
Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety - ericdanielski
https://boingboing.net/2020/02/10/study-facebook-quitters-repor.html
======
INTPenis
What gave me the most satisfaction is quitting the news. Incidentally I don't
have or use any social media either. Except imgur and sometimes among the
funny memes I get news.

But I'm afraid for people I meet who always remind me of all the awful things
they've seen in the news. I'm aware of none of this until someone tells me.

And yet my life is the same as everyone elses. Not knowing what is going on,
living in a country with a high standard of living and personal safety,
doesn't affect me at all.

~~~
anderber
I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me feels an obligation
to be informed to hold those in power accountable. If everyone follows the
advice of avoiding the news, what effect would that have in our Govenment?

~~~
sykick
The problem as I see it is that it is almost impossible to be informed enough
to hold people accountable. In the U.S. at least the news is almost always of
the form: “ Person from party A (which you are a member of) destroys person
from Party B”. Or, “Party B seeks to destroy Issue C”.

There is virtually no nuance in the reporting. There’s no dissection. For
example, the situation with Syria is quite complicated as Turkey, U.S.,
Russia, Kurds, and Assad all have conflicting goals and desires. Yet all of
the reporting I’ve seen on this conflict has been absurdly reductionist and
used to garner support/hatred toward the party in power by the
adherents/adversaries of said party in power.

I understand the desire to have an informed populace but I think that is no
longer possible. It is too easy to sway large swaths of the public. Witness
the rise of anti-vaxers and other thoughtless beliefs. Even if I tried to be
relatively informed it wouldn’t matter because the vast majority of the people
are not psychologically prepared to withstand the pressure of subtle,
sustained propaganda.

I have resigned myself to the fact that the republic is dead in the sense of
what the ideal of a republic ought to be. I too avoid news and social media. I
don’t count this website to be what I call social media since there is no
identifying information about myself on here and none of my friends knows
about my posts on this website.

~~~
Angostura
So read something like The Economist or the paper version of the NYT?

~~~
sjtindell
The NYT I definitely now class with all the rest. In my opinion The Economist
stands alone as the only publication I can trust to be nuanced and
informative.

~~~
IIAOPSW
I'd say the Economist, Bloomberg, Bellingcat, and fivethirtyeight all have
good signal to noise ratios.

~~~
quickthrowman
Bloomberg (the website) is garbage, FT is far better. Bloomberg journalists
are compensated for stories that “move markets”. Ridiculous.

I would really like a free Bloomberg terminal tho

~~~
IIAOPSW
>Bloomberg journalists are compensated for stories that “move markets”.

Possibly, but that is fundamentally different from infotainment. Even with
that bias, Bloomberg never writes an article which fails to answer the most
basic questions one could ask about a given story (unlike most "news" [1]). I
also qualify them as decent because they generally report trends not
anecdotes. Contrast with your local TV station running 1000 crime stories a
week no matter the crime stats.

[1][https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/why-tv-news-is-a-waste-of-
human...](https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/why-tv-news-is-a-waste-of-human-effort-
one-video-is-worth-a-trillion-dollars)

~~~
perl4ever
This! Whatever its flaws, the fact that it doesn't share the most pernicious
ones of most online news sources counts for something. I refuse to pay to
access Bloomberg as long as he is running for President, but it would probably
be worth subscribing to otherwise.

------
papreclip
I open facebook for 2 minutes a week and scroll through my relatives' baby and
pet pictures. I don't get how the site is such a specter of misery for some
people

Twitter I would understand a little better. It's such a tar pit of negative
energy, insults, rage bait, etc

~~~
new2628
I drink one glass of fine red wine once a week while having a nice
conversation with a good friend. On other occasions I have a shot of strong
brandy before stepping out on a cold winter evening. I don't get how alcohol
is such a specter of misery for some people.

~~~
varenc
Similarly: Alcohol quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression,
and anxiety

~~~
jariel
Actually, those who drink in moderation are more successful and happy than
those who quit.

~~~
arrow7000
So what you're saying is people without an addiction are happier than people
who are addicted? Shocking stuff

~~~
jariel
What I'm saying is that the analogy of alcohol is not helpful.

Social Networking is not inherently toxic, and quitting many things: sugar,
television, even meat, might have the similar effects for some small group of
people.

In fact, the entire thread is based on three levels of indirection of
misinformation: the Bloomberg article misquoted the paper, and the short-
summary referencing Bloomberg made it worse.

Here is the summary of the findings [1]:

"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"

So that's a little bit more information now isn't it? And completely conflates
the Facebook/wellbeing issue with a host of other things.

Most poignantly, stopping Facebook usage _reduced_ the amount of _factual
knowledge_ a person had access too. So maybe that's not so good?

Maybe by 'removing Facebook' people are simply a little bit more removed from
the issues of the day (like elections) many of which can be contentious.

So 'ignorance is bliss' is the result of the study? Or is it really something
materially related to Social Networking.

I think we'll need to do some more studying to find out.

[]
[http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf](http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf)

------
war1025
Some steps for making Facebook more manageable:

1\. Deliberately go through and prune your friends list down to people you
actually interact with or care about updates from

2\. Any time someone shares something you think is dumb, click on the corner
of the post and select "Hide all from <page>". This lets you hide anything
your friends share from various meme sites without blocking their legitimate
posts

3\. Any time you see an ad for a product you don't care about or don't want to
see, click "Hide ad" then it will pop up a dialog and you can select "Hide all
ads from <company>"

4\. Go through your "liked" pages and unlike / unfollow any that are
irrelevant to you.

I do all of the above and Facebook often just stops loading content for me
after the first 20 or so posts.

My wife does none of the above and can easily scroll for an hour without
reaching an end to the content.

------
rcurry
After a friend, who always posted on social media about how great their life
was going, suddenly committed suicide, I quit all social media and never
looked back. That was two years ago and I don’t miss any of it. On social
media there is a sort of relentless peer pressure to come across as having a
perfect life and I think that’s really unhealthy. I have found that having
sincere relationships with a few good friends outweighs a bunch of vapid
“likes” from a horde of casual acquaintances.

