No Facebook for a month

[gimp]

I am addicted to social media and find myself checking this shit multiple times a day. I don't even post anything, I just scroll through people's "lives" and read ridiculous news feed articles.

Anybody else want to try it with me?

[Lukazz]

Anybody else want to try it with me?

easy. deleted my facebook-account in november.

[insane guy]

I had the same problem. Especially since I work a lot from home where no one tells you to stop checking bullshit on facebook all the time. I was thinking about deleting my account but then I found a perfect solution (for me atleast):

For over a year now I've been using facebook in a very "healthy" way: I only visit the site on fridays.

This took some time (few months actually) getting used to, but on the long run I can say I don't miss anything in my life.

Good things about it:
Checking facebook is actually something I look forward to.
By doing it on fridays I can still check out whats happening on the weekend.
After a while I even startet to (sometimes) forget it was facebook-friday. This means I don't really need it at all.

Bad things about it:
Some ppl get pissed if you don't answer their messages immediately. ez solution: unfriend. If they are nice ppl though, just tell them about your "fb schedule" and if it's important they should simply call or email.
If you are uninterested in what's happening in the world and facebook was your only source of information, the bubble you live in gets even smaller.

edit: Oh and of course I don't have facebook on my phone. That's just ridiculous.

[kuchitsu]

I'm not addicted to vk (Russian Facebook-like site) but I waste a lot of time on reading some forums, watching stupid clips on YouTube, etc. It's like a ritual that I almost "have" to do when I wake up, while I'm eating and in some other instances. I've been trying to combat this for several years, with some periods of success and some shameful periods of complete failure. I would be happy to join you and to discuss the effects in this thread. Should be interesting and healthy.

[milagros]

i've never had any facebook, myspace, g+, .. account

[Zweq]

dont have facebög yet, maby my problem is endlesly checking same youtube channels / reddit subs. Then again those are much more informative than some facebög

[Tigro]

never had FB, now most of my wasted time is on reddit, youtube, twitch, 9gag, stackoverflow, and quora.
But go for it gimp, hold fast!

[Lee]

Pfft, facebook... What about NoFap?

[gimp]

That needs its own topic really

[Labs]

Facebook is oke cos most ppl use it and can chat there with em. Would not use it if everyone got skype but not so.. Also once a year i post smth.

[ville_j]

I used to be very active on facebook some three years ago, but now-a-days not at all. Very rarely people write anything interesting there, all I can see on my feed is people sharing or commenting on some articles/videos that are either a) uninteresting, b) totally irrelevant c) old news d) pure advertisements e) complete bullshit. It was fun years ago when people actually wrote some stuff about their lives and not just this internet spam. I also removed facebook from my phone because it started to spam some totally irrelevant notifications. Pretty much all it gives me is a headache and eye-rolling when I browse it. Well, the pictures of friends are always nice. And the chat!

[Bjenn]

I want to be able to filter all videos and lame vines/memes that go around all the time.
I block many pages per week, but new ones always come up =)

I use Facebook several times per day, I have thought of removing my account, but then I feel like I will miss so much stuff.
Maybe this "stuff" is not so relevant after all, when you think again.

Maybe facebook makes your life heavier. I start with removing the Facebook app on my mobile phone TODAY, it's complete bullshit nowadays, so many bugs and what not, and getting notifications from goat poop.

[kuchitsu]

"Heavier" is a good word maybe. Every day on the internet you're bombarded with tons of tiny irrelevant pieces of information. You feel like they don't really affect you much since they're so insignificant, but in the long run you become filled with all that silly pointless stuff and it becomes a big part of your consciousness. Or something. This is why I think it's quite important to control your use of internet and not let it take over your mind too much.

[Bjenn]

Yes I thought of exactly that kuchitsu!

[gimp]

The eye rolling that Ville_j mentioned was how I constantly felt. People complaining about every little thing and acting like they have no control over their lives or the things that happen to them. But truth is I don't want to think negative things about people, so that's a big reason why I have quit Facebook.

