
What would happen if Facebook were turned off? - jkuria
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/02/14/what-would-happen-if-facebook-were-turned-off
======
ThJ
It's funny to read such articles hypothesising about Facebook being gone. I
left Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn about 1 year ago. I was hardly getting any
use out of it anyway; not even Messenger. I did a similar thing to Reddit.
Quit it cold turkey. These days, I hang out on Mastodon and HN. As it turns
out, I don't give a shit about what my extended family and old classmates are
up to, and they don't really give a shit about my hobbies and political views.
Staying in touch with fellow nerds is far more enriching.

~~~
JeanMarcS
If only bands I like add RSS flux to their website, I’ll follow you in a
minute !

Perhaps it’s because I’m a bit old (47) but I never geeked the urge of adding
« friends » for having a big number of friends, so I am mainly interacting
with 3 or 4 people on FB, as everybody’s gone now.

But I get news from the band I follow, gig dates and stuff.

I once missed Porcupine Tree having a gig in my town (a lot of work at that
time) in 2004 and that’s the main reason I subscribed to FB (many years later
but still) to never miss a gig of anyone again

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burlesona
From the article, referencing a study where researchers got a bunch of people
to quit Facebook and then studied what happened:

“They consumed much less news, and were thus less aware of events but also
less polarised in their views about them than those still on the network.
Leaving Facebook boosted self-reported happiness and reduced feelings of
depression and anxiety.”

^^ this is why I’d like to see it broken up or shut down. There’s so much
vitriol in everyone’s faces every day, it greatly contributes to the general
unreasonableness of politics today.

~~~
rando444
This isn't so much a problem with Facebook, but just gated communities in
general.

Heavy moderation by participants push out opposing view points until all
that's left are echo chambers.

The downside of this trend is the vast majority of people don't tend to
realize they are in an echo chamber and take what they are interneting as
gospel because people tend to trust the wisdom of the masses.. they just don't
realize the masses are carefully culled.

IMHO problem is worse on Reddit, but likely affects more people via Facebook.

~~~
barry-cotter
Heavy moderation is why people don’t hate each other even more. When I started
using Twitter I followed loads of people who disagreed with me politically who
I thought were intelligent. Lots of them are, and thoughtful but it just made
it really obvious that there’s still plenty of support for people and views I
consider odious. Non-filtered news consumption leads to a more accurate
picture of reality in which huge portions of the population hate each other
and there’s an excellent chance of widespread violence at the level of the US
in the 1960’s again.

[https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-
rage/](https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/)

>> “People have completely forgotten that in 1972 we had over nineteen hundred
domestic bombings in the United States.” — Max Noel, FBI (ret.)

> Recently, I had my head torn off by a book: Bryan Burrough’s Days of Rage,
> about the 1970s underground. It’s the most important book I’ve read in a
> year. So I did a series of running tweetstorms about it, and Clark asked me
> if he could collect them for posterity. I’ve edited them slightly for
> editorial coherence.

> Days of Rage is important, because this stuff is forgotten and it shouldn’t
> be. The 1970s underground wasn’t small. It was hundreds of people becoming
> urban guerrillas. Bombing buildings: the Pentagon, the Capitol, courthouses,
> restaurants, corporations. Robbing banks. Assassinating police. People
> really thought that revolution was imminent, and thought violence would
> bring it about.

~~~
mehrdadn
For anyone else curious, just found an article on this:
[http://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-
burrough/](http://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/)

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jtms
I effectively quit... I still have an account, but I have not checked it in
any way in several months. Life is much improved - i am definitely happier. I
also read and interact here and other non toxic places more which I think is
an improved way to spend idle time

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ttsda
People would rejoice, as they moved deep inside the next trap.

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sandworm101
Party like it's 1999?

I am every day glad i finished my undergrad before facebook was a thing.