~~~
solinent
I'd say Facebook brings out the Narcissus in all of us. Narcissus was cursed
by Nemesis to become a flower.

from wikipedia:

> One day Narcissus was walking in the woods when Echo, an Oread (mountain
> nymph) saw him, fell deeply in love, and followed him. Narcissus sensed he
> was being followed and shouted "Who's there?". Echo repeated "Who's there?"
> She eventually revealed her identity and attempted to embrace him. He
> stepped away and told her to leave him alone. She was heartbroken and spent
> the rest of her life in lonely glens until nothing but an echo sound
> remained of her. Nemesis (as an aspect of Aphrodite[4]), the goddess of
> revenge, noticed this behaviour after learning the story and decided to
> punish Narcissus. Once, during the summer, he was getting thirsty after
> hunting, and the goddess lured him to a pool where he leaned upon the water
> and saw himself in the bloom of youth. Narcissus did not realize it was
> merely his own reflection and fell deeply in love with it, as if it were
> somebody else. Unable to leave the allure of his image, he eventually
> realized that his love could not be reciprocated and he melted away from the
> fire of passion burning inside him, eventually turning into a gold and white
> flower.

------
OJFord
I haven't logged in to Facebook for about three years. When that 'off-Facebook
data we have on you' page was released recently, I worked up the courage* to
try to login, see it, and then finally 'delete' my account.

(*I've been slightly concerned that it will be depressing one way or the
other, either three years' messages and invitations to things I missed, or
little of that! Since I just sort of stopped logging in, I never posted that I
wasn't using it for example.)

But I couldn't login. Facebook wanted me to prove my identity by contacting a
set of my 'friends' that it chose, and I had no idea who they were. The only
other option was to upload a scan of my passport, which felt a bit much
considering my only aim was to get off properly and be appalled at the data it
already has on me.

~~~
Zanneth
Completely insane to me that a social networking website wants to see your
passport. If that isn’t some Gibson-esque cyberpunk dystopian elements
creeping into our real world, then I don’t know what is.

------
ralmidani
I use FB almost exclusively for news about the Middle East, especially Syria
where the Assad regime actively targets journalists who tell the truth about
what is happening there and very few Western journalists are going into the
areas the regime is bombing. I have vowed to not use FB once the regime is
gone, people can gather freely, and real news media can operate openly.

My FB feed is mostly depressing these days, as it is filled with images of
(among other things) maimed and murdered children. I can see how avoiding that
would probably make me happier and more productive, but FB also helps me stay
up to date on amazing humanitarian work being done in liberated areas. I also
feel that burying my head in the sand would be a betrayal of my fellow Syrians
who have, and still are, sacrificing so that my children as well as theirs
won’t have to fear state terrorism.

~~~
keenmaster
One of the benefits of social media is supposed to be transparency, and I
believe that. However, isn't it an indictment of global callousness that so
many people have seen Assad's destruction of Syria and no one is helping? In
fact, Russia's bot armies far outnumber Syrian refugees on Facebook, and
they're spreading confusion on the whole situation. They're making it seem
like Syria is some sectarian black hole, where no one is innocent, and global
action will accomplish nothing. That keeps everyone else out, Russia and Iran
in, and leaves Syrians to be genocided day in and day out. More people rallied
behind Kony 2012, even though it was a campaign of lies. The American public
has been successfully and systematically jaded into glossing over the whole
Syrian tragedy.

Facebook is probably a net-negative for Syrians all things considered. Your
social network may know the truth of who is committing 98% of the crimes, who
invited ISIS/terrorists into Syria, and who is responsible for a modern-day
genocide (half a million people erased from existence so far), but
unfortunately that's not the case for the vast majority of people.

After Syria is destroyed, the history books will ask: how did we allow that to
happen? What happened to Never Again? Social media will be part of the answer.
We are reduced to tears when watching a film about Rwanda, and merely confused
when hearing about Syria. Dictators love it when you are confused, because
truth is their greatest enemy. In a state of confusion, the truth is not fully
resolved. Moral clarity is dead. The solution starts with caring strongly
about this problem. Only then can we begin to address it.

I would be pleasantly surprised if we're not both downvoted. You have my
solidarity. I know how hard it is for you to receive zero empathy, and
sometimes even aggression, when speaking the truth of who slaughtered your
people and deprived you of your country. Keep telling the truth regardless.
Part of the problem (of confusion and jadedness) inadvertently originated in
the tech industry, and part of the solution will come from the tech industry.
It won't know or care about the issue until victims come forth and make the
problem clear. The tech industry needs to hear your voice. Creating a tool
that is, on net, an accessory to perpetrators of genocide and manipulators of
the public, without fixing it, is very, very problematic. Separately, Youtube
is deleting video evidence of the genocide (even though it said it doesn't
mean to). Many of the posters of those videos are no longer alive, or not in a
situation where they can raise a dispute with Youtube. That is perfectly
legal, and almost noone knows or cares.

\---------------------------------------------------------

FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, are you listening? A GENOCIDE is going on. Facebook, your
platform is being leveraged by the perpetrators of genocide as a modern-day
Pravda of epic proportions. Google/Youtube, you are continuing to delete
critical video evidence of the genocide from your servers forever even though
activists put you on notice. Help.

~~~
projektfu
The US had a moment to help when the Free Syrian Army existed in the first
year or so of the conflict. For some reason, our leaders had cold feet and
allowed our natural ally to be wiped out.

The UN was hamstrung by Russia and China's veto power.

No smaller power was willing to take on Russia in a proxy war.

~~~
keenmaster
Even beyond militaristic action, there are so many low hanging fruit that
weren't picked. It took until 2019 to sanction any appreciable number of
people in the Syrian regime. Many relatives and employees of the Syrian regime
are happily flying back and forth between Damascus and Europe. Their illicit
assets are safely parked in foreign bank accounts. They're sending their kids
to LA and San Francisco, buying $2M homes with straight cash and going to the
best private schools. Severe sanctions should have hit anyone even remotely
involved with the Syrian government as soon as it became clear how many
innocent people were going to be killed. Foreign assets should have been
seized as damages to be distributed to the Syrian people in the future.

~~~
projektfu
Sure, but I find these sorts of sanctions to be ineffective at the stated
goals of preventing killings, etc. And Russia and China, at least, were not
planning to participate, leaving a wide open avenue. The UNSC couldn't pass
sanctions because of their vetoes.

