, and I'm trying to
clean some of those up to get them posted at a location to be named later. In
my free time.

------
mastazi
For me the greatest improvement came from stopping using Twitter and Reddit
rather than Facebook or Instagram (I quit using all four within the last year,
Youtube is the only social media service that I'm still regularly consuming,
I'd like to quit that too), of course this is based on my personal situation
and the way I personally use all of those media. In my specific case I have
the impression that Twitter and Reddit are somehow more addictive and they
used to have the largest detrimental impact on my mental health. With
Facebook, that impact is moderate and with Instagram I would say almost non
existent.

~~~
jsmonkey
Same here. At least in Facebook you mostly communicate with people you've
chosen to accept as friends, and know who they really are.

Reddit and Twitter on the other hand show all the bad sides of anonymity to
the fullest. Way too much blind tribalism and conflict seeking, few adults
actually capable of real discussion. So it's not only a waste of time, but one
that gives you a bad mood as well.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
The echo chamber is real. I went cold turkey on Twitter after using it for 10
years and gaining about 6k followers.

Twitter was the #1 source of left-wing extremist noise in my life. I'm sure
there were/are right-wing extremists on that platform too, but one seemed to
appear in my algorithmic feed more than the other. Or perhaps it was
confirmation bias. Who knows!

Good riddance.

~~~
numpad0
Both side's on it. In fact there's no sides. Just that Twitter is competent at
removing constructive elements and distilling hatred/rage/anger for profit and
it's working against you.

There are few ways to strip out some of their 10-year "improvement" and oh how
deserted it looks under there...

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I'm quite convinced certain
subcultures are overrepresented on Twitter, and that while Twitter is open to
all, that doesn't mean it's a representative cross-section of the general
population.

I think this is true of most social networks, and is more obvious in certain
cases, _e.g._ , Tumblr.

~~~
lonelappde
The internet attracts people who are marginalized in meatspace. Queer people
and neonazis are both marginalized.

------
GekkePrutser
I wonder if people will ever quit Facebook.. I mean after all the stuff that's
happened and they still haven't.

We had a discussion about this recently in my Spanish class. Someone asked me
for my facebook and when I said I closed it long ago they were all like
"eeewww privacy freak".

So I explained my reasons, the abuse of personal data, the manipulation of the
masses (Cambridge Analytica) and the others immediately sprang to life saying
how horrible it all is. And turned out to have good knowledge of the facts.
But yeah, it's so easy to stay in touch with friends.. Well yes I know, as an
expat it's not easy without it.

Still, their initial "ewww" reaction really surprises me considering their
apprehension at Facebook's practices.

~~~
mlang23
Facebook, like many other things in our society, is a Clan-thing. "My clan vs
your clan" is a game that humans play very very well. Their initial reaction
is just "oh, you are not one of us". If you talk about the details, they might
agree with you, but they still fall for the "not one of my clan"-thing
initially. Same happens with many things. Linux vs Windows vs Mac OS Android
vs iOS Left vs Right Vegetarian vs meat-eater vaxxination vs anti-vaxx choose
your poison.

~~~
VLM
HN contains many obvious example of clan behavior. New Urbanism, bicycling,
cooking for yourself instead of eating restaurant food every meal, Trump
derangement syndrome, Brexit is going to cause the collapse of civilization,
all strictly enforced groupthink on HN.

It never fails to amaze me how we (as a group) can have a free and open
discussion of microcontroller RTOS options, but god help someone who has the
wrong opinion about bicycling the groupthink will incinerate them.

Free to have any opinion here about tech things, but the counter reaction to
that is no freedom at all about non-tech related opinions.

------
Santosh83
Facebook is moderately useful for keeping in touch with people you want to
hear from and who just won't use email/Mastadon or whatever, and for interest-
based groups and events. That is all. And as long as you strictly restrict
yourself to using _only_ the website through a browser and eschew their apps
and carefully go over the privacy settings and tune them to your needs you
should be okay. As for endlessly scrolling the newsfeed all day, well that is
not so much Facebook's fault as that people who do that are probably having
too much idle time and not knowing how to do some productive or more creative
activity. If Facebook did not exist those people would trawl through Twitter
or Youtube or something else.

~~~
zenhack
> As for endlessly scrolling the newsfeed all day, well that is not so much
> Facebook's fault as that people who do that are probably having too much
> idle time and not knowing how to do some productive or more creative
> activity. If Facebook did not exist those people would trawl through Twitter
> or Youtube or something else.

ehh... yes and no.

