Agh, this thread is just full of people boasting about their immunity to interest in Facebook. Congratulations, you're fantastic, oh that we could all be as enlightened as you.
Personally, I find that Facebook has become my address book - while I still text people I see every day, Messenger group chats are often used instead. Plus the voice and video calls have been a great way to keep up with people further afield. Yes, Skype exists, but Facebook is easier - which is huge with older relatives.
That said, this study doesn't surprise me. In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.
I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Some say Snapchat is a much better place for people to be their true selves - I can believe it.
As for using facebook in a sane manner, I was struggling because I rely on messages and event invites so I didn't want to block it completely (and messenger.com and app is not enough for me). But this plugin basically saved me: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjo... -- it simply hides the newsfeed, turning facebook into a fully functional messages/events page that it otherwise completely dull.
> Agh, this thread is just full of people boasting about their immunity to interest in Facebook. Congratulations, you're fantastic, oh that we could all be as enlightened as you.
And now you're doing the same exact thing they are - boasting about how you're superior to everyone else.
Is it possible for us to have discussions without these signaling-laden put downs? Just say what you want to say and try to refrain from putting everyone else down.
It's not always possible to make a point without the suggestion or implication that the alternative to the point is a lesser choice. So why beat about the bush - if you mean to say that there are angles to a thing that are inferior, just say it. Not everything can be so inclusive.
For instance, I think anyone that believes the pyramids were built to store grain is inferior to scientists that can tell me why they were actually built. So be it said.
10 years ago having a FB account was cool.
Once everyone was on FB then saying you'd deleted your account and gone off the grid was cool and all the people still using it were sheep.
Now it's cool to say you're still using it and that everyone who deleted their account is a jerk for mentioning it.
We're just going around in circles.
It's a useful tool, a time pit for others but being critical of someone because they do/don't use it is pretty weak.
Isn't that the usual cycle of adoption of a new trend according the merchant of cool ?
Though I remember differently, 10 years ago some of us were warning against facebook as the major privacy concern it was and due to their spam techniques to capture new victims.
I still keep Facebook around 10% for looking people's contact information and 90% because everyone has migrated to using Facebook's messenger. Cutting it just down to the messenger is a godsend.
I am not so sure that was the most useful, I sure liked the main site chat to work on mobile even if I didn't want another app (messenger to be installed). Yeah i'm one of those few who prefer simple single app experience. I prefer if companies could try keep things a little more backward compatible. /rant
It's started to lag and be very clunk for me recently (though maybe I just need to close some tabs). It used to be incredibly more responsive than facebook.com
> Agh, this thread is just full of people boasting about their immunity to interest in Facebook. Congratulations, you're fantastic, oh that we could all be as enlightened as you.
> That said, this study doesn't surprise me. In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.
> I'm not sure what the answer to that is.
I'm not on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. (and I'm probably one of a very small minority who has never had accounts) and I wouldn't consider myself "enlightened."
I think "the answer" is to reflect on what it is that adds value to your life and what subtracts value from your life.
If your personal use of social media is focused on activities that you conclude are beneficial, there's no reason you should stop using it. On the other hand, if your use of social media is making you less happy, you should treat it the same way you'd logically treat anything else that makes you less happy.
Unfortunately, as these studies demonstrate, a lot of the people using social media aren't happier for it, and more problematically, many clearly aren't reflecting on that.
If I had a pound for every person I know who makes snooty remarks about "not even owning a TV" but actually watches BBC iPlayer and Netflix TV episodes on their laptop... well, I'd have at least £3.
Well, one could argut that it would rather the new "I'm not on myspace, friendster, orkut, livejournal,…" but to stay in check with reality it ought to be "I'm not on aol" for aol was the only one of those to be a walled garden experiment.
The "I don't own a TV" is often deceiving as people without a TV usually watch their TV content on youtube, streaming or download. How many do not have a TV but have not missed a single game of thrones ?
> you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.
No, I think it's more than that. I have no evidence for this, but I suspect that spending excessive time on the internet will make you feel more isolated (and therefore worse overall), regardless of whether you spend that time on social sites or not. It's the withdrawal from genuine face-to-face contact that is important, not the particular mechanics of such-and-such an app or website.
I think we're still missing something important about human interaction in the way we embody it in computers. Even video does not solve it completely. Telepresence is and will continue to be a major open problem for the forseeable future.
