Not ready to totally abandon social media, I'm pausing my account for a bit. Anyone else pull the plug on facebook or other social media?
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Disabling Facebook
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Sure, inactivated both Facebook & Instagram. Not totally deleted it. Who knows what future holds?
But today I more or less feel disgusted in how a lot of social media is making people behave.
Strange collective patterns that are played out.
I still have my Twitter account that I use sparsely.
But it’s a more open environment, with different opportunities.
However, I think it’s a great opportunity with social media if it’s used with awareness and integrity.
Just because it really shows all social patterns pretty intense today.
So just do it in totally your own way. Or don’t do it all. Make it something liberating instead of get stucked in whatever social patterns...!
But today I more or less feel disgusted in how a lot of social media is making people behave.
Strange collective patterns that are played out.
I still have my Twitter account that I use sparsely.
But it’s a more open environment, with different opportunities.
However, I think it’s a great opportunity with social media if it’s used with awareness and integrity.
Just because it really shows all social patterns pretty intense today.
So just do it in totally your own way. Or don’t do it all. Make it something liberating instead of get stucked in whatever social patterns...!
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I left Facebook in early 2017. Found a link to delete my account so took that option. Been well over a year now.
I also deleted my Twitter account, but had to create a new one in order to deal with T-Force (T-Mobile's online customer support). That account only sees access when I need to deal with them and has no personal info. I've never used it to tweet.
I left FB because it was rapidly becoming an echo chamber.
I deleted my Facebook account almost 4 years ago and went without for about 18 months. I created a new account about 2 years ago and have been very selective on who I add as friends. I use it now almost exclusively for local classifieds/marketplace. I have posted one time in the last year.
I have a Twitter account but haven’t logged into it in approximately 3 years.
It seems like social media went from being a fun way to connect with friends to a highly politicized drama scene. No thank you.
I have a Twitter account but haven’t logged into it in approximately 3 years.
It seems like social media went from being a fun way to connect with friends to a highly politicized drama scene. No thank you.
The only social media I use is Twitter, and that is for contacting app developers and other businesses. I do not use it to socialize or share personal information.
This is why I left.
Many of my extended family members and friends are part of a financial class that gives them the luxury of having an unchallenged opinion. When you start challenging those opinions with facts they get very unhappy with you.
Rather than continuing to alienate friends and family and desiring not to simply hear my own opinions, also unchallenged, regurgitated by sycophants I left.
Echo chamber.
I had a Facebook and Instagram for a short while but deleted them some time ago. Not only did I delete them, I used my Pi-Hole and a curated list that blocks Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp (all Facebook properties) domains at the network level. All devices on my network are protected.
So all the tracking that websites and apps try to do on me, even though I don't have an account, are now blocked.
I just hated the general nature of Facebook and all that goes along with it. Once I started learning how it tracks everyone and how many apps use its services to track users I decided to leave it. The Cambridge Analytica fiasco was just icing on the cake.
So all the tracking that websites and apps try to do on me, even though I don't have an account, are now blocked.
I just hated the general nature of Facebook and all that goes along with it. Once I started learning how it tracks everyone and how many apps use its services to track users I decided to leave it. The Cambridge Analytica fiasco was just icing on the cake.
Give me your password , I’ll make sure they ban you for a bit *********licks poop spoon****
Fascinating post.
I have never had a Facebook account, so disabling it is moot.
Friends serving as election observers with the EU this year were required to set up FB accounts, which - had I been there serving as an election observer - is a condition that would have really irked me and that I would have sought to challenge, or contest, or dispute.
Actually, I never had a Facebook account - could never see the reason for so doing (is there any good reason for FB?) - and in recent times, have been sorely tempted to delete my LinkedIn account.
Twitter I find very useful; in some of the countries where I have worked, - where holding face to face meetings can come with their own challenges - it is an excellent way to keep in touch with political stories (and politicians), political gossip (which you need to be aware of), journalists, writers, NGOs.
Likewise WhatsApp, though I loathe that it is linked with FB; observing elections in countries where personal emails have been blocked by the authorities, WhatsApp has been an excellent way of staying in touch and keeping abreast of what is happening.
Having said that, I do look forward to a time when I will be able to dispense with their services.
I am interested to learn why those who have posted are choosing to suspend - or cancel outright - their FB accounts.
I created a FaceBook and Twitter account for my YouTube channel, but I never post anything on them.
I stay well clear of putting any of my private life on social media whatsoever. Never have done, Never will.