On the one hand, there is something to the idea that folks should take
responsibility for figuring out how to not waste their time like this (if they
consider it a problem; if you _want_ to spend all day on goofing around on the
internet, have fun I guess). There's some internal motivation required to make
that happen that's a skill worth learning.

...but on the other hand, companies spend a ton of money researching how to
keep people "engaged." This includes hiring psychologists to help them fine-
tune the crap out of their platforms to make them addictive. Given _that_
level of manipulative behavior, I don't think it's entirely fair to blame the
users. And yes, without Facebook they might just do the same on Twitter or
YouTube, but those platforms are doing the same thing. It doesn't make it ok
just because everyone else is doing it.

~~~
fenwick67
This is what pisses me off about using Facebook.

I just want status updates and photos from my friends. If I could literally
mute all shared content (memes, twitter dunk screenshots and "shares") it
would be a much nicer platform to use, but from Facebook's perspective this
would be awful because I would be on and off the site in a few minutes.

It turns out I really just wanted MySpace with photo albums.

------
watwut
My attempts to not use Facebook and social media typically ended with
substantial social isolation. The range of media I consumed became
significantly smaller, because apparently got variety from other peoples
suggestions. Maybe these articles are about people who have great IRL
communities they fit perfectly in, but some of us are mostly lonely unless we
keep at least those weak ties via network.

So ironically, I am not in period of starting to use Facebook again, so that I
have more contact with people again.

~~~
prox
Why not go do social hobbies? Photography or creative clubs, walking groups,
dance classes, book reading clubs, volunteer work. There is lots to choose
from.

~~~
watwut
I have job and kids. And I am already using my allocated "for me" time for
sport. It gives some social contact, but not enough. Social hobbies require
significant time spent hanging out, but are not child friendly so they are
out.

Besides that, walking groups or book reading clubs don't exist here.
Photography or creative clubs exist only in form of structured classes, where
you pay for two lessons a week. Adults/older people, they mostly come and
hurry back home - which is what I would do too I guess anyway. They are not
really social places where you come for idle chat and build relationships that
survive end of semester.

So it does not even matter that none of these activities appeals to me in any
way - I could not belong to creative group, because I completely sux at art
and find it frustrating.

~~~
prox
That makes sense, tbf you do have a family, for a moment there I thought you
were alone, alone.

Another suggestion (last one ;) if you have a family is board games. You have
adult / kid games,lots of banter to be had and can be played with other
families for a good time.

Also everyone sux at art in the beginning :)

------
whiddershins
I can’t overstate how transformative a 2 year Facebook hiatus has been.

Maybe I was an extreme case, but it had a horrible effect on me and I would
never consider using it regularly again.

~~~
sincerely
Instagram has so many low-quality ads that show up so frequently when
scrolling through the feed/stories that it's like they don't even WANT me to
get addicted

------
01100011
Personally, giving up facebook saves about 10-15 minutes a day. I feel better,
not because my friends' stories were making me feel inadequate, but because it
is one less stream of mostly useless information that I need to filter and
process. I miss seeing pictures of my friends. I do not miss people
regurgitating political memes. I don't think quitting FB dramatically improved
my life satisfaction or happiness.

------
gitgud
Too much of anything can be harmful to your mind, including hacker news...

------
OliverJones
It's interesting that a bunch of economists found no evidence of any economic
losses from quitting FB. Nobody reported loss of any economic opportunity,
access to purchase something they wanted, or anything like that, due to
foregoing use of that platform.

Did the researchers fail to look for those things? Or did they just not come
up?

------
VLM
Facebook is a good example of the damage that can be done by the self imposed
jail of binary thinking.

The proposed binary thinking option is users will be detrimentally manipulated
and exploited as an advertising product where the manipulation is sometimes
intense enough to exacerbate mental illnesses, whereas the binary alternative
of deleting everything and going Unibomber will result in extreme social and
job related ostracism because obviously "he's trying to hide something".

There are analog middle options that are just as valid as the polarizing
binary extremes. I have a perfectly good FB account with plenty of
connections, but I only log in every couple months. A little awkward when
someone wishes me happy birthday and I don't see it until four months later,
but whatever. Most of the time stuff that was posted six months ago is
irrelevant today, and likewise I feel pretty safe ignoring most of what was
posted today. I find that on FB, as with any other online media, that there's
at least 10 to 100 times as much lurking as posting, so there's really not
that much to read anyway. For example my best old work friend is about as much
of a lurker as I am, so there's really nothing to see.

Or to summarize, the negative effects of deleting your account have nothing to
do with the result of "stop using facebook", if you simply stop using it and
do not delete your account.

------
ja3k
I wonder if selecting your population via people who respond to a Facebook ad
about studying quitting social media introduces any bias. (I can't see the
article so I don't know what their ad actually was) I worry that the correct
takeaway is people who are interested in the idea of taking a break from
social media probably should. Maybe the study was sufficiently well
compensated that people who feel positively about social media still felt
participation was worthwhile?

