at my age it's just a bunch of random reports about people I haven't seen in 35 years being diagnosed with cancer anyway so fuck it.

There and it has been delightful. I'll miss that.

But I don't know why I ever thought I could change anyone's politics there...

I deleted my FB account this weekend and tweeted with #deleteFaceBook. Their collusion with Russia and denials did it for me.

Completely! Part of my reason...

As I said, the pace seem manic to me. Maybe just use the links to other media and comment from time to time? I doubt anyone I know really follows it ...? I do think it's stupid and insane

(I have a larger audience there).

but twitter seems psychotic to me with the pace

Are you able to mask your identity better there?

I guess I'm a bit of an addict because I can't not respond when I read stuff. I am
so beyond horrified at our country.

@ChrisBastianBKL

And live in a small conservative community. I am a small business owner.

Last edited Tue Oct 10, 2017, 11:50 AM - Edit history (1)

On my FB. But I'm not fooling anyone.

I am moderating for my own well being though. FB is a very helpful tool for me in keeping up with friends/relatives out of town, and also with an activity I participate in for fun, along with all the friends I have met through that. I even belong to a wonderful group of liberal dog lovers which really helps with the isolated feeling of living in a red state.

That being said, I can very easily, and was becoming addicted to EXACTLY what the OP described. I have made progress in getting busier in other activities I enjoy to help me to back off from that. I am back to devoting more time to training my dogs and I have begun a knitting project that will take a while to complete. I have been getting up, making coffee, and picking up my yarn and needles. It takes effort, but I am really working on remembering to do more psychologically healthy things and less FB stress. I can't say if I will succeed 100%, but I am certainly going to try my best!

There are so many other things I can and should be doing with this time..

Remember in the olden days when people would awaken and read the morning paper? Or when they came home from work? So, I put it in the same category. Help me analyze how it is different, and somehow less innocuous. Because of the individual input and reach? Somehow that doesn't seem like it should be harmful, in itself.

I remember my Dad reading the Sunday paper every weekend and he would comment about stories, but it wasn't the same commenting in front of me, my sister and our Mom as it is to get into a heated online battle with someone. I think the opportunity to be outraged then having that instantaneously and constantly fed by either "enemies" or "allies" simply didn't exist pre-internet.

It takes about 14 days. That was about a month ago. I only started using it after years of being dormant to join a group for my latest hobby, acquired after Nov 8 to try and keep sane. Not worth it!

My family lives on the other side of the country and they use Facebook, so it is a way to see what they are doing.
This lil town I live in has local iinfo., flea market sale info, etc.
But..I don't do politics or religion on Facebook, nor post very often.

As for The Atlantic, it is on Twitter, as are other good reads. I like Twitter as a fast scan of news, now that I have added the sources I like. ( Don't have tv or radio here, )

I guess part of it is having my own impulse control. Part is also learning things, positions, of friends that are disconcerting.

I'm reasonably certain I've lost some friends there due to my political statements! I always hope they don't see them...

As part of the screening process for perspective new hires. My sister works in HR and said that it's a split on whether having an active social media presence is good or bad. Some view not having any with suspicion that you have something to hide or you haven't caught up. For that reason I keep an account active even though I really don't use it. My wife tags me with pictures and comments she posts but I don't use it. I really don't see the benefit. That is not intended as an insult to anyone who uses it and loves it.

I do have FB, and it helps me keep in touch with family and a small circle of friends. I blocked a ton of Trump links last year, haven't done much of that lately, but it's been more quiet on my feed.

I have a twitter link on my computer, and I follow a couple of folks loosely. I don't tweet, myself.

No social media is on my phone.

Guess I'm a 21st Century Luddite.

appreciate it

Account 2 weeks ago.

Taking the step away from social media is one of the healthiest things one can do for themselves in the modern world. One of the great dysfunctions at the core of humanities ills is the degree of abstraction we have achieved from the organic fact of our being. The more technology has created comfort and convenience over the centuries, the more we have allowed ourselves to indulge in the fantasy that we are somehow separated from the fate of the rest of life on earth. It is our technical achievements and acumen that fosters the widespread, simpleminded delusion that we are somehow removed from the animal kingdom. In the last few decades, digital communications and interactions have usurped "analog" organic ones. Remember when you went to a bar and people spoke to each other in community? (As depicted in the classic sitcom Cheers)..before we plastered screens on every wall and supplied a personal device in every hand? Remember what it was like to experience something rather than catalogue and post it?

Social media (and to various degrees forums such as this, video games, online dating, and teleconferencing, etc...) in the form of "profiles" allows us to live vicariously through our imagination of ourselves, and project that brand to others for validation, thereby reinforcing any exaggeration or dishonesty we incorporated in our initial quest for communal acceptance and validation. The result is an ever-escalating cycle of posturing, sycophantic nonsense that perverts all sides and creates a bewildering maze of subjective fictions and reality.