I stay well clear of putting any of my private life on social media whatsoever. Never have done, Never will.
For some people, sure. They enjoy it and perhaps use it strictly to keep in touch with distant family and friends and nothing more. I know a few people who operate like that. Just like anything else, FB can be used for positive things and negative things. To me, the negative things about it outweigh the positive and so I don't use it.
I had a LinkedIn account for many years but once I set it up I never used it for anything and rarely ever visited the site. I'd always get requests to link, or friend, or whatever it was, with other people and usually it wasn't direct colleagues but people of people I knew or just cold calls of people trying to promote their business. That I found annoying and turned off all those notifications. But after a while I reevaluated the usefulness of it to me and decided to delete it altogether.
Twitter is the only social media I use and like, but I don't really do much socialization with it. Rather I follow things in my timeline and a few curated lists that I find interesting and informative. There are a couple of MacRumors folks I interact with on there sometimes, but not too often.
Excellent post, and thank you.
Personally, I use LinkedIn to keep in touch with people with who I have worked abroad; most (not all, but most) of the requests to connect come from such people (I rarely initiate requests).
And Twitter is handy for keeping in touch with political stuff at home and abroad.
I will concede that I have found it useful, but I don't tweet that often myself.
I left facebook a while, but then returned. I've largely stopped using FB, other then to like/share humorous things. For instance, I noticed that nearly every parent I know posted pictures of their kids on the first day of school. Seems like it was an arms race where where everyone had to do it (I didn't).
I've largely stopped putting anything personal on FB and just recently contemplated disabling my account.
As for twitter, I don't use that, though I think the account is still open.
I've largely stopped putting anything personal on FB and just recently contemplated disabling my account.
As for twitter, I don't use that, though I think the account is still open.
Originally I created my FB account in 2009 (I think) at the request of a former friend, in order to view some posts of a different former friend that we shared in common.
I stayed because of the social aspect between friends and family that I found there. Many of the friends I knew from a professional forum I was part of were there. I never made an account out of my own desire.
I've already mentioned why I left.
I also am a member of LinkedIn. I was invited by a professional I know from that same forum I mentioned above. Periodically I make or confirm professional contacts but I never use the thing. However, it's been a good platform to make contacts with the various members of the Youngren family spread across the US and the world. If you were to view my contact list there you'd find at least two other Erik Youngrens plus several other Youngrens.
So, in that way, LinkedIn has been beneficial to me.
As someone who is 34, Facebook has turned into a cesspool of Kidbook. It's anyone and everyone posting endless pictures of their kids, and I couldn't care less about someone's baby. Guess what, it looks like every other baby and there's nothing overly special about yours. When I log into facebook and the first thing that takes up my entire page is yet another picture of someone's baby, I know I need to stop using it.
The other part is it's just so fake. "Oh look at me, I ate this CHEESEBURGER today!!!! OMG LIFE IS SO AMAZING!!!!!! #blessed #experiences #family" and 85 likes. You ate a cheeseburger? Who gives a ****? There's way too much bias towards positive posts only on facebook. Sure, positivity is great, but you know what, we live in the real world and some days you just have to clean the sh!tter. Why not post about that after posting about your cheeseburger? Oh wait, because it wouldn't generate likes because it would show you are actually a real person and if you ever make a single post that isn't beaming with positivity over the most inane thing, you must be a grinch. It's just become a place for people to front how wonderful their lives are when in reality we all know that it just isn't true, so why fake it? Sure, it's one thing to focus on the positive things and not let the negative things get you down, but facebook is an ultra amplifier of the positive and an ultra suppresser of the negative or even neutral things.
And then, the political stuff, which only makes you realize humanity is completely hopeless.
And lastly, the Vaguebook posts. "Please send prayers" followed by 20 people sending prayers and asking what's wrong or what happened and getting the cold shoulder from the OP. If you're not going to share what's wrong, then don't solicit prayers publicly either. Attention whoring at it's finest.
#kidbook
#fakebook
#vaguebook
I think the thing I hate the most about facebook though, as a user from the beginning, is that I really thought of it as a way to stay in contact with people, and used to use it to actually check in with people and ask how they were doing and see how they were, and expected the same. But nobody ever did check in and see how I was doing, it just became this big platform to whore your life to everyone else in the most fake way to keep up with the Jones'. It's about as vain as it can get.