~~~
hogFeast
It is amazing to me that yours appears to be the only question that asks this.

But yes, there are problems with this study imo...none of which are really
addressed in the paper. Giving someone $100 to quit is kind of an "economist"
thing to do but is that really enough of an incentive to do something you
wouldn't otherwise do? No.

They do say that their ad didn't mention quitting Facebook. And they did some
kind of survey first (which is how they got the $100 figure if I understood
that correctly) but it still doesn't look great to me. In particular, they
claim that they did an RCT because they randomly assigned the people who
clicked on their ad...that isn't random.

I also think compliance is far harder to observe than the author's believe.
The subjects deactivate, and if they log back in it reactivates but is that
foolproof? Not really. Tbf though, the number of subjects who fail to complete
is low given upside of $100...so maybe.

The key parts of the survey really rely on self-reporting (will people have a
bias to report improved wellbeing given all the bad publicity about FB?
probably).

But yeah, this isn't really an RCT. It would be nice to see one but I think
the issue is that most people who use Facebook a lot probably aren't
interested in stopping.

------
rtkaratekid
I used to use Instagram quite a bit. Got really frustrated with the vapidness
and pointlessness of it. When I gave it up, I just felt like this weight had
been lifted. No need to look at how cool others’ lives seem to be, just time
to live my own and enjoy it for my own sake rather than sharing.

These days I prefer to use social media as a form of dialogue, almost like
forums, than anything else. The focus is on ideas and conversation.... which
is why I actually really enjoy HN.

------
kriro
Sometimes I feel like I have a "genetic advantage" to not be attracted by
social media. I have a Twitter account that I rarely use (mostly for API-
access for NLP research), I check into my Facebook account maybe once a month
and have never used Instagram. I watch some things on Youtube (usually
recorded lectures or tech talks or board game videos) but rarely ever "drift"
towards recommended videos and the like. I used to be on IRC a lot back in the
day but quit it completely, I used to frequent specialized forums, especially
when I was an online poker player but also have quit those completely. Don't
have a Reddit account and am not really following that. I guess my HN account
is the most used social media right now. I also don't feel the urge to post
and share pictures which I notice a lot in my friends. Sometimes it feels like
a moment doesn't exist for them unless they can capture it in a picture
(whereas for me it actually disturbs the enjoyment of the moment to stop and
take a picture).

I instant message but am notorious for "answering late" and keep getting
complaints that I don't check everything immediately. I usually put my phone
on the charger when I get back to work and only look at it every now and then,
sometimes not at all until I go to bed.

Interestingly, I am very interested in how social media works technologically
and have also been an early adopter of many technologies. However I feel like
I'm fairly "results oriented" when it comes to social media so I expect some
sort of benefit from using them vs. the time spent.

I've also noticed that I'd probably test well on my ability to delay
gratification and I feel like this might be correlated with social media
consumption in some way (maybe there's studies on this?).

~~~
_lacroix
Do you find that you tend to get sucked into to ANYTHING in your life?
Content, substances, activities? I find that I have a very addictive
personality across the board - once something feels good it's very hard to
stop even when I consciously want to or it's making me feel bad. This happens
to me with social media, TV, alcohol, drugs, and occasionally even reading or
a new hobby I'm really into. Rather than the ability to delay gratification,
I'd imagine social media consumption is correlated to whatever it is about the
brain's dopamine pathways that leads some people to get addicted to things
more easily than others.

------
johnmarcus
this is true of any poor online habit people develop though, i don't think it
has too much in particular to do with Facebook.

If you asked Reddit or Hacker News readers to do the same, I almost guarantee
similar or the same results.

~~~
dcabrejas
This is true for most of the finding. But not for politics, in my opinion. I
think people are more likely to get polalized in Facebook than in ycombinator.
In fact it is known that political campaigns invest heavily in facebook adds.
And this is worse than most of the regular media, which although biased, at
least provides some sort of fact checking or push back usually.