In my case, I don't feel it's the Internet in general. I think it's Facebook that puts me in a funk. Oh, and I steer away from Reddit, if not feeling great. That said, I think I'm a lot older than most you you guys. I'll honesty give the reasons why I find FB depressing:
I don't have a lot of friends. I find people so self-aware on FB, I don't find them interesting. People, I used to find interesting, edgy, true individuals seemed to turn into just boring, conformists. Nothing wrong with boring, and conformity? I think it just all reminds me of my own mortality?
I also learned--I'm not the person I thought I was when on FB. Meaning--I'm more critical when I'm on that site, than in real life. Example--I go to someone's site I used to know, and see the physical age in their pictures, and it's just depressing. I see how some have given into being their parents, and it's just depressing. I see the see the car I was suspose to inherit being trashed by my nephew, I get depressed on a lot of levels. I also see that people aren't breaking down my doors looking for me--as a friend, I get depressed. I look at the news feed, and what FB thinks I'm interested in, I get depressed. I see that that the one person I thought would not have over 1000 friends, is actively trying to friend my pseudonym profile, I get depressed. She doesn't even know the most depressed civil war soldier's name, and she wants to friend him. (In the civil war, a soldier was showing signs of melancholy. A doctor decided to call his condition depression. I use that soldier's name on a FB account.)
I see my pictures have been stolen, and I get depressed. I see my stolen pictures, with a new copyright, and I get depressed. I always deactivate my account when leaving FB.
When FB, monkeys around with the deactivation process, I get depressed.
So FB does make me depressed some days. Maybe, it's just too much reality? Are we suspose to know exactly what almost everyone is doing, or not doing? What age has done? What lack of opportunities/money did to some peoples lives?
I don't hate FB, but think it needs some real competition. Right now, it's just too big. Its tentacles are integrated in too many websites. It's become its own internet? It's just to much posing, trout mouth, Kardashian, narcissism for some days. Today is that day for me.
I don't just start feeling down but I get angry at the BS on FB. I have a neighbor who always does the "my life is so great!" spin on FB, but living in the same street we see more of the reality than maybe some other people. I can't be on FB because it would mean calling people like her out on their BS, she is ugly (sorry but she just is by anyone's standards), her children are awful spoiled bitches, her constant posts about how sporty she is are lies and all she really does is spend money on sports shop brand names she can't afford. It's a true lifestyle spin that really makes me dislike her and worse ... I dislike myself for feeling like I should care and for not speaking up. So I try to avoid the negativity and BS (I learn about this person through my SO who reads it out to me sometimes). The problem with FB as I see it, is that it doesn't bring people closer together but pushes them apart because instead of being involved in some dialogue, face to face, you are left to silently judge and be judged.
But if your town has a "buy, sell, give away" group you should join, those are great.
Clicking on their profile and downgrading from 'friend' to 'acquaintance' I find helps a lot. You then hardly see their stuff. I've had to do that for four annoying people (far right politics, topless pics, fascist propaganda etc...) and I don't think I've seen any of them in my feed since.
Tbh, I haven't been on FB since I abandoned my account in about 2010 so I'm unaware of these new features like "aquaintance", I thought everyone had the same status of friend. I'm more worried about FB tracking and privacy, I have banned my SO from opening FB on my computer, not that does much on a shared IP.
It's not the internet, it's screens. Whether TV, computer, phone, tablet, or else, watching a screen regularly for an extended period of time has a significant effect on humans who are social animals.
There is enough of scientific data and studies over the last few decades on the tv screen to reach a scientific consensus but commercial interests and public relations have prevented this consensus from reaching the general public. we have less data for videogames and internet and smartphone but it's already shaping towards something similar.
And there is more than simply replacing actual human interactions by screens, for example most flat screens emit light frequencies in the blue range that have effects on the body and mind, impacting sleep and linked to macular degeneration.
Though that being said, facebook due to its format and content has a significant tendency in making people feel bad about themselves.
There's research showing that doing video conferencing with half body(to capture body language) and with custom tech that enables eye contact can increase trust. I wonder though why we arent advancing there, at the very least across the enterprise.
(This is off topic but) there's probably something fascinating to be studied about it. The assumption I've heard a number of people make is that their anti-socialness means that they read more, code more, and as such it's actually a positive quality that elevates them above others. Even as someone who can be antisocial themselves, I think it's a load of bunk, and it's sort of interesting to see human interaction being dismissed as frivolous.