~~~
keenmaster
America and Europe can only be hamstrung by Russia's veto if they allow that
to happen. There are many global measures that could have helped the Syrian
people outside of any action by the UN Security Council. Nonetheless, I agree
with you that America left a void of leadership, and that allowed Russia to
walk in unimpeded. The Syrian people were about to oust their dictator until
Russia came in with reinforcements. My point is, America wouldn't have even
needed to send in the Air Force. The most important course of action would
have been to prevent Russian entry. That could entail a guarantee that "if
Russia or Iran enters Syria, we will create a civilian safe zone using the Air
Force." The safe zone would have both saved civilian life and protected the
FSA from aerial bombardment.

------
adamwong246
FB FOMO is a such an issue for myself. I remind myself that no one has a
perfect life but nonetheless, I find myself driven to inspect profiles of
people I admire, only to be horrified when I realize how much younger, but
still more successful, they are than myself, or they do more interesting work,
or are paid more, or live in a more appealing city, or take nicer vacations or
inhabit more attractive bodies.

It's perfect recipe for feeling inadequate. I console myself by knowing
someone is lurking my profile, thinking the same thing.

~~~
johnchristopher
I am glad you shared your personal experience. Quite refreshing to read (even
if it's a negative experience) in a thread that usually gathers a gazillion of
people who "don't understand what's wrong, I use it only in an healthy way:
for events and keeping in touch with friends/family a continent away".

~~~
adamwong246
FB has 2 barbs which are quite painful when deployed together: 1) The cheap
and easy social validation of the "like" and 2) The observation of other
people's status-seeking, which invalidates our own.

It's much like a drug- if you can use it responsibly, that's great. But we are
just animals and all too often we gradually use FB more and more as a dopamine
trigger. Often, this is in the form of edgy memes, angry politics, soft-core
porn or just status-seeking. Add some FOMO to the mix and you will assuredly
feel pretty crummy.

The FB like button is such an insanely powerful feedback mechanism. I never
would have thought, 15 years ago, that such a simple thing could take over
people's minds so completely. But it's becoming abundantly clear that not only
is FB playing to our weakness, they are playing us against each other. In the
scramble for likes, we obsessively refresh our pages. Likes cost FB nothing
but the chase for them leads its users to churn in circles, all the while
generating ad revenue and which finally resolves itself as Zuckerberg's 18th
mansion.

------
sakisv
I wonder, have fb quitters stopped using all social media? Have they also
stopped visiting news websites?

My point is, is Facebook the only negativity inducing platform? I know for me
it isn't. The question is how do you deal with the rest of them? Do you
balance news intake against the impact on your mental health or you stop
consuming news entirely, because in the end whatever it's set to happen will
happen regardless?

~~~
wronglebowski
Personally I’ve changed to leveraging social media to pursue my work and some
specific interests. No friends or family.

HN for stay current in my industry.

A very curated Twitter via a third party client for following specific tech
creators.

No FB, IG or Reddit. No keeping up with the Jones’s or lusting after others
lives.

If I want to talk to someone I make a habit of doing it regularly. I text
friends and family at least once a week just to say hi. I attempt to maintain
my relationships actively instead of the passive “likes” you can send through
social media.

~~~
rconti
This seems backwards to me. FB is exclusively friends and family. Those are
people I am close to. Why would that drive "keeping up with the Joneses"?
Wouldn't following some celebrity or athlete or something drive jealousy more
than following friends?

On Twitter, I've attempted to follow industry experts and "special interests"
but it seems exclusively about people who I _thought_ would provide insight
into that special interest, saying mundane or inflammatory shit.

Maybe it's down to different personality types, but if I'm going to see random
shit, I'd rather see it from people I know and love, than from someone I've
never met lusting after engagement clicks.

~~~
nhumrich
> wouldnt following a celebrity drive more jealousy?

No. The whole premise for the keeping up with Joneses are that you know them
well. They love in your neighborhood, they have similar jobs, etc. The
phycological lie is that based on some things you _should_ be able to keep up.
Whereas with celebreties, you know that what they have in unachievable. They
have so much you dont. The joneses are just like you, but with that one new
thing. And then the next thing. Etc.

------
nudpiedo
the new is interesting however the article is just a quote from another
article and a study. It ends up not pointing out any valuable information,
like what are the underlying mechanisms. Basically a copycat to get free
visitors traffic.

Questions I wish there were answered: is it about anxious browsing? anxious
goshipping? compare oneself to others? compulsive procrastination? does it
apply to other social networks, is it related to general screen time or just
mindless consuming? would movies and stronger leisure activities have a
similar effect or just compulsive social network browsing and the mental drain
of feeling like comparing to others?

EDIT: spell and formating

~~~
tsumnia
> "stronger leisure activities"

I would be curious about this part, namely in sporting activities where the
participants are considered "lower-performers". I would also like to see some
connection to other psychological studies like Fixed/Growth Mindsets. Someone
with a fixed mindset may show more life satisfaction quitting than a growth
mindset person.

------
mindcrime
I'm fairly well convinced that I'm going to quit FB soon'ish. The main thing
stopping me is that either A. the replacement "thing" I want doesn't exist
yet, or B. it does, and I'm just not aware of it.

Given that I have some pretty specific ideas in mind regarding what I want to
use instead of FB (think "self hosted blog" but with some very particular
details) I don't know that the exact thing I want exists yet, and I don't
really have time to create it myself. At least not unless it just natively
"falls out" of work I'm doing anyway, which it may well do. I just don't know
when that'll be.

~~~
yingw787
Have you considered just using FB messenger @ messenger.com? You can log in
with your email address instead of your Facebook account. You can also use it
while your Facebook account is deactivated (I deactivated mine). No news feed,
no ads, just conversations.

Not associated with Facebook, just a happy Messenger user.

~~~
mindcrime
Not really, because I have an ideological aversion to closed off / walled-
garden protocols like that. Part of what my switch away from the whole
FB/Twitter/Etc. thing is going to be going back to mainly using XMPP for chat.
And anybody who can't, or won't, join an XMPP network and use an XMPP client
is somebody I don't need to chat with.

~~~
veb
You might like PixelFed ([https://pixelfed.social/](https://pixelfed.social/))
it's a completely open sourced project based on federation.

