Completely agree. Not being on facebook is the new "I don't even own a tv". http://www.theonion.com/article/area-man-constantly-mentioni...

As for using facebook in a sane manner, I was struggling because I rely on messages and event invites so I didn't want to block it completely (and messenger.com and app is not enough for me). But this plugin basically saved me: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjo... -- it simply hides the newsfeed, turning facebook into a fully functional messages/events page that it otherwise completely dull.

Does the same thing at Kill News Feed but replaces it with a quote (e.g. on getting started or how time is the most precious resource).

And now you're doing the same exact thing they are - boasting about how you're superior to everyone else.

Is it possible for us to have discussions without these signaling-laden put downs? Just say what you want to say and try to refrain from putting everyone else down.

For instance, I think anyone that believes the pyramids were built to store grain is inferior to scientists that can tell me why they were actually built. So be it said.

10 years ago having a FB account was cool. Once everyone was on FB then saying you'd deleted your account and gone off the grid was cool and all the people still using it were sheep. Now it's cool to say you're still using it and that everyone who deleted their account is a jerk for mentioning it.

We're just going around in circles.

It's a useful tool, a time pit for others but being critical of someone because they do/don't use it is pretty weak.

Though I remember differently, 10 years ago some of us were warning against facebook as the major privacy concern it was and due to their spam techniques to capture new victims.

The best thing Facebook ever did was separate the useful messenger from the terrible main site.

I still keep Facebook around 10% for looking people's contact information and 90% because everyone has migrated to using Facebook's messenger. Cutting it just down to the messenger is a godsend.

> That said, this study doesn't surprise me. In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.

> I'm not sure what the answer to that is.

I'm not on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. (and I'm probably one of a very small minority who has never had accounts) and I wouldn't consider myself "enlightened."

I think "the answer" is to reflect on what it is that adds value to your life and what subtracts value from your life.

If your personal use of social media is focused on activities that you conclude are beneficial, there's no reason you should stop using it. On the other hand, if your use of social media is making you less happy, you should treat it the same way you'd logically treat anything else that makes you less happy.

Unfortunately, as these studies demonstrate, a lot of the people using social media aren't happier for it, and more problematically, many clearly aren't reflecting on that.

No, I think it's more than that. I have no evidence for this, but I suspect that spending excessive time on the internet will make you feel more isolated (and therefore worse overall), regardless of whether you spend that time on social sites or not. It's the withdrawal from genuine face-to-face contact that is important, not the particular mechanics of such-and-such an app or website.

I think we're still missing something important about human interaction in the way we embody it in computers. Even video does not solve it completely. Telepresence is and will continue to be a major open problem for the forseeable future.

I don't have a lot of friends. I find people so self-aware on FB, I don't find them interesting. People, I used to find interesting, edgy, true individuals seemed to turn into just boring, conformists. Nothing wrong with boring, and conformity? I think it just all reminds me of my own mortality?

I also learned--I'm not the person I thought I was when on FB. Meaning--I'm more critical when I'm on that site, than in real life. Example--I go to someone's site I used to know, and see the physical age in their pictures, and it's just depressing. I see how some have given into being their parents, and it's just depressing. I see the see the car I was suspose to inherit being trashed by my nephew, I get depressed on a lot of levels. I also see that people aren't breaking down my doors looking for me--as a friend, I get depressed. I look at the news feed, and what FB thinks I'm interested in, I get depressed. I see that that the one person I thought would not have over 1000 friends, is actively trying to friend my pseudonym profile, I get depressed. She doesn't even know the most depressed civil war soldier's name, and she wants to friend him. (In the civil war, a soldier was showing signs of melancholy. A doctor decided to call his condition depression. I use that soldier's name on a FB account.)

I see my pictures have been stolen, and I get depressed. I see my stolen pictures, with a new copyright, and I get depressed. I always deactivate my account when leaving FB. When FB, monkeys around with the deactivation process, I get depressed.

So FB does make me depressed some days. Maybe, it's just too much reality? Are we suspose to know exactly what almost everyone is doing, or not doing? What age has done? What lack of opportunities/money did to some peoples lives?

I don't hate FB, but think it needs some real competition. Right now, it's just too big. Its tentacles are integrated in too many websites. It's become its own internet? It's just to much posing, trout mouth, Kardashian, narcissism for some days. Today is that day for me.

But if your town has a "buy, sell, give away" group you should join, those are great.

There is enough of scientific data and studies over the last few decades on the tv screen to reach a scientific consensus but commercial interests and public relations have prevented this consensus from reaching the general public. we have less data for videogames and internet and smartphone but it's already shaping towards something similar.

And there is more than simply replacing actual human interactions by screens, for example most flat screens emit light frequencies in the blue range that have effects on the body and mind, impacting sleep and linked to macular degeneration.

Though that being said, facebook due to its format and content has a significant tendency in making people feel bad about themselves.

To be fair he said "lack of desire for lots of social interaction" -- with emphasis on the word "lots" -- and not "lack of desire for social interaction".

cortesoft may very well be needing social interaction (inasmuch as Maslow's hierarchy of needs is fulfilled), just not lots.

I'm not sure it's entirely frivolous...

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and...

On the one hand, I can think fairly deeply. Yes, I do regard that as a positive quality. And yes, a lot of social interaction gets in the way of that. ("Interruptions shatter mental momentum" - I forget who said it, but when you're trying to think deeply, it's really true.)

On the other hand, I need human interaction - maybe not as much as most other people, definitely not all the time, but I need it. I need to be able to be a person, not just a thinking machine.

So maybe I'm "unsocial" without being "anti-social"...

Or they're all posting negative stuff about their own lives/society. Either way it's lose/lose.

Before disappearing into outer space (leaving Facebook) I found that Facebook had become my address book.

I think that is Facebook's greatest use: a self-updating address book. Instead of all my friends having to update their address books when I make a change, I should update my contact info and the changes should automatically be available to them. It's a great idea. Now, we just have to make it happen outside of a closed system.

Finally someone brave enough to stand up and break this hype about "stop using Facebook."

> I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Some say Snapchat is a much better place for people to be their true selves - I can believe it.

I am in my twenties and I find Snapchat really weird. I don't know, I find both typing out the message from a computer keyboard and a straight google hangout/skype chat more natural than a (what??) 5-second snap story... my impression is Snappers tend to make vine-like videos with snapchat and that is just so unnatural....

Conversely, Snap Stories can indeed get very Vine-like. They can be quite fun, but if you're making them for the wrong reasons (to get attention) then they lose their meaning.

But email + phone is international, nobody feels like you burdened them by asking them to get a Google account, and nowadays email and phone is all managed through a synced solution on your phone / devices. As a "workflow", contacting someone via phone or email can feel as fluid as any other app.

I don't get any of that on Facebook.

But voluntarily giving your contact list and location info, and passing your private conversations via a for-profit data mining machine seems, in principle, not very enlightened.

One day some of that data is going to leak. It's bound to happen.

I use the News Feed Eradicator [1] to deal with the humblebragging stuff. I don't want to see updates and posts, AT ALL. I just want messages and event invites.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

Not necessarily against the idea of social networking. I just don't like Facebook. I think others should adopt this same attitude. If people think this is boasting so be it. I find it to be just good sense.