To be fair he said "lack of desire for lots of social interaction" -- with emphasis on the word "lots" -- and not "lack of desire for social interaction".
cortesoft may very well be needing social interaction (inasmuch as Maslow's hierarchy of needs is fulfilled), just not lots.
Yep. Being at work all day gives me enough group social interaction. Then at home I just like to be alone with my wife. I am an introvert, so being out with people drains my energy. I like people, but only need it a bit.
I think the person you are replying to is agreeing that it is not frivolous, but is stating their amazement that so many people dismiss it as being such.
On the one hand, I can think fairly deeply. Yes, I do regard that as a positive quality. And yes, a lot of social interaction gets in the way of that. ("Interruptions shatter mental momentum" - I forget who said it, but when you're trying to think deeply, it's really true.)
On the other hand, I need human interaction - maybe not as much as most other people, definitely not all the time, but I need it. I need to be able to be a person, not just a thinking machine.
So maybe I'm "unsocial" without being "anti-social"...
> In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.
Or they're all posting negative stuff about their own lives/society. Either way it's lose/lose.
> Personally, I find that Facebook has become my address book
Before disappearing into outer space (leaving Facebook) I found that Facebook had become my address book.
I think that is Facebook's greatest use: a self-updating address book. Instead of all my friends having to update their address books when I make a change, I should update my contact info and the changes should automatically be available to them. It's a great idea. Now, we just have to make it happen outside of a closed system.
> Agh, this thread is just full of people boasting about their immunity to interest in Facebook. Congratulations, you're fantastic, oh that we could all be as enlightened as you.
Finally someone brave enough to stand up and break this hype about "stop using Facebook."
> I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Some say Snapchat is a much better place for people to be their true selves - I can believe it.
I am in my twenties and I find Snapchat really weird. I don't know, I find both typing out the message from a computer keyboard and a straight google hangout/skype chat more natural than a (what??) 5-second snap story... my impression is Snappers tend to make vine-like videos with snapchat and that is just so unnatural....
Sending Snaps to other people is often pretty genuine. It's a great way to build a connection with someone you don't quite know just yet, as you get a lot of face time with that person. And of course, drawing lets you express your creativity. You can manipulate your looks, or the environment around you. It's a lot of fun.
Conversely, Snap Stories can indeed get very Vine-like. They can be quite fun, but if you're making them for the wrong reasons (to get attention) then they lose their meaning.
I guess it is really about having "friends" to do that with you, which I don't have any to do snapchat with. But yeah, I probably can relate it back then with tumblr, using mustache in google hangout etc..
As a tangent, I've found that phone + email are the truly general options across what is anecdotally to me the Balkan social networks. I've also come to realize that everyone views their social network as obvious, and everyone also loathes to download anyone else's social network app.
But email + phone is international, nobody feels like you burdened them by asking them to get a Google account, and nowadays email and phone is all managed through a synced solution on your phone / devices. As a "workflow", contacting someone via phone or email can feel as fluid as any other app.
I know many people to whom e-mail is a third-class citizen when it comes to regular communication -- they only check their e-mail once a week, if that.
Yep, if i want contact with people I will sms, call or email. I keep a small email list of close friends and we communicate better through this channel than any other and it's not platform dependent. All the people who don't engage through these more traditional methods I probably wasn't going to have any meaningful contact with anyway so nothing is really lost by moving away from a dedicated social platform.
Maybe a bit. We procrastinate and are motivated by karma here, but I don't feel like HN is an engine finely tuned to keep us addicted and returning. I don't get notifications on replies or when there are new stories. In fact, there are specific settings to help people take breaks from HN.
Yeah, I'm not sure why some people make such a huge deal about avoiding Facebook personally. Some of my friends use different apps like Whatsapp, Facebook, Skype etc. more than others so I use multiple apps to keep in touch with friends. I can keep in touch far better compared to when we only had phone calls, emails and txts, and don't see what detriments Facebook is causing me at all. Is it really that difficult to not check it too often and unfollow people that post content you don't like?
Have you ever met someone who makes a big deal about avoiding facebook? I'm curious. Every time I met someone who didn't use facebook, I only found out because I or a friend tried to add them, couldn't add them, and asked about it.
But voluntarily giving your contact list and location info, and passing your private conversations via a for-profit data mining machine seems, in principle, not very enlightened.
One day some of that data is going to leak. It's bound to happen.
The reason why I'm still on Facebook is for similar reasons. I wouldn't talk to my sisters much without it.