~~~
mindcrime
I'll check that out. Something based around Fediverse integration / open
standards / open protocols is definitely a big part of what I want.

------
chadwittman
FB is the new cigarette.

But it's the 1940s & we're being told by big tobacco that maybe all of these
symptoms aren't correlated.

Narrator: They were.

I'm trying to build something new from the ground up using a pull-based model
+ intimate groups of people you care about. Would love early beta testers that
are parents of young ones: [https://trypersona.com](https://trypersona.com)

------
partiallypro
Facebook is still the best way to get people to gather. I have recently
started a fan club for a soccer group, and without Facebook it would have been
impossible to organize. No other social media platform addresses that need,
that I know of, that has a massive reach to get people with common interests.
Organizing events and reaching people is made much easier.

------
cm2012
Could be an example of the Hawthorne effect - observing any behavior increases
performance in that behavior:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect).

Also, it's amazing the kind of site HN will upvote if it confirms their
priors. This site is the most spammy looking thing, and it does not link to
the original study like it claims (both links lead to a totally separate
article).

~~~
killerdhmo
Do.. you not know what Boing Boing is?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing)

~~~
cm2012
I know its a three paragraph article with two broken links, on a page with 10
ads, and a spammy looking zoomed in photo of Mark Zuckerberg.

~~~
mygo
You take things at face value without pretense. Please have many offspring,
it’s not a very common trait.

If facebook as it is today was presented to people today for the first time,
they also may have come to the same conclusion.

------
StevePerkins
(1) This article is pretty low-quality, and provides no sources for anything.
It certainly sounds plausible enough, but still...

(2) Assuming that this is true for Facebook, I'm pretty sure the same result
would hold true for any other social media site for short-form content (e.g.
Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc).

(3) I'm LESS sure about sites for sharing longer-form writing, such as Reddit
and HN. I suspect that the effect is not as stark, but that it does hold true
to SOME extent whenever you have the gamification of upvotes and downvotes.

------
schallis
Rather than going cold turkey on Social Media, I’ve found it more effective to
reduce the amount of content I’m exposed to e.g. for Facebook unfollowing all
groups, turning off all notifications, reducing friends; for Instagram
unfollowing almost all accounts And turning off all notifications etc.

This has the effect that when I DO inevitably visit these sites, I spend far
less time there and it’s much less entertaining since I reach the “bottom”
much quicker.

Over time I’ve been able to wean myself off.

~~~
mygo
Facebook has a bottom? I deactivated my account never having reached it.
What’s it look like?

------
hx2a
I'm considering quitting Facebook, and am currently using their feature that
lets you temporarily deactivate your account. I'm trying it out for a few days
to see how comfortable I am living without it. So far, no downsides. I'm going
to keep using this feature until I am ready to pull the plug for good.

------
satysin
Quitting Facebook wasn't difficult. I had nothing of value from it by the end.

Quitting Instagram also wasn't difficult.

Sadly quitting WhatsApp is proving very difficult as it is used by so many (at
least here in Europe).

I use Signal with most family members now but when I meet someone new and we
exchange contact details it is always "you're on WhatsApp yes?" and never
anything else.

To be fair WhatsApp does work well and as far as I know is still end-to-end
encrypted so I do not think Facebook are mining my messages but I could be
wrong.

It does bring me to the question of how WhatsApp is making money for Facebook
or how they plan to monetise it without destroying it. A secure messaging
platform is quite different to a trashy public social media platform like
facebook.com.

~~~
newscracker
WhatsApp shares some metadata about your conversations with Facebook, which is
used by Facebook to show you ads or show your contacts on Facebook ads.

There was a plan to shove ads into WhatsApp statuses, but that was abandoned
(or maybe suspended for the near future) recently.

------
cs702
I'm predisposed to believe this is true... But I can't find a link to any
evidence or research in the OP, which is a fluffy piece with little actual
content. I'm flagging the OP unless someone posts a link to either evidence or
higher quality content.

~~~
eindiran
The first link mistakenly pointed to the Bloomberg article when it was meant
to point to this:
[https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf)

Some takeaways:

Deactivation reduced (political) polarization:

"The Treatment group was less likely to say they follow news about politics or
the President, and less able to correctly answer factual questions about
recent news events. Our overall index of news knowledge fell by 0.19 standard
deviations. There is no detectable effect on political engagement, as measured
by voter turnout in the midterm election and the likelihood of clicking on
email links to support political causes. Deactivation significantly reduced
polarization of views on policy issues and a measure of exposure to polarizing
news. Deactivation did not statistically significantly reduce affective
polarization (i.e. negative feelings about the other political party) or
polarization in factual beliefs about current events, although the coefficient
estimates also point in that direction. Our overall index of political
polarization fell by 0.16 standard deviations. As a point of comparison, prior
work has found that a different index of political polarization rose by 0.38
standard deviations between 1996 and 2018 (Boxell 2018)."

Deactivation increased "well-being" by about 20-40% the amount you'd expect
for someone getting therapy:

"Deactivation caused small but significant improvements in well-being, and in
particular in self-reported happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and
anxiety. Effects on subjective well-being as measured by responses to brief
daily text messages are positive but not significant. Our overall index of
subjective well-being improved by 0.09 standard deviations. As a point of
comparison, this is about 25-40 percent of the effect of psychological
interventions including self-help therapy, group training, and individual
therapy, as reported in a meta-analysis by Bolier et al. (2013). These results
are consistent with prior studies."

~~~
cs702
Thank you. That link should be the OP. Mods?

------
Lammy
From the title I initially wasn't sure if this would be about people who quit
using Facebook becoming happier, or people who quit working there. Anecdotally
both are true among my peer group :)

------
chakerb
Unfortunately I can't quit Facebook because it's the only way to know people
from the other sex. I tried Tinder for a couple of months and it didn't work
for me. My assumption is that people feel safer to interact with you if you
have friends in common. That's said, I don't use Facebook that often, if I
start talking with someone and we enjoy each other company, I kindly ask if we
can use WhatsApp and if so, I will stop using Facebook for a period of time.

------
nojvek
I quit Facebook (+ hipstagram + Snapchat) 2 years ago and deffo report better
life satisfaction.

Well Snapchat was accidental quit. They made an app update and the app never
launched again. I tried opening it several times and it crashed every time.
Snapchat really needs to work on quality control and user experience.

I use WhatsApp to stay in touch with my family groups which are located all
over the world. I really wished WhatsApp didn’t sell to Facebook and remained
independent.

------
iFred
Yup.

I hopped back on Facebook in 2012, and it quickly became the nexus of my
online life. I started to get wrapped into how I maintained my presence, the
kinds of witty things that would make it as posts, the banners and profile
pics, and I was always hoping to see a double digit number in the red
notification bubble. It all peaked in early 2017 where I was wrapped up in
some political ideological battle and I just said "fuck it" and left. Deleted
it and didn't think about it.

There were a couple hours at first where I thought I was losing a connection
to the world and my friends, but that cold feeling vanished a day later. I
felt like I had gotten time back, I felt free.

For all of that, I still putt around on Twitter but that scratches a different
itch and I never seem to be consumed by it.

------
gigatexal
I deleted my Facebook account and feel the same as the study: I wish I had
done it years earlier.

------
coderunner
As an aside, if anyone has any unusual things that you have done that have
helped with depression, please mention them. I've done the usual route of
therapy and meds but that didn't help with my depression or suicidal thoughts.
Thanks in advance.