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it
If you think about Facebook as an empire, it's worth considering that people
who have lived under empires don't generally go back to living as they did
before the empires showed up. They typically want a better empire to live
under.

~~~
quietthrow
If you think it’s an empire.

Also nobody needs a empire except for the emperor

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danlugo92
After games started popping up I left facebook only as a photo storage where
my family can see my/our/their photos. I also use FB messenger to talk to a
total grand of 1 person that doesn't use any other messaging service.

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brucemoose
I deleted my facebook account maybe a year ago. It was like ripping off a
band-aid.

It felt bad for a short period of time due fear of missing out on
family/friends and whatnot. But shortly after I realized that I'm feeling less
distracted and not falling into the scroll-hole as often.

And as a small bonus, on my last birthday I received actual texts and calls
from actual friends instead of "me too" comments on a fb post.

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Johnny555
_Those booted off enjoyed an additional hour of free time on average_

What to people who spend an hour or more a day on Facebook actually do there?
I log in once or twice a week to look for pictures from my family and maybe
wish someone a happy birthday (which is a pretty shallow interaction since I
only do it when Facebook tells me to).

But what do people do when they spend much more time there? Read and respond
to posts?

~~~
wtmt
They scroll endlessly watching photos and videos on the feed, many of which
are shared by others or come through page subscriptions. They may also hit
like or tap on some reaction. Actual comments are a lot lesser in magnitude.

One hour a day on Facebook is too short a duration for most of these people.

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quietthrow
The world would rejoice that a service that does less good than it does harm
is gone. We would be less polarized. We would be less narcissistic. We would
be less depressed. We would also we able to pickup our phone and call any body
we truly wished to stay connected to. And we would not have an avg of 1500
friends

It would be a cause for celebration.

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jd2
I quit for the third and final time a few months ago. My kids text pics, etc.
We have a group family text thread. I don't like being tracked and my data
being sold. Facebook is a very negative social force and a conduit for
misinformation. So many fools that believe the "news" they read on FB.

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osrec
I think nothing would happen. I mean, the stock market would dip a little,
possibly, but people would simply adjust their lives with no real problems.

Thankfully Facebook remains a tool of whimsy for most people, not one of
necessity. There are plenty of other "distractions" in life that will occupy
our time.

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skilled
Hmm... I think the bigger issue would be the loss of Messenger. In my opinion,
Facebook as a platform is dead. A lot of people in my friends list have
stopped posting altogether. Myself, I post once or twice a month for things
that I thing my friends would like to watch/see.

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jd2
The real problem with FB is addiction. People especially kids get a shot of
dopamine for every "like" on social media. It is also an escape from reality
and it is possible to carry on a fantasy life. This experience isn't going to
end well.

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overcast
Welp. Certainly the zillions of sites relying on Facebook authentication would
be a serious issue. Clearly there would have to be some type of winding down
period, as a cold turkey cut off would be massive on scale.

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singularity2001
I could reduce my /etc/hosts by 1000 lines, that's about it.

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cm2012
It would be much harder to promote new products and businesses through ads.

~~~
shereadsthenews
Would it, or would it just be cheaper and more effective? Internet is still
not a majority of advertiser spending, Facebook does not have a majority of
Internet advertising, either.

~~~
phishfi
I think it'd be cheaper and less effective. The benefit for advertisers on
Facebook is that the rate of click throughs is significantly higher than the
more shotgun-style advertising that was in use before Facebook and Google
started managing so many ads across the web.

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toddm
I would be a happier and more productive person.

~~~
dorkusmagnus
So why not quit already? I mean if you really think that...

~~~
enneff
Indeed. You literally have nothing to lose.

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koonsolo
Kids nowadays don't use Facebook. So I guess it will die together with its
generation of users anyway.

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perseusprime11
Progress for Humanity will happen

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dorkusmagnus
What's facebook?

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porpoisely
The news industry would collapse because they would have nothing else to write
about? The news industry would collapse because one of the biggest news
distribution platforms would cease to exist?

I would be happy since I won't have to hear about facebook on HN again.