I use the News Feed Eradicator [1] to deal with the humblebragging stuff. I don't want to see updates and posts, AT ALL. I just want messages and event invites.
Cool factor aside there are very legitimate reasons not to use Facebook. I've never had a Facebook account, refuse to let my GF post pictures of me there and block it's trackers.
Not necessarily against the idea of social networking. I just don't like Facebook. I think others should adopt this same attitude. If people think this is boasting so be it. I find it to be just good sense.
I deleted my Facebook account after realizing that every time I would go on it, the clickbait and mindless minutia would irritate me more than entertain me. between the advertisements, there would be 'you'll never guess what happens next!' posts, then political propaganda, then children/marriage updates on people I hadn't interacted with in years. At a certain point, I realized that it wasn't even fun to me anymore, so I bid farewell to everyone, backed up my contacts & pictures, then deleted my facebook. It's been about two years since I left and, for the most part, I don't really regret it.
With that said, what I do regret is missing out on my growing family. My cousins from out of state as well as my siblings are getting married and having kids. I was helping my mom log into her facebook the other day and I saw pictures of my niece's first day of ballet class and my nephew's first day of kindergarden. It made me light up and think "Ah shit, I'm kind of missing out on these things." Although I see them every now and then, stuff like that is the only reason I would even consider getting back on FB. I find it funny that it's for a completely different purpose from when I first joined in college.
I just found News Feed Eradicator the other day and it has changed my Facebook habits drastically. It lets you use all of the useful features of FB (messages, groups, pages, etc.) and replaces the newsfeed with a quote about procrastination or productivity. 10/10 would recommend - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...
I used this for a while but noticed it greatly slowed down my Facebook in general. Ended up uninstalling it after a few days. Wish they had a lighter weight one.
I know this might sound like a really non-efficient thing to do, but you can individually unfollow every single one of your contacts. I only have around ~200 friends so unfollowing them wasn't that hard.
Nowadays, I love going to Facebook. My news feed is completely empty.
I don't go to that extreme, but I did find Facebook was much more manageable when I started just unfollowing anyone whose posts/reshares annoyed me more than a couple of times.
I've probably only unfollowed about 10% of my total friends list, but the difference is immense, a lot of the noise tends to come from a small subset of the people, in my experience.
This is a missed opportunity. As Shirky points out, social media is "publish, then filter", and you've found a powerful filter that lets you reap the benefits. (And he also points out power laws--10% of the people in your feed post 90% of the garbage.)
While I don't log in to Facebook more than once every six months, your observation gives me hope that I might be able to find some utility in it.
I love this approach personally. Unfollowing almost everyone (except for a few I actually want to see) has it so I usually am OK with going on there now without feeling exasperated. I'm learning a foreign language so I began following people I don't even know who use that language so I can get practice reading it. I'm trying to make it work for my needs instead of completely checking in or out of the whole thing.
It seems to me that the parent would still miss out on what he would like to see the most: pictures of his extended family's (cousins and niece) daily life. The nice thing about the News Feed is that it shows them to you unprompted. Otherwise you'd have to go into each and every single profile and check to see if they have posted anything.
Don't get me wrong, I love the News Feed Eradicator, but it doesn't always change the "Facebook experience" for the better.
Seeing family/friend photos (as well as sharing mine with family) is one of the few reasons I keep Facebook around. I've found it's not tough to get things setup to minimize the annoyances:
1) If someone is consistently filling your feed with crap, just unfollow them. It's as easy as clicking an arrow on their post.
2) Go to the profiles of people you want to keep tabs on (family, close friends, etc), click on the "Friends" button up top, and select "Get Notifications". Now you can pretty much ignore your news feed, and only pay attention to Facebook when you receive a notification.
3) I just discovered this and haven't tried it: click the "Following" button (next to the above mentioned "Friends" button) and select "See First". I assume this prioritizes their posts in your news feed. Neat.
Seriously, I wish there was a baby face detector/blocker extension. Usually, when I know a friend is having a baby, I just unfollow them for about a year.
The simple solution for me has been to unfollow everyone in my friend list. You then have an empty news feed, apart from the birthdays which apparently are really important on fb, for some reason. And, of course, a good ad blocker. That still doesn't make fb enjoyable from my POV, but it's still an improvement.
Call them, shoot them an email, or pay them a visit. Not only can you stay in touch, it will also likely be a more satisfying interaction than browsing a feed.
