
I Deleted Facebook Last Year. Here’s What Changed (and What Didn’t) - ingve
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/technology/personaltech/facebook-deleted.html
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carrja99
I've been off facebook and twitter for a year. I stopped watching and reading
news sites for the past two weeks. It has been absolute bliss. You can bemoan
that I'm not "woke" but I can be active in my community and contribute to
causes I support without hearing a certain someone's name every damn day.

Hacker News might be next. :-)

~~~
zaphod12
I hear ya! At first after getting off of Facebook, I substituted Reddit, which
was WAY worse. Hacker News is the closest I get to a Social Network, now.

The problem I have is that there is some news that I really do want.
Especially local news and some international news, but I feel like I have no
way to get it without the constant drone of soul crushingness

~~~
frosted-flakes
Does your city have a local newspaper? Until it was shut down in 2017, I loved
reading my small city newspaper over breakfast. Mostly everything was
relevant, and there was a lot more focus on positive things.

Physical newspapers seem old fashioned, but it was a much better experience
than online, and it was easier to say, "I'm done reading the news" and put it
down. I didn't really read online news, because if there was anything really
important, it would be in the National News page of the local paper.

We paid a couple hundred dollars a year for 5 days a week delivery, which was
totally worth it in my opinion.

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youeseh
I got back on Facebook this year after taking a break for a while. Here's
whats changed and what hasn't:

\- My attitude towards it changed. I no longer compare myself to how my
friends are doing. This makes it a lot more fun to post things and to see what
people are up to. I don't have this internal pressure to keep up / go do
things because... I'm for the most part doing the things that I want to do.

\- It is still fun / addictive to log in regularly to see how many likes /
comments I've received. I guess I like the attention. I don't mind negative
comments anymore - I guess I'm finally comfortable with disagreeing with those
closest to me about my choices.

\- Unlike before, I don't think about when it is appropriate to post. I post
when I can.

\- Sometimes I feel really proud of something and I share it to show off a
little. But mostly, I try to post things that I think my friends would like to
see.

\- Unlike before, I don't get caught up in most things my friends post / talk
about. Just as not everyone has to agree with everything I do, I don't need to
agree with everything my friends do. I don't usually comment and I don't
always like. And that's okay. Politically, career-wise, lifestyle, travel,
relationships - I just don't get angry about how they feel about these things.
I sometimes have a counterpoint / question about some things, but I try to
remind myself that I'm only good at a few things.

\- For a long time I thought about the privacy implications and "if you're not
the customer, then you are the product". And to some degree this is still
true.

Facebook is a fantastic tool to keep in touch with friends and to see what
they've been up to, especially when you wonder what they've been up to. It is
also a great way to get in touch with them directly. For me it is better than
Instagram or any other social networking tool. The only thing that came close
was ICQ.

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rwz
The author mentions how after he's deleted his facebook account he started
seeing weird instagram ads and I can very much relate to that.

After I deleted my facebook a bit over a year ago, instagram suddenly switched
to showing me Mexican targeted ads despite the fact that I've never been to
Mexico and don't even speak Spanish. There's pretty much nothing you can do
about it as far as I can understand, so I've been diligently marking all
Spanish ads as "non-relevant", which I suspect accounts to nothing.

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nashequilibrium
I have had facebook for about 1 month 10yrs ago. I dont think I missed
anything and catchup on family gossip during family functions.