Removing oneself from the compulsive cultural paradigm is the only way to break free from its spell and discern a healthy path forward. Perhaps you won't always need to avoid it completely, perhaps you will. Either way, I applaude your self-awarness and decisiveness. Unplug and unwind!

you are my new guru and this my mantra.

Thanks very very much. Bookmarked, and will re-read whenever I get the urge to FB.

Make no mistake, though, I'm no guru...

While I've never tweeted, had a FB page, instagram, or myspace account, I am still a lonely fool who (despite knowledge of the implications and dangers) still winds up in forums like this on occasion; hoping to find some sense of community in the cold, impersonal comfort of abstraction... we've all been trained to crave it. C'est la vie, no?

Cheers!

Some people cannot handle these kinds of things. Some people can't handle social interactions in the workplace. It's not for everyone.

I've got zero politics on my twitter timeline and most of what I follow is entertainment related there. It's easy to enjoy these tools and services. FB I've winnowed people that are just over the top so they're unfollowed and I never see their crap. My timeline is made up of fun things.

It may be a time waster for you but realize that for others it's a lifeline to people like themselves, especially marginalized groups, that desperately need that connection.

Congratulations! Stay fierce!

On one hand, it allows me to keep track of people who would otherwise be out of my life. People like old college friends. I could maintain those relationships offline but the reality is that I never have and never will. FB is a way to keep or re-establish those connections that time and distance would have broken. I have come to really like that.

However, I find myself to be very limited in interacting on FB. I rarely post and when I do it is usually something innocuous.

My problem is that I know a lot of different kinds of people. The things I tell my college drinking buddies are not the same kinds of things I tell my Mother-in-Law. I come from pretty conservative beginnings but eventually ended up pretty liberal with some partying along the way. I spent a lot of efforts keeping my various worlds from colliding. Suddenly, FB came along and had me addressing them all as a single group. I found myself wondering about which people on my feed would object to anything I had to say or share. The end result is that I usually don't say much of anything.

Stepping back from FB likes

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia?CMP=share_btn_fb


'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia
Google, Twitter and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks alarmed by a race for human attention
by Paul Lewis in San Francisco

I know I am being manipulated there and don't like it.

But DU will remain.

I'm old enough never to have developed a taste for FB. I have an account which I check every few weeks, or when a relative tells me to look at a specific thing. The only things I've posted are political and a couple of really striking YouTube videos.

I worry about the addictive nature of social media and what it may be doing to our kids. I think of the report about how the big players research how to increase that addiction. And I think about a PBS story that featured MIT professors describing how the quality of learning has decreased over the years. They chalk it up to students THINKING they can mult-process, when they really can't, and to a loss of attention span.

I'm glad to see that people can enter the world of social media and then decide to leave it again.

i've deleted my FB and my Twitter accounts. I may open a new Twitter with a fake name so I can check in and follow.

I'm so disgusted by our popular culture which has brought us tRump, Ivana / Melania fight, etc. etc.

their doings, pix, etc., there. We don't belong to any groups, and don't know how to use most functions. In fact, both of us recently tried to find the Facebook news pages that are so badly corrupting readers but couldn't.

Open notepad. Type a capital letter, number, symbol, then close eyes and mash about 5-8 random keys.
Taking care not to look at the screen, hit CTRL+A and then hit CTRL+C and finally hit DELETE.
Close notepad. You now have a mystery password copied on your clipboard.

Log into Website. Change your email and phone number to something that isn't yours.
Change Password by pasting your unknown copied password into the 'new password' and 'retype new password' boxes.
Log out. Forever.

The positivity of FB is what you put into it. I use it as an agitational platform for revolutionary and anti-capitalist politics. I'm retired and my family and friends know what my politics are, so I'm not hiding from anyone, nor am I surprising anyone. Because I've got a "friend" list that is smart and well-read and HEAVILY communist, I get a LOT of info that I don't get from the M$M. Or as I call it the "capitalist press". As an example, almost ALL of the police terror inflicted on POC I first read about on FB, THEN two or three days later in the M$M. And through Leftbook (as I often call it) I'm in touch with activists world-wide who are brilliant co-thinkers and can inspire strategies and tactics that can be used anywhere, along with sharing theoretical articles that helps me educate myself in Marxist politics and economics.

The Bolsheviks had to agitate among the working class in ones and twos, but with Leftbook, you reach a MUCH wider audience for your views and introduce people to a whole new way of looking at capitalism and the world. Plus, I can keep in touch with my family including the extended members who are spread all over the country and the world.

😎

people, please get it out of your head you need FB to survive - THAT'S THEIR GAME

I was on for only a few months and left.

You can live without Facebook.

Way to much personal info given out.

I didn't really want to keep in touch with a lot of my old friends and acquaintances. Most of my friends and family live near me and I communicate with them often by telephone and text. Furthermore, I spend way too much time on the Internet as it is and too much Internet use makes me feel depressed. I have to go for long periods where I limit my usage.

But never have been and never will never be.

Have always found the whole thing to be a little creepy.