[steveadoo]

Can't you just have Facebook and only use it for the events/photos? I've got a Facebook but never use it for posting/looking at other people's posts. Every now and then I'll get an invitation to an event which is really all I use it for.

[iamatworknow]

I do this as well. No app on my phone (including messenger) and I purposely only use the site in one browser on one device (Safari on my Macbook), and only check it maybe once per day. Added bonus is that Facebook isn't getting all of that tracking cookie info from me (or at least not as easily) since I don't use Safari for anything else.

[gnicholas]

I do the same thing (but more than once a day; sigh), but I still see creepy tracking ads. Recently I saw ads on FB for an item that my wife had been shopping for on a different computer. I'd be curious to know how they're making this connection — based on IP address, or using something like Drawbridge? https://www.drawbridge.com/

[iamatworknow]

Oh I'm sure they've got plenty of info on me and have their ways of collecting more. I used Facebook pretty regularly from 2005 to 2013 or so, so they know stuff about me I've long since forgotten (as evidenced by looking at some of my old posts from college...yeesh, don't ever do that unless you want to be embarrassed about what the you of 10 years ago was like).

[gnicholas]

Yeah I'm just curious how they're tracking my family in real-time across devices. And geez, what a way to ruin birthday/xmas/etc presents. I expect to see a preview of my father's day gift in the sidebar any day now....

[webtechgal]

> I'm just curious how they're tracking my family in real-time across devices.

With your help? The moment you declare (or any friend declares) a relationship in the profile, they 'have' you both.

[res0nat0r]

I've cut out Facebook without 99% of the hand wringing here. I just stop browsing the site.

If someone wants to talk to me I get a popup on my Messenger app on my phone, and if I get an event invite it shows up there too.

Problem solved.

[ocdtrekkie]

Indeed. You can have a Facebook account and just... Not use it unless you need it for something. All the benefits of the 'I deleted Facebook' crowd without the downsides.

[always_good]

Almost all of these quitting posts just read like people coming to terms with their addiction.

Good for them, but they seem to mistake it as some sort of universal lifehack.

[dsacco]

I'm looking forward to seeing this theme worked into n-gate's coverage of the thread next week.

[maksimum]

> Good for them, but they seem to mistake it as some sort of universal lifehack.

Does it have to be universal to be useful? Helping 0.01% of the US Facebook userbase save 1 hour every week is still huge...

[FabHK]

Facebook will still learn which websites you visit (provided they have the "like" widget) and what articles you read on the NYT, unless you use a good tracking blocker.

So, that's one downside, I think.

[mi100hael]

I run uBlock Origin everywhere and I rarely visit Facebook anymore. But when I do, I use a private window in a different browser.

[krrrh]

Additionally, on macOS you can use Fluid.app to create a Facebook-only browser with separate cookies, etc. Keeps it isolated from the general web. Do the same for google apps.

[ikeyany]

That requires self control and a resilience to peer pressure, things we are encouraged to devalue for the sake of "followers".

[wutbrodo]

FWIW, I've used Facebook for I think 11 years now and I've never once seen anyone refer to or even remotely care about friend count.

[ikeyany]

It's not necessarily the number of followers people obsess over, it's their validation.

[davidwparker]

This is exactly what I do. I use Facebook for a few "Close friends" that are across the world and I still like to know what they're up to.

There's a few communities that I'm in that I wouldn't even know about, event-wise, if I wasn't on Facebook. I can't imagine missing those- I'm surprised others don't use Facebook more for events.

As others have mentioned, I also use News Feed Eradicator, so I don't even see anything on Facebook, unless it's one of my close friends. It's fantastic, and my time on the site is probably less than 2 minutes/day.