[Kopaka]

I used to be very active on facebook some three years ago, but now-a-days not at all. Very rarely people write anything interesting there, all I can see on my feed is people sharing or commenting on some articles/videos that are either a) uninteresting, b) totally irrelevant c) old news d) pure advertisements e) complete bullshit. It was fun years ago when people actually wrote some stuff about their lives and not just this internet spam. I also removed facebook from my phone because it started to spam some totally irrelevant notifications. Pretty much all it gives me is a headache and eye-rolling when I browse it. Well, the pictures of friends are always nice. And the chat!

Yeah im not a fan of the default sorting/selection in the news feed, because it shows basically everything people like or comment on, and is not completely chronological. So there's a lot of irrelevant links. There's however ways to change this, by using lists. Create a list by going to https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists - create list and add all your friends to it (or leave out a few you don't want updates from). Now use this list from the left panel instead of the news feed. This kind of list doesn't show everything, but only what people actively share, with a few exceptions, but generally trimmed down a lot to the interesting stuff. And it's chronological so easier to find the new stuff. If you follow any pages you can see updates from only those by using the Pages feed link on the left. I started using this a while ago and it really improved my facebook experience and cut down the amount of time it takes to check new stuff.

[ville_j]

Oh thanks for the tip, I will try that!

[gimp]

I have done a month. It was hard sometimes, but for the most part I never really thought about it. I think it made me do other activities on the internet a bit more, like youtube or something. After a month without social media I realized I didn't miss out on anything, I had some 70 notifications all from advertisements and games, fuck facebook. At the end of the month I think my net time of mindlessly surfing the web went down, which was my main priority. I think I will do that facebook fridays idea from now on.

[Bjenn]

Can't say any difference in feels of mind, but it's nice not to be checking Facebook every day, I read it maybe once a week now (1min reading) and then realizing I didn't miss out on anything important so I close it again.
Okay I missed one important thing, my mothers birthday : DDD

I have started an active trading activity on the Swedish stock market instead, lying around +86€ at the moment o/

[iCS]

Every time you feel the need of starting facebook.com, just start eol.exe instead

btw. follow me on this awesome social networking website XDDD

[gimp]

I have gotten back into my old habits and use social media way too much again. I think I need another detox. Anybody want to join me?

http://www.itstimetologoff.com/digital-detox-facts/

[roope]

Could go for it. I've found myself being irrationally mad when reading pretty much everything including the general populace lately. Facebook is a bad one since most of it is total shit instead of actual friends posting actual stuff, more like friend-of-a-friend tagging their friends to shitposts. Even worse, I know I shouldn't read them but Youtube comments and comment sections in news articles make me lose faith in humanity. I'm pretty sure I've gotta get rid of those habits for good before I lose my mind.

[gimp]

I feel the same way. I don't even post anything, I'm addicted to just reading comments and feeling negative vibes from all of it.

[kuchitsu]

I think I should quit mopolauta, eol, doom forums, a few blogs, a news site I visit, and more stuff. I'm not really in it because I truly want to, more like I'm just too lazy to think how to spend my free time more productively so I'm choosing these easy answers I'm already used to.

On facebook maybe you can unfriend most people? That's what I did on vk a long time ago. I went from like over a hundred to 15 or something.

[Bjenn]

I don't have the facebook app on my cellphone and I rarely go there on the computer, it feels very good! 90% complete shit there anyways.

However I have started using instagram instead and I'm following many so I check many times everyday.. maybe I will unfollow as many as I can, like the people I don't even know irl =D

[Chris]

I almost exclusively use chat. I was never really into news feed, because I get depressed when I see these all awesome pics xd

[Hosp]

Mostly it's pingys songs in my feed, rest is returded shit mostly. Most mans just use teh for chatting osv nowadays even if I would prefer if people chatted on some program like Skype or sach instead.

[teajay]

I de-followed every single friend of mine in my account. It works splendidly: you go to facebook and you a totally white page. No news. You tend to grow bored very easily with facebook then. I visit once in a few days for a minute or so. Sometimes I post something, sometimes I visit a friend's page and see how he or she is doing. I went from spending an hour a day to an hour a week or a month or something.

But don't worry: time has a way of always running out.