Lots of us live far away from our extended families, and phone calls don't really replace seeing pictures of your nephews. Email might, but in my experience since FB came around, people aren't all that interested in regularly sending emails just for you - I'm told that I should just join FB like everyone else.
That is partly my point: I don't tend to think of replacing one-on-one interaction with a "broadcast" pub/sub model as being more conducive to building and maintaining intimate, fulfilling relationships.
I think you're painting a false dichotomy, though. Using Facebook as a way to keep track of your family's pictures stream doesn't prevent you from interacting with them one-on-one - in fact, it might enhance it!
It's definitely possible, and I'd guess it does enhance for some. But, I don't believe it's generally the case, as it's not a format that encourages it.
Instead, I believe it discourages more focused one-on-one relationship-building in favor of a bi-directional consumption model. People don't interact as much as publish and consume. Knowing what people are doing is not a real substitute for intimacy, but I think the dependence on FB as the medium tends to relegate people to the former (i.e. just keeping up).
In any case, I was responding specifically to an ancestor who stated that he/she was having trouble keeping in touch outside of FB. That makes my point: people tend to be so reliant on FB to manage their relationships, that those relationships evaporate sans FB to the point that people don't even communicate! But, of course, while on FB, people don't generally have meaningful, in-depth conversations.
That pretty much says it all, as it doesn't leave much space for real relationships. Not saying this is absolute, but that it is a net negative.
Thank you anon for updating us in the state of your growing family, that your niece does ballet and that your nephew goes to kindergarten. You may want to rejoin and put this on FB, where someone might be interested :)
I did the same thing for three years, and really didn't regret it. I reactivated Facebook after I realized I had lost touch with a few people. After reactivating, I think I have a much healthier attitude about Facebook and genuinely enjoy using it in a limited, high-utility way.
I wish the News Feed could be modified significantly, though. It's terrible - so terrible.
Facebook was a great form of communication in high school and college, for events and meeting up with classmates and things. Afterwards, people drifted apart and it became kind of an empty place - hundreds of friends but only a handful I kept in touch with.
As time went on and as my friends list stagnated, facebook kept me attached to the past ("that was so much fun, wasn't it?"). It covered some 7-8 years of my life. Logging on was a bit like falling backwards in time. It makes me remember mistakes I can never undo and moments I can never relive. I was following the events of very old friends I'll most likely never see again. I decided this was not very valuable, so I stopped using facebook.
Deactivating facebook brought my attention back to the present and the future. I'm a bit less distracted. There's no more thoughtless, routine clicking of the facebook link in my bookmarks. I focus a bit better at work. I've put better effort into my proximate relationships (family, friends, coworkers). I've put a bit more effort into my own health and fitness.
These are all small changes, mostly due to a change in my own mindset. But, while it was easy because my close friends and I post very little, deleting facebook was a good first step.
How old are you? I'm 21 and feel the same way, although it was the tail end of middle school, all of high school, and freshman year of college. So around 2008-2013.
I used to think I should stay off Facebook, because I knew of such studies and felt the effects myself.
But I now view Facebook as an exercise in internal self-worth: Can I browse through everyone's posts of their 'best life' and be genuinely happy for them? Can I take in their stories without comparing my life to theirs?
I know that I would likely feel better if I didn't put myself through that exercise, but I think it'd be valuable for me if I can actually get to the point where I can browse Facebook and remain as happy, if not more. I'm not there yet, so time will tell.
There are a few people I barely knew in High School that I follow on Facebook specifically because their posts include many about how they are struggling. "Today I tried to not drink, but I failed. I need help and I never knew how badly until today." I am grateful for these people. They remind me of what it is to be human. I comment from time to time, or send them messages both on that topic and off.
I deleted my Facebook account and I believe doing so did (marginally) increase my quality of life. It has forced me to focus more on real-world interactions with people.
I also find it emotionally draining to be in constant contact with people you never actually see... it feels as if Facebook allows fake or weak friendships to continue that would naturally die off without it.
The only thing I do miss is the ubiquity of Facebook Messenger and the features it provides over SMS, which I have now reverted to for communicating with friends.
> I also find it emotionally draining to be in constant contact with people you never actually see... it feels as if Facebook allows fake or weak friendships to continue that would naturally die off without it.
I agree. One of the reasons I left is because constantly checking FB (ironically) made me feel really lonely.
