[thenerdhead]

I've found myself between deleting, deactivating, and moderating my use of these apps for many years of my life.

I never found deleting or deactivating to be very helpful. At some time or another you're going to need said account for something.

While deleting is a bit extreme, some of these services will respect the actual deletion and others will not. I suppose the question at the end of the day is...why bother?

I've found it much more easy to "declutter" by following digital minimalism practices of getting rid of apps, only using browsers, practicing mindfulness of said platforms, and only using said platforms with a specific intention.

There's a laundry list of tips you could use to make social media harder to use or even more bearable, but the most effective approach I've used is simple moderation and mindfulness.

Also why is Mozilla writing articles about this? I get the privacy angle, but aren't they also willing to put ads in front of people and other partnerships sacrificing that privacy for users? Like how does Mozilla make money outside of Google search engine being the default? I do know they lay off many of my friends who work on dev tools or even mobile apps there(i.e. browsers).

[toastercat]

> At some time or another you're going to need said account for something.

Nope for almost all of these. Different strokes different folks.

> Facebook Nope. Haven't had one for more than 10 years now. So easy to live life without a FB account. I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble.

> Instagram Used it for maybe 10 minutes in 2013, haven't touched since.

> Snapchat Same as Instagram, but in 2016.

> Tiktok Same as above.

> Spotify I listen to music on my harddrive.

> Venmo Still using Paypal since 2012.

> Twitter Nope, in fact my life has been significantly improved since I've not had an account. I use Nitter when I want to read a Twitter thread.

Amazon and Google are the only ones that I find very hard to avoid, but Google has gotten increasingly easy to avoid as alternative services are popping up.

[belval]

> I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble.

You are a counter-example for sure, but this means that you don't have a group chat platform to plan coordinated events with your friends? Maybe it's an age thing, but getting my friends in a call at a given time to organise a social event is probably as hard as organising the event itself. Compare with Facebook/Messenger/Whatsapp where everyone is in a group chat I can just write "Anyone wants to have dinner at my place this Friday?".

[toastercat]

> You are a counter-example for sure, but this means that you don't have a group chat platform to plan coordinated events with your friends?

Signal, Text Message, and most importantly and most universal, E-mail. I've coordinated Secret Santa events purely by email for the past 5 years.

[scruple]

Friends? What friends?

More seriously... My wife has friends that she sees pretty regularly, because we still live in her home state near where she grew up, but I really don't. I'm not sure what they use to organize but I do know that it isn't Facebook or WhatsApp.

I have a couple of friends that I keep in touch with over text but we aren't a group of friends. One of my friends does have a large friend group and I happen to be in a group MMS because of him. But it's not a place where events are organized because his friends are also scattered all over the country.

I use Discord for the group that I play DnD and video games with but, again, we're scattered all over the country. Only one of them is nearby.

[throwawayboise]

How this used to work: You invite your friends to dinner, with enough lead time that they can avoid making other plans. They accept, or decline.

[tomtheelder]

I just use text message group chats, and so do most people I know.

[bombcar]

Telegram or slack or discord or even iMessage or SMS can provide group chat.

It can make it even easier, especially if you have various groups you interact with on different platforms.

[DangitBobby]

Some events or even companies don't have a website, they just have a Facebook page that you have to be logged in to visit. Also, if your family uses Facebook, they will interact with each other on it whether you are there or not.

[toastercat]

> Some events or even companies don't have a website, they just have a Facebook page that you have to be logged in to visit.

I really have not experienced this, but the several times I've had to interact with a company without a website, phone works wonders and is often quicker.

> Also, if your family uses Facebook, they will interact with each other on it whether you are there or not.

I really don't see the issue here unless you have a terribly unhealthy sense of FOMO.

[warner25]

I see it mostly with very small businesses and government offices, especially in small towns or rural areas. Years ago, they might have employed someone part-time to maintain their domain name, server or hosting service, website, etc. Then it became free and much easier to just create a Facebook page, and any layperson in the office can manage it as the social media coordinator. Sometimes they still have a real website, but it hasn't been updated in years. All the recent and relevant information is on their Facebook page.

There was an item on Hacker News a few months ago about the crisis of water contamination at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. As commented on that item, I was there. For a while, a couple Facebook pages were the only sources of timely information for affected residents. All the town hall events, in which US Navy and Army officials answered questions, were streamed live on Facebook, and being logged into a Facebook account was the only way to ask a question if you couldn't attend the town halls in-person (which had limited seating due to COVID). It was probably two weeks before they started putting all the information onto an official non-Facebook web page after people complained about this (during the Facebook town hall events, on behalf of friends and neighbors without Facebook accounts).

[ryandrake]

People have a really weird definition of "need". Nobody needs Facebook. A handful of things might be moderately more difficult without Facebook, but not impossible. I bet if Facebook started charging $1000/hour to use, people would suddenly find it is in fact not really a necessity of life and would somehow find an alternate way to contact their families.

[warner25]

If Facebook started charging $1,000/hour to use, all these entities (including government offices... for me, it's not about my family at all) that have de facto chosen to conduct all their public-facing business on Facebook over the past few years would reverse course, and then we really could ditch our accounts with no problem. Let's hope.

[DangitBobby]

Really it's difficult to say you "need" much more than a cardboard box and a supply of food and water.

[DangitBobby]

Why are you calling them, texting them, visiting them, or keeping in touch at all? Must be an unhealthy sense of FOMO!

[toastercat]

Hilarious! But I frankly see a big difference between having a 1-on-1 conversation with someone, and always being able to see what conversations people are having with each other every minute of the day via Facebook feed.

[klabb3]

> Venmo

The fact that venmo is on this list is hilarious, but yes it is deserved. It's genuinely exciting to see where the limit of shameless growth hacking is, if there is any. Will there ever be a dialysis machine that invites all your friends?

[johannes1234321]

What really helped me was getting rid of the app and distracting my muscle memory. It was weird to realize how often I was looking at the screen in search for the icon when I was otherwise idle. Once the habit to fill empty time with those was broken life was better. (less "stupid" posts on my mind, more enjoying the outside by looking up instead of the screen etc.)

And once in a while I unfortunately "need" Facebook: Restaurants having current info only there etc. and each time I'm happy not to waste time there anymore

[incongruity]

> What really helped me was getting rid of the app and distracting my muscle memory. It was weird to realize how often I was looking at the screen in search for the icon when I was otherwise idle.

This, 100%. I went dry for January and included social media in that. Deleted apps on 1/1 and still find myself occasionally instinctively going to where they were - much less often now, but it was startling at first.

[mtzaldo]

In Android you can now pause apps, which helps to reduce the social media consumption.

[micromacrofoot]

they’re all legally obligated to actually delete your data, feel free to cite the ccpa or gdpr, they’d rather delete the data than contest your residency

you don’t actually need the accounts for anything, I deleted all of mine and felt the same way at first… but 3 years in and I have zero doubts that i’m better off without them, should have done it sooner