~~~
victoriasun
Not sure if you're open to controlled substances, psychedelics in particular,
but LSD has been the singular thing that has really made an impact on my
depression (and I've gone thru the usual round of therapy/medication/etc). Ten
years ago I had a serious suicide attempt. I'm happier and healthier than ever
now, and I credit a lot of what helped me to LSD. Happy to chat about this
more if any body has any questions, but otherwise I find Michael Pollan's How
to Change Your Mind an excellent introduction to psychedelic therapy (although
his experience focuses predominantly on psychedelic mushrooms, there's a lot
in common as they do have similar but different effects on the brain).

It's important to note that LSD or any psychedelic therapy isn't a cure-all.
It's more like an accelerated, intense meditative/therapeutic state that
allows you to reflect upon your life in a way that doesn't involve the ego-
center of your brain. I highly recommend everyone to try it as it offers a way
to introspect on yourself that is pretty difficult to achieve in normal life.

------
4ec0755f5522
FB is mostly a tool for evil but it's got some amazing parenting resources. On
the evil side you have the anti-vax nutters but you also have supportive
parent groups for whatever weird disorder/issue/disease/problem your kid might
have where the evidence-based stuff is winning out. Global scale organizing of
these resources is a net benefit for sure.

I suppose 10 years ago they would have been on yahoo groups. 10 years before
that, mailing lists. Now they're on FB and I guess that's alright if you don't
mind FB knowing everything about your kids problems.

So yeah FB still evil warmongers against privacy but its power to organize
moms does some little bit of good in this world.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Is that a net benefit, though? Couldn't those communities re-organize onto
platforms that don't harm democracy and rationality? On the one hand, anti-
vaxxers have caused a lot of damage, and FB aided in that; on the other hand,
FB in general has taken revenue and power from those groups, and do we want FB
to have more or less power?

------
giarc
I quit about a month or two ago. I'm not sure if I am happier or not, mostly
because everyone around me is still on it (including my wife). So perhaps
there is a bit of FOMO going on. I think I would be happier if everyone I knew
quit.

------
0027
Most people decide to quit because they feel Facebook is a threat to these. I
know some people have left Facebook because of privacy concerns, but I feel
that has a correlation with anxiety. I know anxiety encompasses more than just
privacy as well. But if you feel your privacy is threatened, you will
experience some degree of anxiety.

So these results should come as no surprise. If they didn't experience any of
these benefits, why would they not join Facebook again? What other reasons do
people who have left Facebook remain off of Facebook without these reasons?

This article feels tautological.

------
rblion
I deactivated my Facebook, don't use Messenger, barely use Instagram. Snapchat
is just an archive for old photos/videos. Twitter is a few times a week.
Reddit is a few times a day.

Notice more contentment, more focus, less anxiety, less noise. Technology is
great for creativity, productivity, learning and entertainment. I prefer to
hang out with people, be out in nature or explore a new city.

------
boopmaster
I am enjoying having my time and my headspace back from worries about anything
transpiring therein, with a side helping of solace knowing that any data once
ago provided is aging unto irrelevance.

------
schallis
Rather than going cold turkey, I’ve found it much more effective to find ways
to reduce my engagement e.g by turning off notifications for all platforms,
unfollowing friends, groups etc.

I’ve significantly reduced my Social media usage using this because I’m no
longer tempted to scratch the itch of a notification, and when I do visit,
there’s far less content so I’ll almost always reach the bottom’ now. I
basically no longer use Facebook because I’ve made it barren for myself and
significantly reduced time spent on Instagram.

------
leonardteo
Funny, I left Facebook yesterday. It got too much as I was connected with many
of my customers/users and it was just mayhem. It was extremely complex for me
to get off Facebook because our website "Login with Facebook", advertising,
pages, etc all are connected to my account, so I couldn’t simply destroy the
account itself or risk locking out hundreds of thousands of people from our
platform and apps. I manually unfriended 2000 people (which surprisingly
didn't take too long).

------
chrysoprace
I'd really like to quit Facebook but I'm holding out for three reasons:

a) Facebook Chat is a way to get a hold of friends or vice versa. SMS is often
slow (less of a sense of urgency I guess), and not everyone has my number or
even use SMS.

b) The network effect. It's a great way for introverts such as myself to get
in contact with someone without the "what's your number?" question.

c) Events. If I didn't have Facebook I would probably not know about them.

How do introverts who quit Facebook get over these obstacles?

~~~
victoriasun
I quit. I'm an introvert :)

a) You can quit Facebook without quitting Messenger. I did this for a while
before pulling the plug immediately.

b) Honestly, quitting Facebook made it pretty clear to me what social circle I
(and those within it) seriously wanted to maintain, and who didn't exist in
that. This is not to shade on the people outside of this circle, by the way!
We only have a limited number of seats at our proverbial table. My closest
friends quickly switched to SMS for me. I have more time for them now that my
Messenger list isn't filled with people for whom I only have a vague
relationship with (this is also more of an indicator of the type of friends I
had on Facebook, which may not apply to you).

c) Depends on what kind of events you like, but I've found text/mailing
lists/curated apps to be more helpful than Facebook's deluge of events. I do
get invited to less birthday parties, but I've never enjoyed those anyways. I
much prefer an intimate dinner over a large group gathering.

------
gzu
The overwhelming theme of social media is propagating envy. Look at this
amazing vacation, look at how handsome I am, look at this happy family with
baby and wedding photos, look at all my money, look at me landing a great job,
look we just bought a beautiful new house.

How can one be content with your own life if you're constantly comparing
yourself to everyone else. Removing images and video might go a long way.

