Facebook is a very good contacts app attached to a very good events app. The problem is that these things are attached to a massive surveillance advertisement network run by what appears to be a very shady company.

Since deleting FB of course I've missed out on some parties, and I've lost touch with a couple of people I only spoke to on Facebook. But the upside is that I'm no longer on Facebook and I think that's an extremely fair trade. If you're worried about it, slowly move your contacts onto another messaging service and have them contact you through there.

Personally, the upsides are much greater than the downsides. If I run into an acquaintance at a party it's actually a nice surprise, and I don't already know everything they've been up to since we last met, I have to ask questions to find out.

I deleted facebook years ago and I haven't missed it since and I've never felt like I'm missing out on anything.

I don't consider the hundreds of people that I had on facebook that I only met a couple of times a year to be my friends anymore. They're just acquaints at this point and I really have no interest in them or their lives or catching up with them just because we used to work together or used to hang out through mutual friends years ago.

We occasionally run into each other, we shake hands and exchange a few words and then part ways. However I know that I could pick up my phone right now and call a lot of them and they will be up for a coffee or lunch in the next few days but it's not like I would invite them over to my place for drinks, dinner etc for my birthday or some other celebratory reason.

I have a handful of people in my life that I would consider being my friends that I keep in touch with on a regular basis and I don't need facebook or any social media to maintain a meaningful relationship with them.

I agree with this and I think it has a lot to do with free time. In college, if I was asked to go to a party by an acquaintance, I'd probably say yes. Once I started working, getting into serious relationships, and adding more day responsibilities; the answer changed to no. I'm at capacity with how many relationships I can meaningfully maintain, but I'm happy with the ones I have. That's not to say the acquaintances don't have value or I don't like them. I'd just rather go to a tech talk or spend time on one of my hobbies than go to a social event without any of my core friends. It's not that I don't enjoy the social events, they just have fallen far lower on my list of priorities over the years.

I deleted Facebook almost one year ago and I didn't have any issue either.

I made a few Telegram and Viber groups with people I want to stay in touch with, and we invite each other this way to evenings out or parties.

I have Twitter to keep up to date with musicians or news websites, and LinkedIn to keep in touch with ex-colleagues.

IMHO who says "if they don't write to you they are not your friends" is a bit lazy, as you can have groups on IMs (Telegram, Signal, Viber) and stay off Facebook property without too many issues.

I have been on Facebook for a decade and can count on one hand the number of events I cared about that I was invited to on FB. Maybe this is because I'm "old" (late 30s). Or maybe some friend groups simply do not use FB in this way. Most events I'm invited to are via email, evite, or text.

That makes sense, I wonder if it is just a generational thing (late 20s). While I'm aware of evites, I've never received one, and my circle of friends seem to basically set up a Facebook event and then forget about it.

I don't think I've ever received an invite to a casual event over text/email/phone either, except in conversations of the "Hey, what are you up to?"/"Going to a party, want to come?" ilk.

I am also younger (mid 20s) and I've had my FB deactivated for several years now; I also don't have Instagram or Snapchat. I admittedly do use Meetup.com and its app. Initially, I deactivated FB because I felt it was an addictive time-sink (as Semaphor mentioned elsewhere). Now, I spend a lot of time wondering whether I should completely delete it, because I honestly don't feel like I'm missing much.

I just text everyone I want to talk to.

Maybe it's because I went to a decently sized high school (a little under 2000). Or maybe it's because I currently live in a large city (top 20 populated city in the U.S.) Or maybe it's because I'm an extrovert.

But I would probably be overwhelmed by the sheer number of events my social network would produce on FB. I already accompany friends to events thrown by friends of friends pretty frequently.

How often do you go to these birthdays of people you barely hang out with? The average person has like 300 friends on FB. The median number is about 150-200. That's a lot of birthdays.

Friends on facebook doesnt mean friends in real life. Most peoples circle is less than 50.

Me too - I'm 38, live & work in London, still go out 4 or 5 nights a week (especially weekends) and everyone I'm "friends" with runs their social life almost exclusively through Facebook, as do I, with the exception of dates and just catching up with friends on a 1-2-1 basis (99% of which is arranged via WhatsApp).