Browsing Facebook, or for that matter any other similar network (including HN :)), is like anti-meditation. They rattle your mind with so much information in such quick succession that it becomes almost impossible to think through or about any one particular thing. Like alcohol, it is simultaneously addictive – the mind craves information – and depressing – numbs the mind preventing it from engaging in deep rational thought.
I think we can have the best of both worlds – enjoy our whiskey and discuss philosophy too :) I think there is a future for a social network that can slow things down a little, maybe also summarize, organize and filter an apparently disparate group of things, allowing the user enough time to digest and process the information before moving ahead in leisure.
Note that the study only tracked people for a single week, so it's likely that while it does show a positive improvement on moment-to-moment happiness, it neglects other longer-term effects like, possibly, social isolation from cutting yourself off from a major communication medium.
This "study" isn't a study at all. One week provides factually meaningless data. You'd need a minimum of 3 months just to register a new baseline, and another 6-12 months to see if those participants who originally found a higher baseline at 3 months maintain it or fall back to previous levels as the novelty of the situation wears off.
You want to know why people reported feeling better? Because they changed a habit. When you change anything in your life for a single week, you will feel better because you have pulled yourself out of your everyday routine and are experiencing something NEW. This is the result of a change; what changed - Facebook in this case - does not matter.
The novelty of a change in habit for a single week does not even begin to offer evidence of anything. This isn't even a case of "not enough evidence", but rather "no evidence whatsoever". This novelty is similar to the kind of high you get from buying a new expensive toy/gadget. A temporary boost of "happiness" that quickly fades as the new item just becomes another object in your day-to-day life.
I noticed I started sending a lot of personal, narrative, long-form emails a couple months after deleting my facebook. It turns out some people are bothered by this, or have no idea how to communicate this way. YMMV
"How do you know if someone doesn't use Facebook? Don't worry they'll tell you" should be the new, "How do you know if someone doesn't own a TV..." joke.
I deleted FB two years ago. I'm a social 20-something. It hasn't impacted my social life at all, actually, and I do feel happier.
I18n friends, my family, or college acquaintances or x-coworkers who I care about are on WhatsApp, Gmail, or Skype. Close friends or dating prospects I text.
YMMV.
No need to crucify people for leaving FB. No need to act like you're superior for leaving FB.
I'll reiterate, I am happier two years later after leaving FB and I feel like I got more time back.
I think that might be an issue with your friends, not Facebook.
I improved my facebook by liking the pages of a bunch of cute animals. Now it's basically an instant messaging client that comes with a stream of puppies and kittens. I almost never see humans unless I go to their pages intentionally!
For me, it was the extreme stupidity -- anti-vaccination activism, anti-science/pro-pseudo-science, serial sharing of hoaxes, intolerance and blithe support for indefensible political positions in general.
I have a core group of about 6 people one facebook I care about.
Unfortunately some of them are very narcissistic online and one baits with political bullshit. All are very pleasant to hang out with in real life. None do that kind of shit in real life.
The internet can bring out the worst in people.
I basically go on there once a week or once every two weeks to catch up on the "news" or if I get a message from someone (usually extended family, I have a lot) or an event invite. Unfortunately the narcissism is prominent because its "like" and "comment" bait. :| You could say these people aren't really my friends but, whatever, they like to use facebook to announce things (new job) because its easier than messaging everyone directly. Its also nice to get event invites from people you don't know very well who may otherwise not invite you because they don't know your phone number. Those are opportunities to make new friends. The barrier to getting to know someone better is low. That's nice.
Over the years we've spread out geographically so I can't see them face to face very often but I do as much as I can. (every few months)
Its easy to say only engage people who "enrich your life" in all aspects of it and are 100% perfect but humans are not perfect and facebook caters to a deep human need for attention/group acceptance. I also believe that surrounding yourself with people exactly like you in every way isn't very healthy. There's a lot of people that I don't like at all and I avoid if possible but for the people I do like I tolerate the differences we may have.
I don't have a use for pages or whatever they call them or anything like that.
I could get rid of my facebook but its alright for the amount I use but I couldn't stand being on that shit every day.
Facebook is kind of a bad medium for that as it's not very private. And if you are going to have a 1-on-1 convo with some people, you might as well use IM.
Messenger is actually my primary use-case for Facebook. Talking one-on-one, contextualized by whatever each other are doing publically, is a great way to engage with someone meaningfully. There's always some fodder to initialize a conversation.
To a large extent, yes, but social media has made faking a lifestyle you don't lead even easier. Anybody with a smartphone and a desire to portray themselves in a particular light can do so pretty effectively with very limited intelligence and skill required.
