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Will you join this citizen-based non-facebook iphone experiment ?

  • Yes, I will join from February 1st.

    Votes: 8 44.4%
  • I might join another time

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Not yet

    Votes: 1 5.6%
  • I do not want to join

    Votes: 9 50.0%

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .
Don't use FB at all; however, I have a contact who prefers using FB Messenger, so not sure that makes me ineligible for the experiment. ?‍♂️
 
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I have fb marketplace on my iPad but I don’t on my phone. I only use it to sell stuff. So no need to commit to not using fb. I gone on for week not using it.
 
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I hear what you’re saying but maybe it’s time to actively discuss alternatives with your friends and family. At the end of the day Whatapp is just a chat platform and alternatives like Signal, Telegram etc are out there.
When FB announced the poorly explained privacy changes to WhatsApp earlier this year (or was it last year? It’s all a blur) myself and a few others tried to convince others to move to Signal. It didn’t work. WhatsApp is synonymous with messaging.

If I’m honest, it’d be unfair for me to expect people to download a whole new app just to talk to me… If I deplatform myself from WhatsApp all that’s going to happen is I’m going to miss out on conversations and chatter from key family and friends groups - I’d rather be involved.

Also I don’t have the same reservations that others do towards Meta. My reasonings for not using Instagram or Facebook are that I find those platforms not fitting with what I want out of life - I’m much happier without using them, a fact that would not be true for WhatsApp.
 
Can’t. WhatsApp is absolutely key here in the U.K. don’t use any other Meta apps though
Yeah, really finding this frustrating. I don't use Facebook or any of their other products, but WhatsApp is probably my most-used app other than Safari because it's what everyone uses for communication. I've tried to variously get people onto iMessage, Signal and Telegram but it never sticks.
 
Also I don’t have the same reservations that others do towards Meta. My reasonings for not using Instagram or Facebook are that I find those platforms not fitting with what I want out of life - I’m much happier without using them, a fact that would not be true for WhatsApp.
For me it's both. I find their business practices deeply unpleasant and think their influence on basically everything is pernicious. But also, yes, it's easy for me to have those opinions because I don't really enjoy being on social media and don't get anything out of it.
 
On the topic of "passive apps," it's very easy to replace one passive app with another, or to justify the new one (e.g. wasting time on MacRumors or Reddit is "entertainment"). The best thing you can try to do is replace the problem-app with something that isn't "bad for your mental health".

(Of course, if it's not actually a problem, you don't need to replace it: you might have a legitimate need to use WhatsApp as communication, even if you don't like Meta's privacy violations.)
Reminds of those people who gave up bad habits like heavy drinking or drugs then went to the gym or running at an extreme level. Still a mental health issues just focused in a more healthier lifestyle.
 
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I will not join. WhatsApp is the primary communication app in the Netherlands, and no one - except for some rare cases - use anything else. I’d love to switch to iMessage, but it’s simply not mainstream over here. Telegram a bit more, but most people seem to try it for a day or week, and then switch back to WhatsApp.

As for Facebook: I use it because most people around me do too. While I realize I’m pretty much addicted to it, I don’t feel like it brings out the worst of myself. If anything, it has helped me to think for myself, and do better research.

I’m appalled by how many people have become, but I myself have changed from being that person to being a kinder person. Politically wise speaking: in the past, I have been part of the populist right parties Party for Freedom and Forum for Democracy, and was one of those spreading fear and hate in the comments section.

But especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook has turned people into the worst human beings you can think of. It has made me think deeply about that, and about what kind of person I want to be.

And I certainly never want to be part anymore of those who live to hate. So I stopped caring about those people. While you can’t look away from the hateful comments in virtually every single news item, I did delete some of my friends who took part in all that hating. And that alone has made me feel more comfortable using Facebook.

I’m not denying that using Facebook is still a bad habit, especially when I use it quite a lot. But mind you, I use it mostly for keeping tabs on the people I love dearly. Just as I like to keep them up to date on whatever keeps me busy. Text messaging is a great way to do so, but Facebook allows me to spread it to all of them right away.

Having said that, I deeply respect those who are willing to take part in this challenge, and those who never even joined Facebook. Feels weird to say that, but considering how people have been sucked into their ecosystem, it’s pretty difficult to just quit it. If people around me stopped using it, I’d do it too in a heartbeat.

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By the way, please don’t let my avatar fool you about me; I hate Trump to the bone. I have supported him in the past, but as I have grown a lot over the past few years, I realized how bad of a human being he is.
 
My social media is MR. I refuse to use FB, Instagram, TikTok, Google Hangouts, or any other social media that seeks to track me and sell me to the highest bidder, not to mention I have no desire to read mindless drivel found on those sites.
Very similar here. My only "social media" is MR. Don't have Facebook, WhatsApp, Insta or anything stupid. LinkedIn might be the only semi-social platform that I use.
 
Already been doing it for quite a while. I deleted the FB app from my phone last year, have never used Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or any of the other social media apps/sites. I'll never have any Facebook/Meta app on my phone again.
 
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I just loathe the fact that my ENTIRE family and almost every single person i know flat out refuses to switch from WhatsApp. Even a lot of the people around me with iPhones are stuck in the loop of using whatsapp as their primary messaging service for the same reason.

There are many android alternatives, but Whatsapp is so deeply ingrained as the default service among everyone I know that it's damn near impossible for me to junk it. The fact that the people I work with also refuse to switch away from WhatsApp is what's particularly infuriating, because that just makes it compulsory to have.

I was actually that guy who was asking everyone to switch to Signal earlier this year but it all fell on deaf ears.
 
I just loathe the fact that my ENTIRE family and almost every single person i know flat out refuses to switch from WhatsApp. Even a lot of the people around me with iPhones are stuck in the loop of using whatsapp as their primary messaging service for the same reason.

There are many android alternatives, but Whatsapp is so deeply ingrained as the default service among everyone I know that it's damn near impossible for me to junk it. The fact that the people I work with also refuse to switch away from WhatsApp is what's particularly infuriating, because that just makes it compulsory to have.

I was actually that guy who was asking everyone to switch to Signal earlier this year but it all fell on deaf ears.
A lot of mine are switching to Telegram, thankfully. WhatsApp is cancer. Some are on Signal as well (finally).
 
A lot of mine are switching to Telegram, thankfully. WhatsApp is cancer. Some are on Signal as well (finally).

Happy for you! That's most certainly the right call on their part.

It's incredibly frustrating seeing Facebook continue to grow like the cancer it very much is. The sooner we cut it out and throw is aside, the better.
 
Like most of the respondents on this thread, I haven't had a Facebook account for a while. Recently my partner and I were in a bad auto accident, and I kept everyone informed via a phone tree, with some texting as well. It had been so long since I had a FB account, it didn't even occur to me how different the task would have been for me, say, 10 years ago.
 
I still have an account (because the wife insists I have one so she could tag in things), that I never access. I don't even have the app installed. All my social media usage is actually done through Reddit, MacRumors, or other online forums. I do use Discord from time to time, but I am involved in servers that are of my interests.
 
I check in on a work-based Facebook group about once a week, maybe less. I'm not a fan of social media at all. I only got a FB account because when my son was in high school his wrestling team disseminated their schedule info via a FB team page. I'm very nearly that cranky old may who says, "Hey you kids!! Get off my lawn!!"
 
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