Facebook's New iPhone App Feature Turns the Clock Back to 2007

[canadianpj]

I can't figure out who is actually still using Facebook beyond Marketplace (which is very useful, I will say)

Every profile just looks like a bot or a ghost town and the real people I interact with on Marketplace usually have not much beyond a few profile photos to help ID folks when meeting up in real life.

I do, everyone else I know does. Millions and millions of people do. <shrug> I know it's trendy to talk ill of it but there's still a lot of people.

 

[sfrsteel]

Bring back the real joy and give us a light weight app sub 20mb that includes messaging.. They might be bringing back the joy from 2007 but its likely still a gigantic app taking up a quarter/half of the size the OS does. LOL They need that for all the app tracking and personal data tracking and relaying ..

 

[subjonas]

I dropped Facebook and X. I don’t want them earning a single cent off me, for them to just then turn around and do terrible things with their money. Now I have to work on phasing out Amazon, Google, and probably not buying new from Apple any time soon.

What terrible things do they do with our money?? 😮

Also do you mean you are phasing out all big tech except Microsoft?

 

[subjonas]

I honestly dont mean to come off as over dramatic but Facebook (and all of social media now) to me is the digital equivalent of a drug. Its toxic. I just permanently deleted my facebook page this month and it was the last of my Social Media platforms i am detoxing from over the past year or so and i feel like a recovering drug addict.

I have no doubt in the history books to come we are going to look back on Social Media with distain and even hatred in how bad it is for you mentally and withdrawing from it has been one of the most painful lonely self isolating experences of my life because of how much i depended on it and was both furious with its intrusive anxiety driven FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) manipulation tactics to keep you engaged.

It was tolerable but still not healthy for someone like me who suffers from OCD, Anxiety and Depression, when it was just a friends list chronically in order of who posted what. But slowly but surly it got intrusive, saying 'Hey you should follow this person or join this group or that group and hey we are going to alert you in the middle of the night to a new post from a group you dont even belong to just to get you to join, and now we are going to bombard you with ads between your friends feeds to products you have no interests in buying what so ever...oh and people you have no clue who they are are going to message you out of the blue insisting your someone they know when your not..."

It just got insane. I used to run a youtube channel for over 13 years and last year i had enough with the ever changing rules on that, and the trolls and haters hating on me because i dident like what they liked or just being jerks, or not saying or doing what they wanted me to do...and i deleted my entire facebook page and i thought id miss that, but i dident, and that drove me to delete my Facebook page this year and that was a nightmare because facebook is very much a digital drug dealer...

"Oh hey, yeah you own our VR Headset and smart glasses but you cant use them despite you paying for them unless you have a facebook page". then they changed that, and now you can (thank god, cause they are good products) but then it was like "Ok, so you want to delete your personal facebook page...sure, go though this long and hidden and convoluted process to just delete it AND THEN DONT LOG ON FOR 30 days and we will delete it permanently, but if you come back once....if you want another hit...then the process starts all over again"

To me thats a drug dealer mentality and resisting the urge to log on to facebook was what i imagine people withdrawing from drugs is like...it was mentally painful but i finally did it and in no way shape or form do i want to go back ever and i would encurage everyone to do the same.

I get it, you have people on there that you can only talk to on there for what ever reason. Give them your number and talk to them one on one like back in the 80s, i implore you...its so much healthier and less intrusive.

I hate how much we have given our lives and mental health to social media and how much it rules the world, and i wont ******** you, withdrawing from it is painful, because your shattering the illusion of connection.

I do feel lonelier then ever before because i cant check facebook anymore and see what everyone else is up to...but that sense of connection is an illusion to begin with and your better off without it.

Humans were not meant to socialize behind a screen. I implore you, find real menainful connections beyond likes and follows and groups.

Its good to use technology to keep in touch with people a long ways off, but do it in a meaningful way...A Facetime call or just a plane old phone call.

Not this soul sucking social media digital drug nonsense. Its so much more rewarding. Facebook is a digial drug pure and simple and they know it and got you hooked on it.

Life is so much more then someone liking a post or following you. Sorry to preach but they can change everything with the user interface it doesnt change what its doing to you mentally.