I deleted my FB account almost a year ago for a couple reasons. One of which is the sheer insanity of a single corporation knowing so much about us all and our relationships. Another is that checking Facebook all the time became a bad habit, like a twitch, something I felt the urge to do but then got no relief through doing. Another is probably spite - a rejection of the idea that having a FB account is necessary, something to be taken for granted.
Some observations:
- I have no idea what's going on in the lives of many people I'm not in close contact with. I have no problem with this.
- My wife tells me about extended family stuff, and shows me the occasional photo. I'm okay with this.
- Instagram has replaced FB to a great degree, for me. But instead of being built around a growing social graph, my Instagram experience is built around a handful of friends and networks of interest. But my usage is nothing like the way I used FB. I post only when I have something to share, and I open the app probably once a week to peruse. I miss tons of stuff, and I'm okay with that.
- I'm involved with a bunch of athletic groups that use FB for events and communication. This is a problem. The degree to which FB has replaced email in this regard is crazy to me. I hope Slack etc. will prove effective at minimizing this.
- I'm launching a business soon and I was concerned that I'd _need_ to be on FB in some commercial capacity. But I honestly think that era is over. Other companies in my industry have anemic feeds that point to the low, low level of engagement through that channel.
- When I feel the need to waste time, some remnant of the FB 'twitch', I look at old faves like englishrussia.com or subject-matter porn like landandfarm.com or everydaycarry.com
The qz report suggests that users were more happy and less worried/sad if they stayed off Facebook, but it doesn't mention the (imo) more important part of the study.
The study says that most people "post their good sides on Facebook"
The study also says that many facebook users "envy" the amazing, happy and success related notes posted by their friends on facebook.
So it seems like you can stay happy on facebook and not feel worried if you
(a) understand that you should not envy your friends
or/and
(b) understand that you shouldn't take all facebook posts as face value and understand that you shouldn't assume that these posts represent your friends lives in entirety. You shouldn't assume that life is a bed of roses for your friends just because they posted the best parts of their life. It is likely that they have just as many problems and troubles as you do even thought their facebook posts may not capture all of these problems.
I have stayed 1 year away from facebook. I restarted using it about 6 months ago. I can't evaluate if I was happier during that year as it is very hard for me to quantify being "happy". Although there are a few points i take from that time:
+ loads of free time
+ more focus on stuff that i think is more productive
+ no need to manage so many events
+ spent time talking to relatives instead of typing with them (in person and/or in phone)
- loss of conectivity with friends (if you are not on facebook you won't get invited to many events)
- not being aware of small trends (like the new meme or the current 'internet localized scandal' as in 'the host of the show x was caught drunk')
- lost track of certain creative friends that only publish stuff on facebook
~ being regarded as a anti-social by certaing groups
~ not caring about stuff that are not that important and is not actually worth the time
~ looking at people using facebook and thinking "i once was a zombie just like you"
Also, based on the research as noted in the "Rational Optimist" one of the keys to remain happy is to simply withdraw from competition and set your own goals for happiness.
Example given is of a Doctor who always dreamed of becoming an amazing doctor healing people and succeeded but one day happened to attend a conference where many of his past batchmates were also present who were making insane amount of money by working for insurance companies. This doctor now felt unhappy and jumped the same bandwagon making even more money that before but the cost of happiness. While the example is anecdotal, the research does show that competition for social status makes people unhappy.
There is nothing wrong about Facebook and our need to use it but the fact that it might make us unhappy might be true.
It's a sort of drug, isn't it? I went perhaps 6 months without Facebook a few years ago, and I was very happy. I went to less social events, which were actually mostly events where I drank to feel more socially adept. I did not really miss those events. I was also working on a side project regularly. I created a Facebook Page and new account to try to spread the word of my side project with people I knew... and I ended up going down the rabbit hole. I haven't really been able to leave it, and I never did make any more progress on that side project.
Value of Facebook to me has eroded over last 2 years or so primarily because of messengers such as whatsapp and privacy concerns.
I use linkedin to stay in touch with colleges, WhatsApp to stay in touch with close friends and family, share pictures etc. and I ignore most other people in my life.
Facebook remain the source of news and interesting links that people share but I am pretty sure someone will fill that need better than facebook sooner or later.
P.S. I use Facebook extensively to run ad campaigns for my apps. But I am not counting that as use.