------
optimaton
When you stop using Facebook, it makes the quality of your life better.

------
WiPo
The way I choose to use FB or Twitter is to check one's profile before the
actual meeting happens so I could have some 'common knowledge' with him to
talk about. As a researcher and programmer, it's crucial to realize that you
couldn't do anything meaningful or fundamental without immersing yourself into
thinking and being kinda isolated. I'm kinda pessimistic about this round of
internet bubble as it seems to come out of the exploitation of people's spare
time and attention by using superficial content and instant satisfaction. (FB,
Netflix, Tik-Tok, etc) But productivity is indeed boosted. I couldn't imagine
WFH being so widespread 20 years ago, but now with a smartphone, you can
basically meet, chat, work on documents/ projects, taking lectures from
elementary to graduate level. So in the long-term, I'm still optimistic that,
maybe after the burst of the current bubble, people will realize how addicted
they've been, and how they should adapt to new techs.

------
karimmaassen
I still use Reddit, Youtube and Twitter on a daily basis. I get to choose what
to follow, how and for that, it's informative (and a time-passing activity for
sure) and useful.

Facebook, on the other hand, is an all or nothing app in my opinion. It's
difficult to distinguish between who to friend and who not. Close friends and
family members, I keep in touch with through WhatsApp, text and whatnot.

As an entertainment (or informative) platform, Facebook is even worse.
Sensationalism and misinformation is rampant, or you're bombarded with ads.
And you're not really allowed to interact or disagree without getting into a
de-railed discussion.

On top of that, you're comparing your life with those of others ('
highlights). It's a useless and depressing timesink (which Instagram is as
well for those exact same reasons).

I'm glad I quit Facebook (for 99%).

------
bilekas
I stopped using Facebook a good few years ago (4+), and to be honest, I know
it had a positive impact on me, but at the time I was a very frustrated with
almost a feeling of being blocked off from some part of society/friends.

Now I have absolutely no reservations saying : 'No sorry I dont have FB' and
it's such a relief.

I do still have other bad habits such as over consumption of youtube/news
sites which I'm also working on, but I recommend the leap away from the plague
of Faceobok.

When I have kids, I genuinely will be very diligent about deamonizing all
social media and education around modest useage.

The social media enviornment has exploded so fast there has never been time to
fully realise the impacts or the effects later. But all indications look
towards it being incredibly damaging.

------
ryannevius
TL;DR from the abstract of the actual study:

> In a randomized experiment, we find that deactivating Facebook for the four
> weeks before the 2018 US midterm election (i) reduced online activity, while
> increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with
> family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political
> polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and (iv) caused a large
> persistent reduction in post-experiment Facebook use. Deactivation reduced
> post-experiment valuations of Facebook, suggesting that traditional metrics
> may overstate consumer surplus.

~~~
wideasleep1
" (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; "

I interpret that as 'reduced propaganda and it's resultant effects". Much like
giving up television.

~~~
dcabrejas
Polarization has been the trend in the western world for the last decade,
slowly but surely countries are being divided and polirized more and more. It
doesn't paint a good picture of the future for sure, and social media is part
of the problem unfortunately.

~~~
Nasrudith
Personally I consider polarization the ultimate in intellectual laziness as a
scapegoat. The problem is that people disagree! Not that they any stances are
particularly evil or insane, factionalism, zero sum thinking, nor any actual
solution in mind. Asking if they have any ideas for a solution just gets a
dirty look as you commit the faux pau of actually attempting to get people to
think. Instead it is just one word which tries to sound smart but is utterly
vapid repeated as nausuem as the source of modern ills. Polarization!

Never mind that lack of it has historically lead to /way worse/ outcomes.
Unity is not a good thing in itself.

------
jokoon
I've stopped using it in 2009 because of a fallout with my classmates.

Sometimes I wonder if I missed social occasions because of not using facebook.
Generally I realized facebook didn't really allow to "make new friends"
because it lacks "discovery" features.

Now there are social networks who are focused on neighborhood and honestly I
wish facebook would do something about discovery. I haven't heard from the
facebook dating app either.

Facebook, even if it's successful, feels like such a big waste of potential.

------
mellowdream
I thought I was clever to disable YouTube viewing history, thus replacing all
the interesting and addictive videos I normally get lost in with the most
inane garbage from the typical "news" vendors, sports highlights, celebrity
interviews, Star Wars/capeshit theorycrafting, crap from Business Insider and
TED and the like, etc. which I of course planned to never watch...

Now when I want to avoid working I just end up watching stupid clickbait
instead of interesting clickbait...

