[yawz]

Well... As someone who has moved to various countries and across continents a few times over the last three decades, I can hardly find another medium that allows me to keep up with friends and family across many countries and time zones easily.

Before Facebook I created and/or used e-mail aliases, e-mail groups, forums, file hosting services, etc. to share our story with friends and family. Facebook makes it much simpler.

I don't use it extensively. I don't play games on it. I don't even connect to it every day. And I would stop using it if I had a good alternative.

[jsemrau]

Well, I moved over the last years across several time-zones and continents. There are people that I knew back then and lost contact now. Do I care if they got babies, found a new job, like/dislike Trump, or are doing Toga on the beach ? No, I don't. I moved away. Having that knowledge does not make my life better or worse in any way. I can get the illusion that we are still in contact, but in reality I will never move back to these places. So why should I care?

[yawz]

Sounds like you didn't care about them in the first place. I'd like to think that friendships and love (not necessarily romantic love) survives the distance.

Having said that, I totally get that one may not necessarily want to know what a friend had for lunch, for example :).

[bduerst]

This is what I don't get about the dichotomy of either quitting facebook or letting it run your life. Can't people just use fb minimally without it absorbing everything they do?

I login probably once a week at most, and only check messenger if someone pings me on it. It's not difficult, so why are so many people advocating deleting accounts to improve their lives?

[yawz]

Totally! That's close to how I'm using Facebook normally. I don't even have Messenger on my mobile devices.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

How about letters via snail mail? It's a lot more personal, since you have to set aside some time to sit down and read/write the letters without the all of the distractions Facebook presents to you, and you're able to filter it to the subjects that are important to you rather than a constant stream of thought from everyone you know.

[bluGill]

That would work for my parents. It means my second cousin and I exchange "Christmas cards" and no more which leaves a lot out.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

You have almost 9,000 hours in a year. Surely you can find time in them to write to your second cousin.

[yawz]

How long does it take to write a 2 page letter? I'm not even talking about preparing the mail, posting, etc. I'm in software development, just like yourself, and I can probably type many times faster than I can write.

I think you're being too romantic about the good old snail mail. ;)

[Sir_Cmpwn]

You can write snail mail with a text editor on a computer and print it off...

[yawz]

(replying at this level, because HN seems to have a depth limit for nested messages)

Drew, I think I understand where you're coming from. But as stated earlier on, I don't even connect to Facebook daily, let alone spending hours on it.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

You didn't answer my question, though. I didn't expect you to write letters daily either. How does the amount of time you spend on Facebook compare to the amount of time you could see yourself spending writing letters?

[yawz]

I prefer not to repeat myself and spend that time for more happy memories ;).

[Sir_Cmpwn]

How many hours per week do you spend on Facebook instead of making "happy memories"?

[Symbiote]

(I downvoted you for excessive repetition. You have posted 17 times in this thread, mostly antagonistically, without saying much new.

That's even less useful than the time I spent on Facebook this evening :-)

[yawz]

This is hardly practical :), let alone slow and expensive with all the pictures printed etc.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

Of course it's practical! How do you think people kept in touch before the internet? How difficult is it to write up a letter, put it in an envelope with a stamp (which you can pick up at the gas station, grocery store, etc) and drop it in your mailbox?

Printing pictures is only a few bucks, and as a side effect the recipient can easily frame it and put it on their hearth!

[yawz]

Seriously?!? Would you write that letter to dozens of people in 3 different languages? Or should I pick "only one" of my aunts and uncles to share my son's first school day pictures? Or maybe we can create a human chain where one sends the letter and pictures that he/she receives to the next one in line. (hmm... maybe there's a business idea there...)

[Sir_Cmpwn]

You're used to pushing information to them with a firehose. Use a bucket instead. Send letters out infrequently, one per household.

[enjdbsgaga]

This assumes the recipients have consistent addresses, and requires significant additional time and labour. Why would he drop Facebook in favour of snail mail, when e-mails (a more convenient version of the same thing) provided an inadequate solution for him in the past?

You can put just as much time and thought into an email as you can a letter. Technology is not the issue here, merely etiquette.

[yawz]

Instead of writing letters, I guess I prefer to have hobbies.

[paulcole]

How many handwritten letters do you send?

[Sir_Cmpwn]

I never said handwritten. I send printed letters every month or two.

[yawz]

Why would you print a typed letter and send it by mail instead of e-mailing? Waste of resources, if you ask me, and pretty expensive depending on the country you're sending it to. Good for USPS, though.

A typed letter is not more personal than e-mail, I'm afraid.

[Torwald]

You can use a blog.

[yawz]

I blog for other things: technology and book reviews. But it is too public for personal stories that I share with friends & family.

[Torwald]

you are a hacker. you can have a blog with privacy settings.