[current_call]

People are certainly talking about excessive social media use whether FB likes it or not.

The goal of propaganda is not to make people think a certain way; it's to get people to act a certain way. Entertainment is centered around consumption, not interaction. If I can get people who dislike something to read entertaining articles about how it's bad instead of going out and protesting or canceling accounts, then I've successfully suppressed dissent.

The solution to Facebook was already spelled out in the article. There just wasn't a call to action.

Facebook’s revenue, for example, is almost entirely a function of the number of minutes the average user spends per week engaging with the service. Reducing this by even 5 to 10% — by tamping down or eliminating some of Facebook’s most addictive features — would have a disastrous impact on the quarterly earnings of this $500 billion company.

Just stop using it and it will die. I don't. Why can't you?

[ck425]

I struggle mostly because it's where my friends put all their events and it's where my theatre groups organise rehearsals. That said I've deleted my news feed and try not to post, both of which have helped. But due to this I've missed out on a few announcements. On the plus side this had made me talk to friends more.

[elipsey]

I believe you are begging the question.

I don't use it either, but apparently lots of people still do. It seems like you're proposing that we should, in aggregate, spontaneously become more virtuous. How?

[current_call]

There's two ways of looking at it. One is with a sense of personal accountability. "If you use Facebook, then the first thing you should do is stop." A humorous example can be found here: http://observer.com/2011/12/in-which-eben-moglen-like-legit-...

Since you've done that, you have several options to change other people. You can evangelize. You can promote or design alternatives. GNU Social has been extremely successful. Running an instance would be an easy and educational way to help. You could write libraries for the newly specified social web protocols.

The important thing to remember is that it's okay to fail. It's better to be a hypocrite than apathetic.

[qplex]

The people I know who still use Facebook are doing it less and less.

What is holding them back are the friends who are not using any other social media.