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by kerkeslager 3269 days ago
Why not just quit Facebook?
5 comments

For me, the reason is "Because there are people on Facebook that I want to communicate with".
I stayed for so long for that very reason. My usage went down so much, that the only time I logged on was to briefly look at the news feed (of which I hardly recognized anybody anymore. Just posts by peoples' friends of friends).

I decided to just cut it out and hope that I see those people again in real life. If not, then the road goes elsewhere. Feels a little more human.

>> Just posts by peoples' friends of friends

Yeah, I occasionally go through a lot of post and click "don't see any more stuff from MYCATS" or whatever. But it's gotten to the point where you just can't stop it that way either. I think "like" now means "see more crap from here" otherwise how would so many people be viewing so much junk.

I don't know any people around me that have facebook that don't have another way to be reached. So there is something else that makes you stay.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted.

I'm in a similar boat. That's just how a lot of people I know communicate. Sure they have other ways to communicate, but they don't want to.

There's a large number of people on Facebook that I interact with that I don't have email / sms / whatever for. There's also a non-negligible number that I'm happy interacting with on Facebook but not on anything more personal.
> There's a large number of people on Facebook that I interact with that I don't have email / sms / whatever for.

You can ask said email/sms/whatever. If the communication matters, you should have them anyway. If not, then those persons are not that important.

> There's a large number of people on Facebook that I interact with that I don't have email / sms / whatever for.

There you go ! Here is one of the other reasons that I stated before. Not the "those people I can only reach through facebook" bullshit.

> If the communication matters, you should have them anyway. If not, then those persons are not that important.

Oh, I'd agree they're "not that important" but that doesn't mean "...and therefore I should cut them out of my life."

> Not the "those people I can only reach through facebook" bullshit.

It's not "bullshit" just because you disagree.

That's true for me, too. But I can communicate with those people via other means and have found no downside to doing so. I've been Facebook- free for years now.
Preaching to the choir, it's our friends who need convincing!
But they don't need convincing for us to leave Facebook. My friends who have Facebook also have text, email, phone, and sometimes WhatsApp, Signal, and/or Telegram. AFAIK I haven't ever convinced anyone to leave Facebook, but that hasn't been a barrier to me leaving Facebook at all.
It's necessary for event planning, at least in my social circles.

For everything else, there's email, sms, and a half dozen other social networks.

Messenger is the default mode of social organizing among almost all my friends, because everyone has it. I barely ever touch Facebook proper these days.
Gosh quitting Facebook has become the new going vegan. Can everyone just mind their own business?
If you truly wanted people to mind their own business, getting them off facebook would be a great start.
Facebook is the new smoking, where many users complain about how it clearly negatively affects their lives and then when someone suggests quitting as a solution, random other users who weren't involved jump in to tell them to mind their own business.
That's a slippery slope and you know it.

Are you going to follow everyone who's harming themselves in any way (alcohol, drugs, food, [insert any other vice]...) to chide about their behaviors?

I'm not chiding anyone about their behaviors. brainfire was saying how they solve their problems with Facebook, and I suggested an easier solution.

Lots of people have problems with Facebook, and I was suggesting a solution to their problems which many people think is untenable, but works well for me. If you don't have problems with Facebook, my comments weren't directed at you.

There's some irony in jumping into someone else's conversation to tell them to mind their own business and stop chiding people for their behavior.

Because it provides a useful service- for the first five or so minutes of a visit anyway.