~~~
medymed
Also, adding some degree of anonymity. It’s much easier to delight in a
story/post where there’s less orientation of the story to an attention-hungry
identity and less social pressure on friends to ‘like’ and so forth. Not that
anonymous social forums are without problems.

------
annadane
I think equating fb to other social media misses the point. It's specifically
the privacy violations, whether indirect (people reporting they can no longer
make their profiles unsearchable, or posts they thought were private suddenly
surfacing) or direct (like "your friend just commented on this post"). None of
this can be turned off. Do they not ever think? Use their heads?

------
kristiandupont
It seems that throughout history, we've discovered things that were exciting
and hyped only to later realize that the addictiveness was damaging for
society, leading us to regulating it (or attempting to do so).

I wonder if what we're going through right now with social media will look
irresponsible and quaint the way smoking does in Mad Men at some point in the
future.

------
rhegart
True for me, 1 year+ of no fb or insta. Feel so much better than before and I
didn’t even realize I had anxiety until it disappeared

------
themagician
According to my phone I spend about 5-10 minutes a week on all social media
combined (with YouTube being the big outlier, but I watch mostly on the TV
now).

FB, IG, Twitter, Snapchat… I check them once a week, if that. I think I only
keep FB around for some SSO stuff and a few API integrations that I use for
work.

About two years ago I went all out and just turned off notifications for
_everything_. Not just social media, but news, email, and even text messaging.
I have a favorites list that has a few contacts on it that I let through and
for emergencies and stuff like that, but in general my phone doesn't do
_anything_ unless I receive a call from someone on my contact list. And I
guess calendar reminders and bank notifications.

It's awesome.

I get a print version of The Economist once a week. I catch up on the news via
podcasts on the weekend or when I feel like it. I probably spend a few hours a
week between HN, reddit and The Verge but that's about it. Everything is on my
terms and I'm never going back.

You don't realize how terrible everything is for you until you get rid of it
all and then you start to wonder why you even bothered with that shit in the
first place. IMO notifications just need to go away completely. Unless it's an
emergency of some kind there really is no reason why you need notifications in
your life.

------
oblib
I think your experience with FB has a lot to do with whom you have on your
"friends list".

I only have about 200, most of whom don't post much. Of those who post a lot
of political stuff I have a fairly good mix so I see a lot of that but I don't
get all heated up over it.

A lot of great and funny stuff comes up on my feed so I have a lot of fun with
it.

------
aikah
I mean there is no point quitting Facebook to spend all your time on Twitter
or Instagram either... They are objectively as bad, especially Twitter which
is 24/7 of nonsense and petty drama and people yelling at each other or
organizing virtual lynch mobs...

Facebook as a way to keep in touch with close friends, as a private family
network is fine.

------
Andrew_nenakhov
I confirm. Facebook stopped properly working for me today: I use it mostly on
a smartphone via a mobile Firefox, and it stopped showing more than 4 lines of
text in every post, drawing a non-working 'more' link at the end of line four.
So, I decided not to report the issue because I feel myself much happier
without Facebook.

------
bigcohoneypot
I quit facebook and it improved my relations with my friends and my outlook on
life. I also am in less of a bubble.

------
senderista
Even if Facebook/Twitter didn't make me less happy or turn me into a person I
didn't want to be, I would have quit them for the sheer opportunity cost of
time spent on them that my long-term self would rather be spending on other
things. (Obviously could apply to HN as well haha.)

------
factsaresacred
Facebook kinda tops out as you get older and the rate of adding new friends
declines. Turns out most people are doing variations of the same thing and it
gets dull fast (admittedly maybe I need more interesting friends).

Twitter is novelty and Instagram is aesthetics. Facebook is reruns of the same
ol' show.

------
eindiran
I think the first link mistakenly pointed to the Bloomberg article when it was
meant to point to this:
[https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf)

Some of the interesting points from the paper:

1\. Deactivation reduced (political) polarization:

"The Treatment group was less likely to say they follow news about politics or
the President, and less able to correctly answer factual questions about
recent news events. Our overall index of news knowledge fell by 0.19 standard
deviations. There is no detectable effect on political engagement, as measured
by voter turnout in the midterm election and the likelihood of clicking on
email links to support political causes. Deactivation significantly reduced
polarization of views on policy issues and a measure of exposure to polarizing
news. Deactivation did not statistically significantly reduce affective
polarization (i.e. negative feelings about the other political party) or
polarization in factual beliefs about current events, although the coefficient
estimates also point in that direction. Our overall index of political
polarization fell by 0.16 standard deviations. As a point of comparison, prior
work has found that a different index of political polarization rose by 0.38
standard deviations between 1996 and 2018 (Boxell 2018)."

2\. Deactivation increased "well-being", by about 20-40% the amount you'd
expect for someone getting therapy:

"Deactivation caused small but significant improvements in well-being, and in
particular in self-reported happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and
anxiety. Effects on subjective well-being as measured by responses to brief
daily text messages are positive but not significant. Our overall index of
subjective well-being improved by 0.09 standard deviations. As a point of
comparison, this is about 25-40 percent of the effect of psychological
interventions including self-help therapy, group training, and individual
therapy, as reported in a meta-analysis by Bolier et al. (2013). These results
are consistent with prior studies."

3\. After the experiment ended, people in the treatment group didn't feel like
they needed to go back:

"As the experiment ended, participants reported planning to use Facebook much
less in the future."

"About 80 percent of the Treatment group agreed that the deactivation was good
for them."

