I Quit Facebook.

I deactivated my account Sunday. Too much going on, too much distraction.

I like to listen to NPR at work, but I couldn't take any more election. So I turned on ESPN radio, and I'll be damned if it wasn't on there too.

News flash: Facebook isn't the problem. People are the problem. If people post stuff you don't like, unfollow/unfriend them. It's not difficult.

The scary part is that people are also going to have to be the solution. In order to accomplish that we need to be able to communicate rationally and work together. I don't see that happening on a large scale anytime soon unfortunately. A girl can dream though...

Tom_Spangler wrote: News flash: Facebook isn't the problem. People are the problem. If people post stuff you don't like, unfollow/unfriend them. It's not difficult.

I don't have time to sit here and go through everyone that is having a bad day and unfriend them. It's easier just to deactivate and go on with life.

To say Facebook isn't the problem, is a problem in itself. Social Media has become people's courage to say things that they wouldn't in front of people they know. That became very evident 48 hours ago. It doesn't just come from people I'm friends with, it's any news you may be following and you also see things that other people like.

I can spend an hour editing all my settings so I'm in this little bubble of social media safety, but it's just easier to shut it off and walk away.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: To say Facebook isn't the problem, is a problem in itself.

Qft.

What the hell is a Facebook?

Appleseed wrote: What the hell is a Facebook?

Nice try...

Appleseed wrote: What the hell is a Facebook?

A way to gather and store all of a person's ties to others, employment, history, attributes, habits, do facial recognition scans, track their whereabouts... that sort of thing while appearing to provide a service. It even works for people who don't participate but have family or friends who do! They tag them in the photos with GPS coordinates embedded and say when they have been together! In addition - it allows the company itself to grift marketable data they can sell as well as offer direct advertising. It's like what Hoover and the KGB were trying to achieve only the victims do it to themselves and they pay for it! berkeleying genius. If only there was a way to get them to send in their DNA samples and get them to pay for it they would have the perfect prelude to an Orwellian nightmare.

I did, quit facebook, 4 years ago, and haven't looked back, Don't miss it at all. I Quit cell phones 3 years ago. HOLY S*IT. IT IS AWESOME!!!! I can't recommend Quitting cellphones more!!!! Truth be told I have a old cellphone in my glove box just in case. In Canada every other cellphone user pays a fee, so that I may call 911 on my unactivated cellphone just in case.

Appleseed wrote: What the hell is a Facebook?

Huckleberry wrote:

Appleseed wrote: What the hell is a Facebook?

A way to gather and store all of a person's ties to others, employment, history, attributes, habits, do facial recognition scans, track their whereabouts... that sort of thing while appearing to provide a service. It even works for people who don't participate but have family or friends who do! They tag them in the photos with GPS coordinates embedded and say when they have been together! In addition - it allows the company itself to grift marketable data they can sell as well as offer direct advertising. It's like what Hoover and the KGB were trying to achieve only the victims do it to themselves and they pay for it! berkeleying genius. If only there was a way to get them to send in their DNA samples and get them to pay for it they would have the perfect prelude to an Orwellian nightmare.

And that's why I quit Facebook.

The protestors are being paid

Some weird plot might happen where the electroral college revolts

I'm a true American because I'm pro police.

I lived enough of that crap with my crazy father at home growing up. I'm out.

I have way too many real friends, and car stuff, to quit for this silly reason. Unfollowing works.

In reply to Jerry:

That's what I do. They're good people. Misguided as they may be.

I use face book to share pictures of my kids to my family and connect with some old colleg friends. That's about it.

I'm off for a while too.

I've left the "Groups app" and "Messenger" on my phone for now.

I don't have the app. I have it as a mobile webpage and my password isn't saved, so I need to really want to log in.

I learned that I can post pictures to Facebook from the iPhone without having the App. That saves a TON of space and gets rid of the obnoxious messenger app.

Another member of the 'never looked back after deleting facebook' club. It's been the best decision I've made in a long time. Not only is it absurdly Big Brother in how it tracks and trends your profile, but it's a cesspool of fake everything. It took a little adjustment just to break the habit of browsing, but it didn't change anything for the negative. If there is content that is THAT important, people know how to contact me via other means. If they don't, then I'd argue that the content wasn't important/relevant enough in the first place.

moparman76_69 wrote: I deleted my myspace page in 2005 and never looked back.

I deleted my geocities site in the early 2000s and never looked back.

Tom_Spangler wrote: News flash: Facebook isn't the problem. People are the problem. If people post stuff you don't like, unfollow/unfriend them. It's not difficult.

Of course you are right that it's the people. But facebook does a good job amplifying the "movement" of whatever they want to move. The goal was to get friends and family to keep in touch better, and then find old friends based on your profile, and then find people who are like you.

That last part allows groups that are not the "norm" to get together and start propagating their messages. A few random connections to the norm, and a lot of mis-information, partial lies, or outright lies start to leak out into the public as if they are facts. Which, I see, a partially why so many people feared both of the major candidates so much.

So, no, it's not f-book that's the core problem, but F-book does a great job of letting problems fester and propagate in a very bad manner.

I have unfollowed several good friends. I really don't want to see every meal you eat.

This election has truly brought out the worst in a lot of people. I actually think FB has gotten worse after the election.

I used to hide all the misinformation sites, but there are so many of them. FB has a problem. They've invented the most effective propaganda machine with absolutely no limits on who can access the controls.

I've joined the group who has taken a break altogether.

In reply to alfadriver:

There has also been some discussion about the echo chamber effect. Deleting the people you don't agree with is not necessarily a good thing. Getting one side of a discussion is never a good thing.

In reply to Toyman01:

That's very true.

What's kind of interesting about that- President Obama spoke at as a commencement speaker here at UM. He didn't talk at all about politics. He told graduates to go out and hear both sides- no matter how bad you think the information is. Not complaining about biased news like Fox, but pointing the virtues about biased views like Fox (this isn't a comment about Fox, but his relative position at the time).

The problem with that, though, is human nature. People feel better with news that confirms their feelings or beliefs. Whether truthful or not. If you want to be angry about something, it's easy to find people who are just as angry as you are about that subject. If you want to find people happy about a subject- same thing.

Echo chambers are not good. What FB does with those, though, is let them to leak out into public. Which has two results- either finding more people like them OR turning people off (as a generality). This is a thread of the latter.

Other forms of social media do a great job of filtering all of that- like this one who prevents really angry discourse about much of anything. FB and twitter can't do that. So many times, if we just stand back, think about it, you may not post what you want to- as it's not what you really feel- it's just a reaction. This page pretty much forces that. Others do the opposite.

A follow up to my own post.

About the general kind of discussions going on.

On a historical nature, the banter between the parties isn't really that new- it's been going on for most of the country's existence.

But based on the President's note, and seeing how other politicians treat each other in reality- it seems to me that they know how to speak incredibly mean about each other or their policies, but they understand that it's not personal (just look at Hillary's defeat speech and Trumps winning speech).

When we hear it, though, more people take it personally. We see the attacks that one side is evil, and the other side is great. To the point that everything bad can't ever happen without the end of the world.

Seems like it.

Cool Story Bro.