So if I left Facebook I'd either never know about any of what's happening, or everyone would have to go out of their way to invite me especially, which I don't see as a viable long term thing for me or for them, over time they would increasingly forget to invite me - I've seen it happen with others who've tried to leave and had to return to get back in the loop!

Plus even if I posted to say that I was leaving Facebook my post wouldn't be seen by everyone so they wouldn't know, and if I disabled my account the post would disappear altogether.

So I'm locked in for the foreseeable future out of social necessity.

PS - I've never heard of Evite, until I just realised I thought it was being used as shorthand for an electronic invite, not an actual website.

I'm younger (early 30ies), I've never even heard of evite, I've probably gotten one e-mail invite in my life and haven't gotten a text invite pretty much since FB became open for everyone. A few invites arrive via snailmail, but the vast majority of invites are on FB. And that's not even mentioning public events, what do you do, look through all clubs and bar websites individually when you want to go out?

Never heard of Evite, that's incredible! I didn't realize that 5 years could make that big a difference. As for clubs and bars, I have a 4-year old so not hitting those much. But even before that, I never "liked" businesses on FB anyway, for privacy/tracking reasons.

I would think that this is more a cultural thing. Evite seems US-focused or at the very least English-only. While I use FB in English, I know most of my friends use it in German.

Evites aren’t very flexible though; one of the very useful features of facebook events is for organizing the members, e.g. “what are people bringing to the potluck?” “Does anyone have food restrictions?”

Evites have comments also. But I will say that the last time I used evite, the message went to the spam folder for several gmail users. Next time I'm going back to email!

It’s more than just comments - usually stuff like this is organized in the form of a pinned poll with a comments thread below. As people add comments they also change their poll selection. So you end up also having a real-time view of what people are bringing as well as an audit trail.

You could have the same thing in an email thread if you linked a spreadsheet in an email, but people are less likely to keep both in sync because the things are in two different contexts. And even so, what would you use? Google Apps? That’s just trading one data-hungry overlord for another.

Since we have so many examples of age and usage...

I'm 40. For me it depends on who is sending the invite. My wedding invites about 4 years ago were via email with a bespoke RSVP website (my first foray into react.js). 150 out of 180 people showed up from around the country of ages ranging from the upper-teens through the upper eighties. We shared the photos via Facebook (with links to S3 for originals if anyone wanted them)

My older friends and family (50+) send evites if they're savvy or call.

Most of my friends and family who were born / raised / never-left Chicago aren't even on Facebook unless they run a business that does well to promote there (tattoo artists, for example). For them, it's text, pre-announced phone calls, and drop-ins. The rest are like...

My friends and family from NYC, Austin, Seattle, and elsewhere who are within a decade of my age generally use facebook for larger events and text for smaller ones. Sometimes email. Sometimes a whatsapp group. It changes often.

This past NYE was at a bar in Indianapolis and we were invited by way of an SMS with a link to the Facebook RSVP (and ticket purchase) page. It was a 90s night, so I suppose that places the age group.

The people I know under 30 or so stopped inviting me to things after I got married. Their loss; we still like to party.

So... many many ways. I don't love facebook, but if everyone's using it, I suppose I can live with it.

If more than a few people I. Your group are not on Facebook people will invite using alternate means because otherwise they won’t be there, of course. That’s the network effect.

You (and me FWIW) both do this:

> I've never really scrolled through the frontpage, I don't look at people's posts and photos

Most people who tell everyone they are so happy they deleted facebook were for some reason or another not able to do that. For them, it was an addiction. So I'd guess getting rid of their addiction is simply more important than events.

The problem is that those posts never come straight out and say that they are about an addiction.

>The problem is that those posts never come straight out and say that they are about an addiction.

Good to see I'm not the only one thinking that. I have started to see posts with "here is how I quit Facebook and why you should to" as an alcoholic telling "here is how I quit drinking and why you should to". I like having a beer or two in the weekends and like to use 5-10 minutes in the mornings to scroll through the frontpage of Facebook, both of them are not harmful in any way. Getting problems because an addiction is something totally different and not a problem most have

> and I'd feel my life diminished if I didn't have them

That's a bit drastic. You would probably see a few of them more, and a few of them less. People managed relationships just fine before facebook.