~~~
bandwitch
What I found really helpful in reducing Youtube viewing time, is to use a
browser-extension that hides recommended video all together. This way, you
only watch videos you explicitly searched for.

------
dang
Related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19076863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19076863)

------
heartbeats
I did this. The only thing it gave me was social isolation. People look at you
funny when you tell them you don't have a facebook account.

If you have a well-developed circle of friends, sure. But this only holds for
what, half of Americans? I don't know people well enough that I'd have a
functioning social life without Facebook, unfortunately. I think this holds
for many other people as well.

------
pmontra
In my case I'm spending less time of FB (almost only for work) and more on HN
and other sites. Definitely more on WhatsApp groups with people I meet in real
life. Basically I'm losing contacts with people living hundreds or thousands
of km away that I don't see even any other year. No impact on news, there are
plenty of sources outside FB. FB never was my primary source.

------
PaulRobinson
I would love to see similar studies done on other social media platforms.

I quit Facebook a couple of years ago and went back to take a look recently.
Whole bucket of "nope" right there. I am now concerned about other platforms I
find quite sticky though, including Reddit, HN and particularly Twitter.

------
anonsivalley652
For me:

Newspaper: late 70's-2002

Friendster: 2003-2005

TV: late 70's-2006

Myspace: 2004-2006

Orkut: 2005-2006

Facebook: 2003-2007

/.: 2004-2007

Flickr: 2004-2010

Radio: late 70's-2011

Twitter: 2008-2013

Quora: 2009-2013

Snap: 2012-2013

Meat agriculture & palm kernel oil (yeah, yeah no stupid comments): late
70's-2014

Reddit: 2017-2020

LinkedIn: 2004-2020

IRC: 1996-

Craigslist: 2000-

eBay: 2001-

Amazon: 2001-

AliExpress: 2016-

Wish: 2019-

Addicted to materialism, I guess.

~~~
mymythisisthis
You could add RSS 2006-2018

------
philpem
Does anyone know of a similar study regarding Twitter usage and its peculiar
dark patterns?

I'm curious if the findings are "social media in general" or "just Facebook"

------
Hitton
The benefits seem quite significant. I wonder if I could start using Facebook
too so I can subsequently quit it and reap these benefits too.

------
anovikov
Biggest takeaway: a therapy is typically 2x$100 an hour sessions per week.
Quitting Facebook provides 25-40% of the effect?

Facebook is free? Not even close.

------
oli5679
I wrote a Selenium bot to unsubscribe from notifications from all my friends.
Now I just use Facebook for messaging and events.

------
kristopolous
Use a time tracker browser plugin for a week. Look back at the results, decide
if it's how you want to spend your time.

~~~
cairo_x
> time tracker browser plugin

Any recommendations?

~~~
kristopolous
I use [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webtime-
tracker/pp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webtime-
tracker/ppaojnbmmaigjmlpjaldnkgnklhicppk)

seems to be fine.

------
test6554
I’ve been off Facebook since 2009 or so. The only feature I miss is being
notified about people’s birthdays.

~~~
floppydiskette
I made the conscious decision to just make a list of everyone’s birthday I
cared about before I deleted FB. I often hear people say, “I wish I could
leave Facebook, but how would I know when anyone’s birthday is?” which I don’t
see as an insurmountable task.

Since in your case you didn’t save them before deleting it, I wonder if it
would be an interesting opportunity to randomly message people you haven’t
spoken with in a while, to put some birthdays in the calendar.

------
catoc
I haven't had a television for the past 15 years - have not missed it one
second. And what is this facebook thing?

------
RedBeetDeadpool
Facebook is what a social network would be if it was a capitalist engine for
data mining and advertisement injections.

Facebook is not a social network for connecting people with people they care
about.

------
malloreon
Now study the effects of dropping instagram

------
Calvin02
HN's Facebook obsession is so unproductive. Let it go already. Focus on
building your own thing.

Yes, people use Facebook. No, you don't have to.

Edit: yes, please downvote this comment. Let the HN naval gazing continue.

~~~
saagarjha
People who use Facebook often ask _you_ to use Facebook, too…

~~~
tyfon
Not only that, they put events for our kids activities on facebook.

I have to ask to be emailed about these events and often I get a screenshot of
their facebook post!

You should not have to be on a platform to participate and luckily everyone
that I explained this problem to understands it and do send me the email with
events. But it creates enormous pressure to be on the platform.

