Deleted Facebook: The Effects

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TopHatFox
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Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by TopHatFox »

I permanently deleted facebook about a week ago (not deactivated, but login no longer works and all of my files are gone deleted).

Here are some preliminary effects:

1. I feel the need for human connection more deeply and therefore I reach out to people I love more often; this is compared to having that need for human connection partially met passively with Facebook and therefore NOT reaching out as much in person.
2. I do not feel as tempted to share photos or one liners "for the likes". Instead I might write more detailed thoughts elsewhere.
3. I am no longer concerned over taking pictures for other people, merely for my own use and meaning.
4. I am doing more with my time: reading more, fixing more things, learning accounting, painting
5. I procrastinate a lot less because I have nothing to procrastinate with (besides e-mail I suppose)

--------------------

Other media measures I've taken:

1. Delete messages on my phone as they're taken care of, as I would e-mails
2. Delete people from my phone who I have had long term negative experiences/connection with or no longer want to talk to
3. Place my phone on my desk on silent when I get home rather than next to my bed.
4. Close the computer screen when I know I have nothing to do
5. Delete all Google Drive material that I no longer use; organize all files onto OneDrive

-----------------------

Got any other cool ideas to make our use of media more focused and less draining?
Last edited by TopHatFox on Fri Jun 17, 2016 9:38 am, edited 2 times in total.

BRUTE
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by BRUTE »

good. social media is the antithesis of being social.

Hankaroundtheworld
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

Brave decision @Zalo. I hear a lot of people thinking about this, because FB is too addictive and it creates this same empty feeling that you used to have when watching TV all night. Basically you spent hours passing the time with stupid shows (or in FB with stupid little facts about life), and then you regret at the end, while you could have done something more interesting with your time. We already ditched TV (cut the cable) more than 10 years ago (which changed our life), now we need to stop the FB addiction. Thanks for showing the way @Zalo :-)

Eureka
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by Eureka »

I back that it is a brave decision Zalo.

Did you just delete Facebook during a spontaneous moment or did you plan/prepare it?

Wouldn't there be anyone you're worried about losing contact with? Or did you collect other contact information from such people before deleting?

IlliniDave
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by IlliniDave »

I've been back and forth w/facebook a few times but for me it is only a mild time sink and I'm a sucker for the silly pictures of the grandkiddies.

Your media measure number 3 is one I think is a good one. Besides that, and not carrying it with me around the house religiously (I'm more likely to "miss" a call while at home than while out and about), I also have the odd habit of occasionally leaving my house without taking my phone with me, or leaving it in my car while I go into a restaurant or something.

vexed87
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by vexed87 »

I like the fact that you can favorite contacts on smartphones and set to do not disturb (with exception of favorites) so you only receive alerts and ring tones when they contact you. That way I only hear my phone go off when it's someone important like SO, mother, father, siblings, family and closest of friends.

TopHatFox
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by TopHatFox »

Eureka wrote: Wouldn't there be anyone you're worried about losing contact with? Or did you collect other information from such people before deleting?
There's an option to download all your files somewhere in FB's settings. I also personally reached out to people I really like and jotted down their number. Turns out I had most of these people on my phone already, so it was pretty easy. I also announced the deletion publically 24 hrs before deleting it w/ my number in case if anyone wanted to contact me.

I'll still keep LinkedIn around until I have a nice job or FI.

Dragline
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by Dragline »

My additional suggestions to the OP question:

Turn off all sound/vibrate alerts on all devices unless you are actively waiting for something/someone, or it is required for your job or parenting. Anybody that has something important to say can leave a message.

Don't carry your phone around at home unless you are actively waiting for something. Leave it in the same place and turn it off.

Don't keep any technology with screens where you sleep (unless you only have one room -- then you need to just put it away).

If you use social media, ignore all posts that are news items or news related and do not pertain directly to the poster, especially what amount to opinion pieces. Turn them off or unfollow anyone who repeatedly posts news items, "deep thoughts", memes or other random things they found on the internet but that they did not create or observe themselves.

Spend some of that posting energy writing a journal that only you read. Force yourself to make a journal entry every day before you post anything on line, even if its just a sentence or two. Read last year's (or earlier years) entry on the same date if you can. Note, you can also use this mental device to encourage other good habits like reading and exercising.