The other part is it's just so fake. "Oh look at me, I ate this CHEESEBURGER today!!!! OMG LIFE IS SO AMAZING!!!!!! #blessed #experiences #family" and 85 likes. You ate a cheeseburger? Who gives a ****? There's way too much bias towards positive posts only on facebook. Sure, positivity is great, but you know what, we live in the real world and some days you just have to clean the sh!tter. Why not post about that after posting about your cheeseburger? Oh wait, because it wouldn't generate likes because it would show you are actually a real person and if you ever make a single post that isn't beaming with positivity over the most inane thing, you must be a grinch. It's just become a place for people to front how wonderful their lives are when in reality we all know that it just isn't true, so why fake it? Sure, it's one thing to focus on the positive things and not let the negative things get you down, but facebook is an ultra amplifier of the positive and an ultra suppresser of the negative or even neutral things.
And then, the political stuff, which only makes you realize humanity is completely hopeless.
And lastly, the Vaguebook posts. "Please send prayers" followed by 20 people sending prayers and asking what's wrong or what happened and getting the cold shoulder from the OP. If you're not going to share what's wrong, then don't solicit prayers publicly either. Attention whoring at it's finest.
#kidbook
#fakebook
#vaguebook
I think the thing I hate the most about facebook though, as a user from the beginning, is that I really thought of it as a way to stay in contact with people, and used to use it to actually check in with people and ask how they were doing and see how they were, and expected the same. But nobody ever did check in and see how I was doing, it just became this big platform to whore your life to everyone else in the most fake way to keep up with the Jones'. It's about as vain as it can get.
I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed your post.
Actually, I have long harboured the suspicion that FB works best for individuals who are self-absorbed and self-regarding to an astonishing degree.
Granted, it does have (or may have) other uses, but they have failed to persuade me to open an account to date.
Thank you but history here shows I’m more than able to get myself banned on my own.
For me it is two reasons:
One: i was totally addicted to it. So I took the app off my phone as I found myself constantly taking it out of my pocket just to check to see if anyone posted anything new in the last ten minutes or liked a joke. It was crazy. I started just checking fb once or twice a week on a computer only which leads to:
Two: I don’t enjoy it anymore. The post I quoted below is exactly how I felt plus cats. My two good friends just Post picture after picture of cats. I’ve even said as has a lot of people it’s too much and we don’t want to ignore you guys because some of your other posts we like to see but the cats literally just clog up our feeds. They don’t care. Plus ads, constant needy people with their humble brags of out with my sweetie, doing this, doing that. When ever thing u do is posted, nothing is special and I just barely look at your post. And really? First day of school picture for your kids going to college and 12th grade? But again, this says it better than I can:
Almost forgot, I spent a day going back on years of posts and comments because I was worried about people being overly sensitive to jokes at work. I don’t need the stress of having a joke bite me on the ass from some snowflake complaining.
[doublepost=1536247353][/doublepost]So question: does deactivating your account disable all your old comments or do you have to delete your account to do that or are comments you posted on other people’s post always going to be there?
I will be 48 in two weeks and I have two kids. But I agree with your assessment about FB and kids. And I will add one more…FB and people and their dogs.
In regards to actual real human children, my wife and I both have separate reasons for not liking to be photographed. For me it was because my dad was always there with the damn camera and for my wife it it simply because she is a private person.
We don't take a lot of pictures and given FB's history of security (lack of) I never really felt comfortable posting pics of my kids. So, the issue you have a problem with, I never contributed to. But I totally get it.
I was and remain (even with kids) a kid-unfriendly person. I don't hate kids, but I don't believe my kids are perfect (I know damn well they aren't) and I don't believe in pushing that any anyone else. I hated it when I was single, I hated it when my wife and I didn't have kids and I hate it now after having kids.
But more than that I hate people who do the same thing but with dogs. Dogs are animals. At best, they are loving companion PETS. They are not children. If they sprang from your human womb then you have some serious issues. So, on top of the "kids" issue you also have these people presenting their dogs as "kids" and it just drives me insane.
Turning now to your comment on people…Family is often argued as a reason to use FB. But I found a whole bunch of family members I didn't really want to get to know better. Because the more I found out the more I didn't like them. My own sister and I have never been friends, have never liked each other. She made some snotty stupid comment once and that's pretty much been the last contact I've had with her.
I know my own opinions have alienated my own family. When you start blowing obvious holes in stupid, strawman opinions people get mad at you. I've lost old friends because I presented facts and reality and they didn't want to deal with that challenge to their thinking.
At a certain point I was pretty much talking only to myself. Those that agreed with me weren't family members or personal friends.