It's scary how facebook managed to replace the internet in the language as if those people thought that it was facebook that making all this happen when it actually is the internet.
This is a dangerous confusion to make for people born in the internet era.
Is it about social status? Or is it the ADs? ADs seek out holes to fill with product. Ad-support-media use analytics to more effectively show me my particular holes. After a while, I begin to feel empty.
It might also be the passive nature of the two activities.... browsing facebook and watching TV are very passive activities. You do not use your creativity or skills to do them; happy people tend to do more creative and constructive things.
A lot depends on the way one uses it. Personally, I (and many of my friends) use it the same way I use HN - I post interesting stuff and engange in long, asynchronous discussions that sometimes span many days.
It's the medium, not the message. I would suggest that it's excessively stimulating and this causes maladaptive neurochemical changes. The same applies to computers.
Of course, no one seems to understand the precautionary principle. If something is potentially implicated in health issues, the rational reaction is to exercise caution. Instead, it's full-steam-ahead, and before we know better it's too late.
Every time I see one of these studies I just laugh. As if Facebook is something that is used universally in a single way and can be determined to be good or bad.
Speaking as someone who has a ton of friends (actual friends) who I only get to see once or twice a year, Facebook is a godsend. It let's us stay in touch with people we care about who live on the other side of the planet.
Yeah, if you use it as a meterstick on how "good" you're doing at life, of course it's going to make you depressed. Same goes for if you watch HDTV and do that. If you spend all your time looking at the things and lusting after the things you DON'T have, how the hell could you possibly be happy!?
And to the people complaining about clickbait, the simple fact is Facebook wants you to stay on Facebook which means if you get a shitload of clickbait, you're probably clicking a shitload of clickbait. I dedicated about a month of my daily use and deliberately hid every single clickbait-y link, photo, etc. as well as unliked pages that posted that shit at ANY time. This culled me down to a selection of pages that actually post interesting stuff, and to the friends (and what they post) that weren't clickbait. Sure, I get one every once in awhile but I'd say it's down to about 1 in 40 posts are something crummy, and every time I get it, I hide it. Facebook's news feed is actually extremely well curated, it's just designed to give you things that you will pay attention to, positive or negative attention counts.
Just my two cents of course, your mileage may vary, etc.
I still have an account, but I only check in maybe once or twice a week now (via Tinfoil for Facebook) for a less than a minute to see if I have any private messages or invites to events from friends.
Feels like one less thing to think about that didn't actually offer me anything of real value in the end.
I found Facebook to really affect my moods in a distressing manner.
I use Facebook occupationally and like its Messenger and Groups a lot so leaving was out of the question. So I bit the bullet and unfollowed all of my friends. Now Facebook is a glorified News Feed for me and I am noticably more serene.
> "That said, the results are based on self-reported answers"
Uhuh. I'm gonna go ahead and take this whole article with a massive chunk of salt; this breaks one of the main rules of how to do a statistically meaningful survey, so I don't see much value in the numbers.
What is the main rule, exactly? The only way to measure happiness is self-report. Most psych studies in general are self-report. Very hard to get at people's mental states without it.
Maybe its not so much getting off Facebook as it is a change in lifestyle.
I'm curious if someone conducted a study to see the effects of a group of people who have never used facebook use it extensively for a week. Maybe their happiness levels also increase.
Why not have a third group of people that never had facebook and compare their outlook too? Comparing against only people that use facebook regularly doesn't provide an adequate control group.
Quitting for a week, and quitting forever are two different things. Life off facebook has its own challenges too. How does a 1 week study draw such categorical conclusions?
By making Facebook a scapegoat humans have once again conveniently avoided talking about an uncomfortable truth about themselves. People give off inauthentic expressions all the time -- take women putting on makeup for example -- and this tells us more about human nature than Facebook or corporations.
I would be more than a little concerned if Facebook, Youtube and Wikipedia is where you gain most of your knowledge.
Wikipedia is slightly understandable but it should not be any more thnan a quick reference guide on a given topic, but taken with a grain of salt. It certainly shouldn't be taken as gospel truth.
Personally, I find that Facebook has become my address book - while I still text people I see every day, Messenger group chats are often used instead. Plus the voice and video calls have been a great way to keep up with people further afield. Yes, Skype exists, but Facebook is easier - which is huge with older relatives.
That said, this study doesn't surprise me. In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.
I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Some say Snapchat is a much better place for people to be their true selves - I can believe it.