[notacoward]

> how disposable do you view people to just up and remove them out of your life

I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy. "Just get new friends" is definitely callow, but muting someone for a while on Facebook isn't the same as shutting them out of your whole life forever. I have a cousin I follow about half the time. He's usually positive and funny and I love to see what he's up to, but sometimes he gets on a really bitchy tangent about his job so I unfollow for a week or two while he and his flight-attendant friends talk about what inferior beings we passengers are. I'd never unfriend him, because I value the connection FB helps us maintain. Sometimes a bit of distance is part of maintaining the health of that relationship. Similarly, my "new friends" are often just humor/meme pages that help me get through my own difficult times. Curating my feed works. Telling people that it might work for them isn't at all the same as telling them to get new friends.

How disposable do you view people to just up and remove a connection to all of them because you don't want to take responsibility for your own experience on a site?

[redefineminimal]

> How disposable do you view people to just up and remove a connection to all of them because you don't want to take responsibility for your own experience on a site?

Because I know a site isn't the only way to connect with those individuals. I didn't really interact with them much on the site to begin with. Said site has other exterior issues attached to it such as tracking and potential employers invading my private life. Ultimately the site has little to nothing to offer for me.

It's not about viewing humans as disposable. It's viewing and understanding that a website is a thing and in itself it is disposable after it no longer fulfills a purpose.

[notacoward]

> Because I know a site isn't the only way to connect with those individuals.

Thank you for helping me illustrate the false dichotomy. The great-grandparent didn't seem to be allowing any space between full engagement and full disconnection. In reality, there are levels of connection. At my age I have family and friends scattered all over the world, some of them still moving to new cities every other year. I have friends from a ski club and a family camp who I will not see in person except during those respective seasons. Many others have similar networks. In terms of interactions per year with the entire set, "get new friends" and "leave Facebook" are in the exactly the same category. They're both ways of telling others to socialize less, to fit the speaker's own notions of right ways and wrong ways based on their own unique experience. I think that's presumptuous. Rather, I think we should help each other work with the tools we have to find something that works for our own individual circumstances. It's too bad other people are too doctrinaire to accept that.

[iamdave]

"Just get new friends" is definitely callow, but muting someone for a while on Facebook isn't the same as shutting them out of your whole life forever.

Maybe I've misunderstood what the implication was supposed to be-in lived experience when told "just get new friends" that suggestion very often stopped short of offering anything further like "use the snooze function" (which I'm already doing quite a bit) or other recommendations to better 'curate' the feed.

It very rarely feels like a recommendation to improve the experience and a call to action, instead to sever personal connections.

[notacoward]

> It very rarely feels like a recommendation to improve the experience and a call to action

If your friends are putting it that way, then get new ... oh, wait. KIDDING!

But seriously, I'm sorry to hear that. IMO the "unfollow" button needs to be more prominent, and its significance more clearly explained e.g. by a rollover tip. I find it incredibly valuable. Groups are handy too. I have one that's basically everyone but my religious family members, for when I swear or get political myself, and I use it quite a bit.

I'd also like an "equalizer" to turn certain topics up or down, but that's a lot harder.

[feocco]

You're not removing, just disabling. All connections are stored when FB is disabled. Better yet, messenger can persist without FB and stories are generally quality personal updates. Messenger is a great application.

I found curation of my FB feed was ineffective. Glad you've had luck though!

[debaserab2]

Hah, I like the implication that not being on Facebook somehow means you're willing to dispose all your friends.

[notacoward]

There's no such implication. It's just one connection to those friends, and that's clear from context.