------
cryptozeus
My problem is these are my escapes. If I don’t use them then I do not know
what else to do with my time.

~~~
themodelplumber
A very good point. And we can't really say for sure if _you_ would have a
better experience, should you decide to give it up.

I like the idea of providing people with more contextual and appropriate
psychological support than just "hey look, some evidence that it can be a good
idea to quit."

------
codegeek
In my humble opinion, there are 2 types of people who use facebook:

1\. The show offs who want to share every little detail about their every
little thing in life.

2\. People who want to keep tabs on their family/friends occasionally.

I started as #1 back in 2004 when fb was still early on and slowly graduated
to #2.

~~~
koonsolo
You forgot 1 other nasty group: those who feel better by judging others. You
won't see them post or comment, but they will judge everyone behind their
back.

I've see several cases like this from up close, including one extravagant girl
(who wasn't doing anything wrong, just posting a lot), that basically cut out
her entire family so she could post without all the gossiping.

------
pmontra
I almost quit FB (almost only business) and I'm spending more time on HN :-)

Basically I know less about my friends living far from me but they are
second/third tier friends anyway: the time spent together in real life is what
matters.

------
M_bara
I am clocking about 10 years w/out FB. Not on whatsapp and all that other
stuff. I'm quite happy & when folks ask me how to get in touch, My standard
reply is SMS/Phone or Face2face :)

------
tidology
I deleted my FB account like 2 years ago? Never looked back. Unfortunately, I
still see way too many people around me still using it. Have little faith on
masses quitting the service.

------
k__
Knew a bunch of people who simply didn't hear about events anymore, after they
left FB.

If you don't inform yourself via other channels, this can get grimm pretty
quick.

------
jobseeker990
There are just a couple places using it to schedule stuff these day. I'm not
sure how to get away from that.

I can't believe none of my 200 friends post anything anymore.

------
RGgo
The most toxic platform out there is Twitter. Every time I log in I see series
of hate tweets we all have for each other, policies,race, celebrities.

------
krtong
Someone needs to come up with a single-player social media website that helps
people be alone. At the very least it would be a hilarious social commentary.

------
willart4food
1\. Unfollow everyone

2\. follow pages and groups that interest you

3\. LAUGH at the comments of idiots that get their kicks out of life by
vomiting non-nense.

The future of Facebook looks a lot like the old AOL.

------
imartin2k
I deleted my Facebook account about 2 years ago (created a new Messenger-only
account for a handful of ongoing chats). I have never regretted this step.

------
root_axis
For those that believe access to Facebook is a human right, does the idea that
Facebook might be physiologically unhealthy factor into that reasoning?

------
tanilama
Can verify.

Human are weird animals. We get anxiety looking at others doing good. Maybe we
are just really really mean.

Though most of the doing good is just on the surface

------
m0zg
Quitters of just about _any_ harmful habit will report all that. This doesn't
mean that FB is harmful to everyone or even to a substantial fraction of its
users. It's just that people who feel it is harmful for them are much more
likely to "quit" it, and report improvement when they do. I bet people who
just started to use FB also report more life satisfaction and less depression
and anxiety. They made a change they felt they needed to make, in both cases.

------
christefano
Does anyone have a link to the study PDF? (Boing Boing’s PDF link erroneously
points to the Bloomberg article.)

------
oxymoran
This is only true if you quit all social media. I started using Twitter for 1
specific topic and now it’s all back.

------
thescribbblr
The reverse happened to me. I got more depression and anxiety. So, I joined
Facebook again after 3 months.

------
karimmaassen
As a Facebook quitter, I can confirm.

------
beepboopbeep
I often forget I even had a facebook. There really is just zero value add to
my life from that website.

~~~
mattrp
I used to subscribe to the idea that facebook helped you stay close to friends
and family. But the issue is most of the friends and family who I want to hear
from and wants to hear from me have too much going on to really be active. So
the remainder of facebook is peripheral contacts who think that by posting
someone's else content (a meme, a political thought, a call to action,
whatever) it's somehow valuable to everyone else. I hear marketplace is useful
and is supplanting craigslist. But when I look at it, it's full of off-site
ads for products I have no interest in buying. Very little of it is actual
neighbor to neighbor legitimate items for sale. I deleted the app from my
phone over a year ago and haven't really missed it. More importantly, I really
fail to see the value that facebook provides.. can you imagine if they'd
really pitched to VC's what they've become they'd ever been funded in the
first place? "Hi, we are going to attract users who used to forward email spam
to all their contacts in the CC line and give them a place online to collect
all their BS on one convenient place and then we're going to market all sorts
of crap at them."

------
MikeGale
I’ve recently withdrawn from email, Internet and TV for a while. I’m currently
reconnecting.

My main observation is that I’m happy getting back onto the things where I
exert some control. Those with little control are harder to stomach:

1\. TV news is one of the hardest. I can silence the adverts but the news
itself is a horror. In most “items” I see blatant political manipulation,
viciousness without apparent reason, ignorance and stupidity so deep that I’m
dumbfounded. So much propaganda and disinformation. Can’t find any channel
that is much good, not controllable. (Also newspapers, for them add plenty of
hysteria.)

2\. eMail has also proved surprisingly hard. The hard part is all the spam. (I
don’t use surveillance capitalist mail servers, run my own.) I decided to go
through my spam traps first. So much utter rubbish that it’s put me off.
Outnumbers the good stuff even after automated pre-winnowing. Would be better
if I could find a way to retaliate effectively against those who pay for spam.

3\. Facebook is quite easy. I have a number of measures in place that put my
content under my own control. Not that hard to get back into. (Though I find
more people, a lot, are using it less and bailing out altogether as time goes
on. It’s dying.)

4\. Twitter is dead easy. You choose who you follow. That gives you a lot of
control, so can be pleasant to use.

5\. The Internet (WWW) in general is not too bad. I have a variety of tools to
control and exclude those who want to watch everything I do. Gives me control.

My take away: The media you can control can be rewarding and worthwhile.

------
thosakwe
Sounds like confirmation bias to me.

------
throwaway122378
Left Facebook 4 maybe 5 years ago now can’t remember. No instagram no snap no
WhatsApp.

------
mrhappyunhappy
It’s shocking to see people call Reuters, NPR and NYTimes unbiased. They are
biased.

------
appleshore
What happens in your real life is still 10-100x more influential in how you
feel.

------
DannyDouglass
i'm waiting for my facebook account to be deleted in a week and the only
anxiety i have now...is waiting for it to be gone. it's toxic. i'm much more
at peace letting facebook go.

------
sub7
Whatsapp growth is off the charts - that's the vertical to attack IMO.

------
tempsy
Twitter is far more addictive for me, and makes me feel worse.

------
garrygosh
I like looking at my friends pictures on Facebook. But I never understood why
I would post any pictures myself. I don’t understand the upside. Even my
profile photo is blank.

------
bitxbit
I sincerely hope people at FB come to the realization that they can do
something powerful to dramatically change the world IF they are willing to
forgo the money.

------
mazone
Now i am addicted to hacker news instead.

------
jtlienwis
When Facebook pays me for my supplied content I would think about going back.
But I am not interested in making someone else rich using my data.

------
merpnderp
Can relate, I haven’t missed it a bit.