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GandK
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by GandK »

Re the phone: I have my default ringtone set to Silent, then I assign personal ringtones for each person or entity I want to hear the phone ring for. This basically causes every other (or unknown) person who calls me to get kicked into voicemail.

Facebook: It's how most of my friends and family stay in touch, so I'd never delete it. If I felt like it was becoming a problem I'd use an app like RescueTime or FocusMe.

@Zalo: I'm curious. What's the significance of moving from Google Drive to OneDrive? They're basically the same thing. Only major difference IMO is that at present GD offers 15GB of space for their free accounts and OD only offers 5GB for free (they used to offer 15 as well but recently curtailed it).

TopHatFox
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by TopHatFox »

@GandK, Good point. I suppose I should just sync my OneDrive with Google Drive and delete OneDrive. I think I've been using OD simply because it comes pre-installed with its own folder on my HP computer, which means it's backed up to my computer if OD fails, and the files in it can be remotely deleted if my computer gets stolen.

stayhigh
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by stayhigh »

I was thinking about this too, but I abandoned this idea because:
- this is the only way for me to keep in touch with some people living abroad
- it serves as my rss reader, I follow some websites/organizations/people/bands to keep me up to date with stuff that matters to me. All in one place.
- I don't like, share or post anything, I have no photos and I don't invite any friends. No activity from myself at all. Maybe one or two short comments per month.
- I only check it every 2 or 3 days.

This is the best solution for me, as I changed this time waster into something useful.

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Sclass
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by Sclass »

Just wanted to toss in, have phones people leave messages on transcribed automatically to email and automatically binned in a folder using google voice and gmail. Read weekly.

I have seven phone lines. Only key people get the bat phone. The rest leave a message that goes to email that gets marked read automatically and filed away for future review.

This stops my moms caregivers from calling me to come over and change a lightbulb. By the time I get the message they have climbed up and done it by themselves.

I had a big problem with family thinking I was on call. I've finally got the dementia mother thing on autopilot.

Eureka
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by Eureka »

Zalo wrote: I'll still keep LinkedIn around until I have a nice job or FI.
I never made it to LinkedIn as I kind of did not want to spend more time on social media after I finally made it to FB - much later than most. I constantly get invites in my email inbox, though. Would that be worthwhile?

Dragline
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by Dragline »

Eureka wrote:
Zalo wrote: I'll still keep LinkedIn around until I have a nice job or FI.
I never made it to LinkedIn as I kind of did not want to spend more time on social media after I finally made it to FB - much later than most. I constantly get invites in my email inbox, though. Would that be worthwhile?
Probably not, unless you have a professional profile, are job seeking or want to write "thought pieces" in a particular area. I do not use my LI account for much of anything other than looking at what my colleagues publish and seeing who is looking at me (usually various recruiters). I do get funny connection requests from all over the world, but I suspect many of them are bots.

If you are job seeking in any large scale environment, though, it is almost a "must do" anymore.

Eureka
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by Eureka »

Thanks Dragline, then not as I am in my very last job ;)

black_son_of_gray
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by black_son_of_gray »

After joining Facebook very early on (2007 or so, when it was only open to select colleges), I permanently deleted my account at the beginning of the year. 6 months in I have no regrets. I didn't warn anyone beforehand, I just quietly slipped away. My guess is that 90% of my friends never noticed*. The other ones I actually talk to and communicate with in person anyway. Honestly, I don't really notice a large difference in my life or lifestyle. It is disturbing how long the habit of starting to type "facebook.com" into the browser takes to wear off, though! Weeks to months of mindlessly opening a tab and starting to type it just to catch yourself and remember "oh yeah, I don't have an account".

*We make more friends than we have time to keep anyway. And considering I never contacted those 90% and they never contacted me in the years that we were facebook friends, I didn't see any point to an unnecessary online address book.

With the exception of a LinkedIn account that I will promptly dispose of the minute I get my next job, I'm completely off of all social media (present company excluded, if you consider this forum as such).

sky
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by sky »

Yesterday, my dad told me I should join facebook, he thought I would like it.

