I did that for three years and regret it. I realize now that I should have just shaped my use to fit my needs: unfriend or unfollow people I don't care to follow, write more messages rather than scrolling through the newsfeed, and join events and groups more deliberately.

Now I actually use it to keep in touch with people I care about, rather than just pretend that's what I'm doing.

I missed out on some things during my three years with Facebook off, and although I learned so much from having done it, I wouldn't do it again.

This exactly. I deleted my Facebook years ago, and everyone about whom I care communicates with me via iMessage (short), Skype, and email--which in my view are the simple, not too problematic originals. My family, spread across two coasts of the US, and Eastern Europe actually has email threads going in which we keep up with each other, share findings, and make fun of one another.

> and you can get drunk with your friends without your aunt knowing.

Unless your friends are on facebook. If that's the case then there's some second-hand facebooking/instagramming that you have to be aware of.

Real friends don't care if you are on Facebook or not.

I think he meant that evidence of your drinking might still show up on Facebook, especially if those photos are tagged with your name.

I may be wrong, but unless your aunt was then browsing your friends posts / was following those friends, she wouldn't see those photos.

True but, all the same, drunk/stoned people equipped with phones are very dangerous for your privacy. They are actually dangerous whether they are drunk or sober, especially if they are clueless about Facebook's privacy settings.

Mine are set in such a way that you can't add me as a friend if you're not already friends with a friend of mine. If we then are friends, you can't post anything to my wall nor can you tag me in any way without my consent. Granted, the picture will still be there (and possibly visible by anyone if it was posted by one such clueless individual), but then again deleting your Facebook account won't magically erase all the pictures you appear in either.

The actual problem is that any idiot has a smartphone and a Facebook or Instagram account. And they take pictures. And post them.

There doesn't need to be any aunt following your friends. A cousin is more than enough. And there are countries where related families tend to be scattered over a relatively small area, so having friends in common between you and your relatives is but a rare occurrence.

I believe that if you are tagged in the photo (which resolves to a link to your account) then it is possible for that photo to show up in any of your Facebook friends' feeds (if your sharing permissions are too broad). However, once you delete your account I'm not sure if Facebook scrubs all those linkages.

I know, I'm not on facebook and my friends either text or call to let me know about anything. @infinite8s explained what I meant.

What do you mean "pretending"?

I unfollow or block assholes, but there is a whole world of folks I keep up with ranging from distant relatives to musicians I played a one off gig with.

These folks are about as good friends as the people at local businesses I know well enough to say "hi, how's your daughter" or whatever.

I don't have to be radically intimate with people in order to count them among my friends. It's a scale, and it comes and goes based on how we interact. But it's not pretense.

I would do this but sadly I was dumb enough to use it with OAuth in numerous places

Maybe this isn't a great solution, and I haven't tried it, but you could defriend everyone, and set your privacy settings so nobody can see or find you. For most purposes, you'd cease to exist on Facebook.

Why is this a problem?

It means deleting your Facebook account will also prevent you logging into those other services. I had to delete a Spotify account and start over after I initially signed up via a Facebook login.

(I should note that the Spotify staff were amazingly helpful and actually migrated me over to an email-login account when asked.)

That's because you used FB to register instead of creating your own account. I suggest doing that in future, and use a password manager.

At one point Spotify were requiring users to link their accounts to Facebook. http://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-no-longer-requires-face...

Ouch. Big reason not to register.

SyneRyder's post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11569891) was specifically adduced to demonstrate the dangers of logging in with Facebook, and mentions that doing so was an accident, so explaining the dangers and suggesting that he or she not do it again seems patronising.