~~~
ghastmaster
Ditto. From my experience and assumptions by many media I've seen, people tend
to post the best of what is going on in their lives to social media.
Subsequently, not seeing the bad or mundane in comparison to oneself, causes
anxiety. There are many other aspects to the social media that might affect
life satisfaction. Time spent on the platform rather than being productive is
one that comes to mind.

~~~
vidanay
Unfortunately, I can't say the same. I quit FB a month ago, and sadly not a
single "friend" has emailed me or phone called me since then asking "yo,
what's up dude?"

~~~
ghastmaster
If you are upset with the way they treat you, then perhaps you should
reconsider your relationship. Have you contacted them? I personally go years
without speaking to some of my friends and pick up right where we left off. It
feels like there has been no time gap. I do not put much stock in friendship.
It would not be upsetting to me if none of my friends contacted me ever again.
You may not be the same.

------
zelly
People who follow through with major decision report higher satisfaction, says
new groundbreaking study.

------
welly
"Facebook is designed to make you anxious, depressed and dissatisfied"

Really? _Designed?_ Come on.

~~~
smileysteve
Well, it's designed to capture eyeballs; and those are definitely mechanisms
to capture eyeballs.

~~~
fwn
If I understood it correctly that's what our parent was implying.

A dike is designed to keep water away and, as a side effect, blocks the ocean
view. It would be misleading to say that a dike is designed to block the view,
as it misrepresents the builders intention to fit a specific narrative.

If we'd explain dikes that way to someone who does not know the concept, they
would assume that dike builders have to be very evil.

Which is pretty unfair, given that if we had better ways of building dikes
that - everything else equal - don't block the view, everyone would probably
build those instead.

I think that such a deliberate misrepresentation reveals the authors agenda
and their willingness to be intellectually dishonest.

------
koolhead17
Facebook and Instagram

------
DailyHN
I second that.

------
robomartin
It all started with being sick of being presented with walls of negative stuff
(usually political, all sides) every time I went into FB. Not wanting to see
that crap I started to put people on 30 day holds. I eventually decided that
if I had to put someone on 30 day hold three times in a row I should unfriend
them. And that is exactly what happened with a number of people.

After several of those cycles I asked myself a very simple question: Why?

That's when I unfriended everyone except close family (a little over a dozen
people). I can now derive some value from FB.

I have a long list of things FB should do to actually be more useful. One of
the things that always bothered me was that they force you to toss everyone
into one big pile and everyone on that pile is exposed to everything you say
and do. Yes, sure, you can group friends and explicitly post to a limited
subset. Frankly, the implementation absolutely sucks and is a pain in the ass
to use.

The model needs to change to everything being absolutely private and not
farmed or captured by FB unless the user chooses to open doors beyond that.

There is no reason for my friends from the gym should have any visibility into
my family and my conversations with my family. The same applies to work
friends or neighborhood friends. You can accomplish this today but the UX/UI
are absolute garbage. A user needs to be able to put people into silos and the
software needs to enforce privacy between silos by default. It should take
work to pierce silo boundaries. Again, no reason for someone's bowling club
members to ever see conversations with family.

I had a case with a friend of a friend who would snap tons of pictures
whenever he got invited to a gathering at my house. He would proceed to post
all of these pictures publicly on FB --as in anyone in the world could see
them. I am not paranoid, but I don't want pictures of my kids, home and family
all over the internet for everyone to see. If you are not a parent (and, in
particular, if you don't have daughters, you might not get this). I asked this
guy twice, politely, not to do that. I explained that taking pictures of
people in a private residence does not entitle him to post them for the world
to see without permission. I eventually had to pay an attorney to give him a
call and get it sorted.

Another interesting issue with FB happens when your friends post stuff from
publications you do not care to see on your timeline. They offer the ability
to block some people and pages, but there are a few holes in that. I don't
remember the details. All I know is that I kept being exposed to garbage from
a couple of people and the only way to not see it was to suspend them for 30
days or unfriends them. I eventually just unfriended them. I reached out to FB
with the issue. They could not care less.

On the business side, they angered a lot of people with their approach to your
audience in groups or pages. I have personally invested tens of thousands of
dollars in the past aggregating people behind pages only to be slapped in the
face by having to buy advertising to reach my entire audience. Imagine having
a page with 100K people you spent money to aggregate and only being able to
reach a few percent of them with your updates (unless you pay).

I remember when brands used to advertise their FB pages in TV ads. I never
understood why they subverted their amazing brands to FB. Well, eventually
they all stopped. You don't see that kind of thing any more. Businesses want
to own their audience not have to rent it every time they need to reach to
them.

For all the good FB does or can do it also has some dark patterns that they
should address.

------
tibbydudeza
It was the best thing I ever did.

------
manicdee
I, too, find my life is much less stressful when I bury my head in the sand
and pay no attention to the corruption of government and progress of society
towards capitalist fascism.

Limit your social media feed to only people posting positive news. Cut off the
people you don’t actually interact with. Remove all the bad news from your
daily attention. Now you are in a better state of being: the state of denial.

Goodbye depression and anxiety!

~~~
recursive
Not all bad news is actually true, useful, or even news.

------
hurricanetc
You’re delusional or a sociopath if you think working for Facebook is doing
anything positive for society. Facebook has to be the single worst thing to
happen to humanity so far in the 21st century.

------
abdullatifkatto
What is this?

------
abdullatifkatto
About it plz

------
cityzen
ITT lots of people justifying using Facebook.