I find it quite difficult to establish an appropriate level of use of the internet. I have backed away from most social media. For a while I did a video vlog on the tube, but got tired of that. Facebook, Linkedin for very short trial periods then shut down the accounts. I think that what I disliked the most was the sometimes insidious, sometimes blatant attempts at social control.

The type of internet use that I actually enjoyed the most was the almost anonymous 4chan and early internet forums where you could remain nearly anonymous, although it soon was clear that there is no anonymity on the net. For years I tried to avoid putting my real name on recreational use of the internet. I was not really doing anything all that unusual but the ability to communicate anonymously was freedom, the ability to make jokes about anything. Google put a stop to anonymity and promoted ultravisibility. Since every move I make is now tracked and used to market against me, the internet is less fun.

The net does allow me to choose what to look at, which is a big improvement from broadcast network tv. I was an internet hermit this past winter, living in a van in the desert with no connection. That is boring and leads to a shortage of information, and there is a lot of valuable information. So I need some level of net. However, when I have the net I often get into mindless browsing rather than targeted researching.

I am not taking any action to change at this time. If I do something it will probably be to move to a read only use of the net, to shut down all outgoing posts on forums and reddit, but I am not there yet.

FBeyer
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by FBeyer »

sky wrote:... So I need some level of net. However, when I have the net I often get into mindless browsing rather than targeted researching...
That sounds to me like it's not a problem related to the internet, but one of identifying what you truly like to spend time on. You CAN muck about on the net, but you CAN also learn anything from sowing to stochastic differential equations if you so choose. Thus, the problem is not the tool, but how you choose to use it.

Shelving your hammer because you always hit your fingers with it is not the way to go; keep it in your toolbox, practice your aim instead :)

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fiby41
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by fiby41 »

I created an account because/along with all of my friends in 2009. It asked too many questions, most of which I skipped. Example, I did not add my school, I could barely tolerate these people for 8 hours, why would I want to hear anything from them after that if there was no need to?

I just wanted to see what it was and how it worked, like a new toy, after which I deleted it.

I made a new account in January 2013, before I left school. Use was high during holidays as I had the time and little better to do, but the habit after vacations. It reached a point where I felt compelled to check it at least daily, for about 3 months, June to August. I thought I was addicted.

Addicted= getting carried away with an activity to the exclusion of everything else with detrimental effects on other parts of your life.

There's no way to know what all these 'detrimental effects' were or how severe, if any.

But I decided I should reduce my use (to once a month or till I didn't feel compelled to check it everyday or I don't get the feeling 'I couldn't live w/o it')

By October the habit was under control. By December I did not remember when was the last time I logged in.

Effect: I started to express myself more honestly to myself (became 'true to myself'.) Filled 6 Notepads related to philosophy on old phone (now I use Evernote.)

After one year I went back and :

1 Unliked all pages, save one

2 Untagged everything random I was tagged in

3 Turned privacy of all my future posts to 'Only Me'

4 Turned privacy of all my past posts to 'Only Me' and deleted random posts in between, so I'm not emotionally/sentimentality 'invested'

Only things I regret deleting:

-A debate of sorts trying to convince a friend it is okay if I prefer digital books over physical books, it doesn't make me any less human

-Discussion with the same person above how faith is not a prerequisite for religion.

5 Turned privacy of posts made by friends to my timeline to 'Only Me'

Now only my profile photo was left.

...Last month, for the sake of having an online presence, I tagged myself in 3 friends' photos in which I was in the photo. Some of them were upload by them in the past 2 years when I didn't use so didn't see the photos.

I feel keeping a count useful:

Number of posts on my timeline:
Number of posts by me:
Number of posts on my timeline by friends:
Number of photos by me:
Number of photos of me:

jacob
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Re: Deleted Facebook: The Effects

Post by jacob »

I use Facebook exclusively for people I've met IRL. I use it as a "phone book" (keeping in touch with people from the many places I've lived). However, I have also used it to establish a deeper contact with some people than I've been able to IRL. In particular, I use political discussions to gauge various people's depths of insight. "Not to discuss with a man worthy of conversation is to waste the man. To discuss with a man not worthy of conversation is to waste words. And the wise waste neither men nor words." I've used fb to become wiser about the people I know. Along the same lines I post links + comments to esoteric interests of mine to see who will bite.

I sincerely wish that facebook would eliminate the share function!

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