Thanks for sharing your experience! Good on you for taking steps toward good health. Bless you

 

[subjonas]

Like all products, I see social media as a tool to serve my purposes. Facebook to me is just a way to “opt-in email blast” all my family and friends. But no one loves email blasts so I only do it on very important occasions which can sometimes be years between posts lol. I once posted a description of a jacket that I couldn’t find, and a friend responded that I left it at their home and I got it back lol. FB was very useful for that.
I don’t ever read FB however. There’s just too much, even of the good stuff. So unfortunately if a friend did the same as me and left their jacket at my home, I wouldn’t have been able to respond. I probably would read FB if people used it like I did, but at that point maybe it’s not different enough than using email, except maybe crucially it’s still an opt-in thing to read in a different app vs cluttering one’s email inbox. I also might read FB if it was more like a traditional blog, where people thoughtfully wrote out posts only if they had something to say—versus just re-posts or life updates. Those have their place too I guess but I’d want to filter them or something. And for blog posts I’d only subscribe to the most interesting writers 😆, because otherwise, again, there’d just be too much.

 

[KRBM]

If you mean, you don’t like the guy that owns the majority of X well then I guess there’s no fixing that unless it goes public.

You literally wrote that Facebook’s association with Zuck is the reason you dumped Facebook.

Just, can you please check your pipes for traces of lead?

 

[ppenn]

Sounds nice in theory but it's still not a timeline. They'll serve you whatever post they want from 2 weeks ago in the top of the feed

 

[bigheaddoug]

Has anyone actually gotten this to work?

 

[russell_314]

You literally wrote that Facebook’s association with Zuck is the reason you dumped Facebook.

Just, can you please check your pipes for traces of lead?

OK, it’s not personally against him. It’s more of how he runs his platform. I guess his persona is associated with Facebook, but I don’t really know him as a person so I can’t say I don’t like him. I guess I have to take that back.

 

[groove-agent]

Finally it *appears* that Facebook is doing something right but we shall see how this plays out.

 

[Morgenland]

I dropped Facebook and X. I don’t want them earning a single cent off me, for them to just then turn around and do terrible things with their money. Now I have to work on phasing out Amazon, Google, and probably not buying new from Apple any time soon.

Got it so far! But I'm curious, why do you feel the same about Apple?

 

[philosopherdog]

Get your life back and just delete your account. That’s the best update ever

 

[Anonymous Freak]

How about just a chronological feed in your timeline? I like the format of Facebook but as long as it’s associated with Zuckerberg, it’s a no for me. I’ll stick with X.

Funny, as long as X is associated with Elon Musk, it's a no for me.

(And Meta/Zuckerberg, for that matter.)

 

[russell_314]

Funny, as long as X is associated with Elon Musk, it's a no for me.

(And Meta/Zuckerberg, for that matter.)

I can respect that. I think freedom of choice brings the best solutions to the top.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I can respect that. I think freedom of choice brings the best solutions to the top.

I'm now only using "social media" that isn't controlled by a single company. Right now, that means "Federated" systems like Mastodon. Once Bluesky properly supports third party servers with full support for even de-federating from Bluesky proper and still working, I'll join a Bluesky server. Time to return to the IRC model!

 

[russell_314]

I'm now only using "social media" that isn't controlled by a single company. Right now, that means "Federated" systems like Mastodon. Once Bluesky properly supports third party servers with full support for even de-federating from Bluesky proper and still working, I'll join a Bluesky server. Time to return to the IRC model!

I’ve never tried mastodon. My main issue was not so much Zuckerberg but the random oh, you posted something offensive two years ago now we’re going to punish you for it. The crazy thing is the things I got zapped for weren’t even offensive to most people. They were just “I don’t like that because it makes fun of my political beliefs”. Usually the offensive stuff flew below the radar.

 

[Juanchin]

Many years ago, Facebook tested its Paper app, which was a really nice, neat and interesting way of browsing its contents. Maybe that’s why they killed it.

 

[ayephoner]

facebook is an absolute necessity for me these days because it's the only place in my area to buy/sell used stuff and to view events for most places.

I really wish this functionality would go back to craigslist or somewhere else, but it won't. I don't really do much else on facebook, but if you want to buy a used car or tool or bike or whatever there really isn't any other place to look. The same is true for local concerts or fairs, etc. Without facebook, you just wouldn't have any idea what was happening or where.