Also events will still get to you though the contacts you do keep, did you know so&so got married, etc. People love sharing information (or gossip).

I get the fear, I faced it myself but in my case deleting FB, improved my life.

I do use whatsapp though.

I'm not suggesting it would mortally wound me, just what I said - it'd be a little worse.

I'm aware people managed before, but things have changed. I was just responding to a person talking about the myriad ways they get invited to things. Those simply don't happen to me. Everything is Facebook.

Marriages aren't really what I'm worried about (if I'm being invited to a wedding they're presumably the sort of friend who'll contact me directly) - it's the "Hey, it's my birthday, let's go down to the pub and knock back a few" sort of things.

I'm not afraid. If I were told tomorrow that I could never use Facebook again I'd be just fine, but I actually don't want to lose those things. I'm not really looking for head-patting, but people's experiences and whether/how they preserved those relationships.

Blimey, you've made me realise that without knowing about and then going to a Facebook event of a not-great friend I never would have met my husband.

I agree that the low friction (and also low expectation) invites for Facebook events are a really great feature.

That's how facebook onws you and keeps you from leaving: fear of missing out.

AFAIK most people who removed facebook from their life got an improvement out of it and fromt he feedback some of them gave, they did miss a few of those events but it did not matter much to them and the others they got invited or learn about through their newly rebuilt social links and did not miss.

I tried, and ended up losing contact with pretty much all of my family. Facebook is so deeply integrated with their daily lives that they consider e-mails, phone calls and SMS'es to be an unneccesary hassle.

After a while I had to get a new Facebook account, because people kept messaging my wife over messenger, asking her to forward the messages to me.

This. When you try to tell people this, especially here on HN, they say "well, people should just change to suit you or they're not worth contacting". The arrogance of the technically minded can be astounding; it took ten years to get our acquaintances on Facebook, they're not going to change just because we say so.

Sure, you won’t get passively invited to things, but if you regularly are keeping in touch with people they will invite you to things anyway.

That's the problem: pretty much everyone I know -- including my mother, who started claiming I was hard to get hold of when I asked her to call instead of messaging my wife on Facebook -- stopped keeping in touch. Most people I know simply don't want to talk over the phone, send SMS'es, or use emails ("email is for signing up to various services and resetting passwords").

how to become a social recluse 101: miss a couple of these facebook events, start getting known as an awkward anti-social person because you went to someone's launch event but not to their birthday party(coz bday invites only go out on facebook,no email or other discussion except maybe a text asking you where you are day of,hour of when you can't re-schedule another commitment)

Congrats, now you don't get invited to any of that person's events. Repeat until you only goto close friends events(who also start excluding you from invites because of accidental snubs)

With 'friends' like that, being a recluse sounds like a far better option. They sound like the kind of people who would think they are going to these events to 'network'.

Sounds like some pretty vapid people you’re referring to. Any social connections worth having are to people intelligent enough to understand that not everyone lives on Facebook.

Your friends don't sound like very nice people

My local friends just don’t use events. I don’t think I’ve been invited to an event on Facebook that wasn’t mass 300+ person spam in the past 5 years. If it’s someones birthday coming up, I’ll get a text and find out what bar we are going to. If it’s a professional event, I’m getting an email about it. I don’t see what the events page covers beyond these mass mailer commercial events that I’m going to ignore anyway. For things happening around town that are actually interesting, there’s always the city subreddit.

Agree that it's the biggest hurdle to overcome. I did delete facebook and I'm sure I miss out on some events as a result.

To your specific concern about meeting up with folks who "aren't that great a friend" - my solution has been the one-on-one coffees and it forces me to be much more mindful about who/how I reach out to.

I think catching up can be fun though. It doesn't need to be pressure filled if you're genuinely curious about what's happening in someone else's life, because we are all trying to do our best and that looks really different for different people.

Getting together with folks allows you to see how other people approach it if you ask questions.

This just got a lot more meta than Facebook, but hopefully there's something here that's helpful :)

> but that's my point - they're not, but they're people I like and I like to see them a few times a year

That's actually a very, very good point! I deleted my account about two years ago and that's probably the biggest downside. Not grave enough though to make me come back.

The youth group I was in used facebook extensively for its groups, pages, chat, and event features. It's honestly incredible for running an organization

I deleted facebook and made a newsletter much like the poster described, a little over a year ago.