The ones that did check in with me were all those people that I had met first OUTSIDE of Facebook.
[doublepost=1536247652][/doublepost]
Facebook doesn't like you to know that you can delete your account. But if you do a Google search for it you can find the link.
Otherwise, all that stuff just hibernates unless you go and delete it.
I spent a few hours using a Firefox addon to go and delete every damn post on my wall, picture, etc. Everything I could delete I did before I hibernated my account.
Then I found the link for deletion and deleted my account.
Code:
sudo bash -c "echo >>/etc/hosts 0.0.0.0 facebook.com"The dogs don't bother me, but I think that's surprisingly because I see almost no posts of people's dogs in my feed for some reason. At least dogs are all unique and can actually be cute or humorous, unlike someone's baby who has no personality and can't do anything.
Family is an awkward thing. I'm somewhat estranged from part of my extended family (some bad blood when my grandma died and then my mom died during that timeframe so then it just got weird and I was sort of in the middle) but then they all found me on fb and friended me and that's all fine and good and they like stuff here and there but it's like...I still haven't seen them in over a decade so it's like what's going to happen when someone dies, should I go to the funeral? Going to just be weird when something like that happens down the road.
The biggest offenders on facebook that drive me nuts are people who change their profile picture to their baby. My best friend just did this, smh. Videos of your baby are right up there too. OOH LOOK IT CAN CRAWL!!! Take a video for yourself, and put it in your family vault - the rest of us don't need to see it.
Every time I log into facebook I unfollow a couple more people. Before that was an option, I once sat down and unfriended 300 people in one sitting, paring down from 500 to 200. And of those 200, I've probably unfollowed 125 of them. The more you post the same thing over and over, the quicker you end up unfollowed. The other people I unfollow are people I barely know and for whatever reason we are fb friends. I have this guy who I'm fb friends with, we lived abroad in the same city a decade ago, and I think we hung out once or twice? Barely so much as an acquaintance. He doesn't "like" my stuff nor do I his. I have no problem with the guy at all, but I just don't care to see what he's up to, so unfollow it is.
Right like why do people inwent to high school with want to friend me anyway. I don’t want to see them and they don’t want to see me. Why is it this thing for some people to you have to friend everyone u ever knew in your life.
[doublepost=1536256831][/doublepost]And I totally deleted my Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Three things I literally never used especially since most of the stuff that shows up on those apps show up on Facebook anyway!
My parents are ok. They've just learned not to bring up politics around my wife and I.
My sister and I have always clashed. She was always trying to be my second mom when I was a kid and I already had one mom. She likes to boss people around and tell them what to do. Her opinions leave no room for dissent. Other than the fact that she's my sister I wouldn't know her. We used to get into screaming matches when my parents weren't home.
My dad was second to the last born so all the family members on his side had kids much earlier. Those kids are 10-20 years older than I am and set in their opinions. You can't really discuss anything with them. On my mom's side, her mother died when she was six so the majority of the family she grew up with are all step brothers and step-sisters and she is literally the red-headed step child (she has red hair). Consequently that side of the family has never been very kind, warm or loving to me or my sister. It got better later on - but then opinions started to pop up on FB and there we go again.
In regards to friends, not a lot were former highschool friends. One of them I knew because of an association with another friend. She was spouting garbage on her wall which I challenged. I got told that I could not express my opinion on her wall. Ya know, because it was her wall. Censorship right there. I blocked her.
I later had a falling out with the mutual friend so I blocked him too.
I just have no time for people who won't discuss reasonably and too many friends and family became inconvenienced by facts and realities they didn't want to admit to.
I setup a LinkedIn account once. I received a request from someone I knew. I did not realize at the time LinkedIn sends out these requests automatically when someone uploads their contacts. So, I closed the account.
I suppose the closest I come to social media is posting here or one other tech forum. I think I might have commented on a Youtube video once. I just don't see the point in social media.
I think I might have a Facebook account floating around. I remember I had to set one up to access something on some website. I just created a dummy e-mail address and a dummy Facebook account for that. I'd never provide them with any real info.
TLDR: I've had a social media account and pulled the plug after a few minutes.
I suppose the closest I come to social media is posting here or one other tech forum. I think I might have commented on a Youtube video once. I just don't see the point in social media.
I think I might have a Facebook account floating around. I remember I had to set one up to access something on some website. I just created a dummy e-mail address and a dummy Facebook account for that. I'd never provide them with any real info.
TLDR: I've had a social media account and pulled the plug after a few minutes.