this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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Simplify: Don't use Facebook.
I haven't used it in... maybe a decade. I don't even remember the last time. I never used Instagram. I never used Facebook Messenger.
People are scared about what might happen if they stop, but nothing bad ever happened. I simply stopped seeing a constant stream of depressing bullshit.
Facebook has made it pretty easy to quit by refusing to show you any of your friend's content, and instead showing you a million different groups that you didn't follow and don't like.
I remember when the algorithms started sorting by engagement rather than chronologically. I quickly came up with a workaround to keep my feed the way it was, but, eventually that workaround was removed. I still checked the website occasionally but noticed the overall tone becoming less vane, over sharing, people using it like journals and selfie bombing to more angry, rage filled, posting news articles, boomer cartoons and jpeg fuzzy memes. It took a major turn after 2016 elections in US. Instagram was my go to after that but in about a year or so the same sequence of bs started happening. Haven’t really engaged with either service since 2020 save for occasional things to check a couple times a month.
I like to use the On This Day feature to revisit stuff from back when I actually enjoyed the website, and back when people would actually discuss things instead of just hitting a like button and moving on, but otherwise I don't do anything on that site anymore. The last time I posted there was a couple years ago.
It was bad enough when there was social pressure to always post happy things, so the feed was nothing but friends and friends of friends talking about their perfect lives (even if you knew the people involved were having typical life struggles). But, then Facebook went to algorithmic engagement-based order, and the angriest content was the content prioritized.
What's fucked up is that they determined strong emotions increase engagement, and they went right to hate. They could have gone with love, but since they're hateful people, they went with what is familiar to their sad and pathetic souls.
I think it's more that hate works better. With love someone might just click the "like" button and move on, but with hate they feel like they need to reply, because you can't just "like" that sort of thing.
I haven't even started since it started 😬 Never understood the appeal of watching people's fake-lifes. Even less a feed of that.
For a while it was a good way to get back in touch with people you'd lost contact with years ago. After that, it was still a good way to organize get-togethers. But yeah, the feed has been a shit-show pretty much since the beginning.
If i had to make contact with someone there (already unlikely), I'd do it with a temp-fake-acc and leave my safe contact there and delete the acc afterwards.
I dont use Facebook proper, but now I'm back to using Facebook because my girlfriend's family uses it for the family chat. So desktop mode on my phone online it is because that app will NEVER be installed on my phone
I would lose contact with the people who are only on Facebook, which for my age group is a lot.
Are you sure? I have friends who plan things on Facebook, but friends who know I don't use it message me to tell me about it.
I'm in my 40s, lots of people I know got on Facebook a long time ago and never had any interest in jumping over to whatever the new social network is. Some of these people are people I knew in high school, or college, or people who moved far away, or people who just settled down with kids and don't really get out much more. People who I still am interested in having some contact with, but I don't really directly interact with much directly anymore. Facebook is the perfect level of contact with these people. I certainly use Facebook far less than I used to but I still log in once in a while for a reason.
Lucky, my family's on a "what if you find a better job connection" kick. Not worth.