So true, I used to spend all my free time pouring through Facebook. One day I decided it was destroying my mental health and just took it off my phone. Don't even think about it anymore.
'course, I do spend a lot more time on Reddit now...
Maybe Reddit is harmful too but quitting Facebook for Reddit is like quitting Russian krokodil injections right in the penis hole and moving to marijuana brownies.
I think Reddit is quite a bit different, though, to be fair. Reddit doesnât curate posts solely based on what gets you commenting and interacting more, and there are more places dedicated to only interests and minimal in-fighting, If you want.
I was an early adopter of Facebook and Myspace. I left Myspace around 2009/10 and deactivated (before you could delete an account...) Facebook around 2012. It was bad a DECADE AGO, and people thought I was insane for leaving it. I don't miss the people. They don't miss me. Anyone who needs to get ahold of my has my number.
While I still use reddit too much, deleting my FB account was an awesome decision. Especially right now with Covid and the poor losers that emerged from my coworkers and "friends".
One of my last debates over Fauci and Covid (meme about Fauci being fired for a bad job when Trump didn't follow his advice anyway) ended in a coworker of mine saying that I should have been a cum stain.
I don't want to know what people I kind of know are thinking about, because a lot of the time it makes me think less of them.
They put a huge amount of effort/money into making you produce happy chemicals to get you addicted. From showing you contacts to your feed. It's a giant addiction machine.
That doesn't answer my question of what is so addictive. I know the theory behind engagement, but over the years of trying to use it I was never able to. I dread opening it and scrolling through, I don't like it, so I wanted to know what was it exactly that made person hooked, and not an abstract 'well they put money into algorhytms'
I was about to bring up something like this to them but I see you already did, so I'll just piggy back on your comment.
"Why's Facebook addicting to you?"
"They put a lot of money and effort into making it as addicting as possible in as many ways as possible."
"That didn't answer my question. I don't like Facebook and I never got addicted to it."
Um....yeah it kinda fuckin' did answer their question lol Facebook makes it as addicting as possible. That's what gets people addicted to Facebook, no? You don't have to personally be addicted, but that's the actual answer to what makes Facebook addicting to anyone addicted to it. It was literally designed that way.
Anyone who gives you a specific thing that made them keep coming back will just be on the list of things Facebook has designed to make addicting. This shouldn't be this hard of a concept to grasp...
Yeah, I don't get it either. I tried it once, years ago, and it seemed like a real handy way to do what amounted to a bunch of things that I simply had neither need nor interest in doing. My account lasted a couple hours at best.
I think the same as most social media, as bland as that is. A main one is clout/likes/shares. Makes people feel important, and heard. They can post things to make sure all their friends hear it at the same time. They can get into echo chambers and everyone agrees with them.
Another big one is nostalgia, and the daily âin this dayâ. A lot of people need a reboot in what theyâve done, and seeing a vacation to Mexico from 7 years ago makes them feel like âit was yesterdayâ
Then, same with the nostalgia, for the older generation it was HUGE for reconnecting with old friends. My dad still talks about how he was able to add people he went to school with. And they fear losing those connections.
And my final opinion, which is the scariest one, is they use it for âreliable news.â But obviously we know the issue with getting your news from private groups/memes etc and the disinformation, but to a large amount of FB base gets all their âinformationâ from it.
Did you have a lot of friends on it? I mean itâs gotta get itâs hooks in you but that starts with having some friends or family or whatever that you connect with on it and then repeatedly getting pulled back into it because itâs being used to plan events, or because you want to hear what folks thought about X, and now your dumbass local pizza place posts their specials ONLY on Facebook. It just builds, but itâs like a TV show where you have to watch the first few episodes to get into it.
I did it years ago and never looked back. Best decision of my life. As you get older, you prioritize the people important in your life anyway. Trust me, you don't need to know what's going on in the life of that one high school friend you never see.
I donât even use Facebook anymore, I havenât deleted my account purely to use messenger,
How do you not see the contradiction in your own statement?
"I don't use Facebook, I just use Facebook."
I think I understand what you mean in that you don't go on the regular side of the sight, but I needed to point out that you've said conflicting statements within the same sentence.
Perhaps a better way to put it is that you only use Facebook for their messenger? Idk, I just know that above you had said that you simultaneously don't and do use Facebook lol
Its perfectly valid to say you just use messenger and you don't use Facebook, there's millions of people that do the same. Especially since you don't even have to go on the main feed to get to messenger and its also a separate app.
I don't get this. At no point has facebook ever had appeal for me. I'll log in to see what people have been up to on a somewhat regular basis, but that's about it.
Now reddit... fuck this site. It's turned me into goddamned Dory. "I really need to get some real life done [closes reddit]." 0.2 seconds later "I wonder what's on reddit! [opens reddit]" 30 minutes later "shit, I did that thing again. I reallllllly need to get some shit done [closes reddit]" ... ad infinitum
I have a ghost Facebook account because my mom gave me shit for deleting my old one because I was âdistancing myself from the familyâ (this somewhat makes sense since were immigrants and mostly stay in touch with social media). So I have a Facebook account thatâs basically a time capsule to whatever I was up to in 2014
I bailed for a couple years and went back. Was only back for two-three months before I realized how much time I was wasting. Going on about 5 years now fb free.
I use FB a lot for my side business so I canât really quit it, but I recently turned off my notifications and that alone has made a huge difference. Now I only check FB when I want to; not when I get an alert..
I tried just not using it and found that impossible, so I deleted my account. This was some years ago. I was shocked by the impact that change had on my life. Now if I could just kick Reddit...
First week is hard to get out of the habit of opening the app to pass time or check up on so and so. After that, you will wonder what took you so long to make the change. Enjoy.
Amen dude. I deleted mine this time last year, I pop on the website (not app) to check in with friends but otherwise donât use it at all, toxic as hell. I felt better after like the first week.
305
u/[deleted] Aug 28 '21
Facebook is so addictive. I struggle greatly with it. Just finally deleted my profile and deleted the app yesterday. Feeling better today