For me, part of the motivation for removing facebook was removing the relationship load (for the lack of a better term), which categorizes the types of people you're describing. I'm sure people are different here, but I personally get plenty of exposure from non-core relationship from other sources (instagram(facebook 2.0 lol), twitter, etc.). The cost of keeping facebook just for those types of people didn't make sense for me.

I anticipated losing events to be a big deal, but it's worked out (maybe ignorance is bliss and I'm just missing out on everything).

If you can get emails every time you get an event, you could cease logging into Facebook and have them email you. Of course if they ever get rid of such emails that'd be pretty damn horrible. I always hear this about events, I guess I'm not in such a circle, every time I get invited to an event through Facebook it's never something I actually want to go to or people I want to hang out with. I try to only add people I don't mind seeing in real life, and mostly family.

There's only ever been like one event I was interested in and I just didn't have time to go to it, and it wasn't by any of my friends.

I feel like this is a cultural thing too, I'm Puerto Rican, and we just start calling everybody over the phone left and right when we have events. When I got married, my mom RSVP'd everyone over the phone practically.

I really want to see a social media type of site that does what G+ tried to do unrelated to any major social networking company (or advertising firm) that lets you have "circles" and have events, but somehow makes money without ads or selling anybody's data.

I have deleted Facebook before, so it doesn't phase me to stop logging on to it, I only keep it for family, but I may find myself replacing it with my own personal blog, and letting everybody know if they need me they can email me and my life updates will be on my personal blog instead.

This is exactly what makes Facebook so dangerous. Because so many people are blindly following it, it makes it hard to leave. Network effects are strong and make Facebook immensely powerful, and it is never good when any company wields such power.

Also, I think this is also politics. It's not good when people basically force you to use Facebook, otherwise you'd be cut off mostly. A change is impossible when some people aren't taking a stand.

Not really sure how to answer this because I am not sure how old you are. But your birthday example seems rather silly. Typically people either have big parties in which case one of your close friends will let you know there is a big party via text or WhatsApp as you say. This mimics exactly how Facebook works. Most of the time, a friend invites you to a big event, not the host. Otherwise, they don't want you at their private birthday dinner.

> Most of the time, a friend invites you to a big event, not the host.

Pretty much never had this happen to me. It's the host who invites and invites are sent via FB usually.

I'm curious, if you don't mind sharing, what age range are you? In my undergrad (5 years ago), big events with 100s of people were just mass invites. I never had big events like that out of not wanting to trash our house. The parties we had were around 50ish people and the only convenience that Facebook provided was less clicks to invite everyone. It also had the benefit of reminding people continuously what their Friday night plans are. I'm just struggling to understand the host that is unwilling to invite you because of a text message requirement but still judiciously picks which friends to invite via Facebook.

32. I never went to events with 100s of people.

Birthday parties are usually 10-30 people and invites are sent to, for example, school friends, many of whom you see maybe once a year if that much because you now live in different cities or even different countries.

Events are also wonderful for making new friends too. Its extremely low friction for someone you don't know very well to invite you to a party, you go then you get to know them better (or the other party guests). Someone who otherwise wouldn't know your contact info. I wouldn't have some of the good friends I have now without these sorts of casual interactions.

I've also reconnected with childhood friends through Facebook.

It’s a valid concern, but I couldn’t contribute to that unethical company any longer. I held on for a while but deactivated last month. It will be deleted beginning of February.

Also, if anything, I had noticed fewer people using Facebook for anything over the past few years, including events.

I don't get how so many replies to this comment completely miss the point and just say what you addressed...

It's not just somewhat-distant friends and/or family.

I've lost the count of how many local events I've subscribed and went to: flea markets, farm fairs, shop and cafe openings, celebrations, sales, hikes, hobbyist meetups, the list just goes on.

It's much much much easier for people to setup and coordinate events of almost any size through Facebook events. Nothing else comes even close. It's also incredibly easy to share and invite other people (within the FB platform/ecosystem of course).

My events are all organised through WhatsApp now (yes, it’s FB, but could be another messaging app I guess).

Most folk say 'deleting Facebook' then come back a few weeks later. Usually attention seeking.