As a German I don't use Facebook. Most of my friends also don't use Facebook. For me it's just a waste of time and doesn't make sense.

I'm not German and I don't use Facebook either. For the last few years, I've slowly noticed that people who use Facebook only do so because everybody else does and loathe it somewhat, but can't bring themselves to pull the plug because of network effects.

What I found interesting is the study that shows that Facebook depresses people, because all their friends put up their best moments and photos and so seem to have all wonderful lives.

Personally, I'm just glad that the stigma of not having a facebook account seems to be mostly gone. The looks I got whenever I said I didn't have one ranged from 'what are you hiding?' to 'you must be a serial killer'.

Sadly, it is still the same with mobile phones. I regularly experience being stigmatized for not having one. But it seems to be getting better. I already met multiple others who don’t have one, either.

I had a dumb phone until this summer when the spring broke. When I told people and showed them my phone, they would stare at me and wonder "You're a techy, and you don't have a phone from this decade?"

Interesting to get to know another person with the same property (I also have no mobile phone and never had any - and the reason is not lack of money or that I'm a luddite). Would you tell me your personal reason(s) why you decided not to have a mobile phone?

Even though later than most others in my surrounding, still, I eventually had a mobile phone. I'm very much into technology and science and there is no lack of money for a mobile phone.

In fact, I do have a device people call a mobile phone, however, I don't use the cellular network. I don't even have a sim card. It's virtually a PDA.

The reason for me to not use the cellular network is threefold. First, I like how one spends more time with the immediate vicinity if there is no way to digitally reach out. Second, I disagree with the widespread collection and storage of connection and location data. I feel nobody has the right to make a social graph of me or track my location. Third, and most important, I want sovereignty about the machines I own. That requires a level of openness in hardware and software which available mobile phones don't have.

I wish it was like that here.

Good for you! Is there any reason for this?

Interesting. Is it that showing is looked down on in Germany ?