Just stop using it? Delete your accounts, uninstall the apps, and stop being miserable.
I'm on HN and Bluesky. I have a Reddit account I can manually log into if there's something important (but I deleted my login credentials from my browser after the 2023 boycott and rarely post now). I wish I had access to Marketplace sometimes, but enough people still post to Craigslist. If you offered me some cash, equivalent to the amount I've overpaid for stuff because I didn't have Marketplace, to reduce my quality of life with the misery that Facebook once inflicted, I'd laugh in your face. I have no Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, WeChat, Twitter, or any of the rest.
Actual friends and family can keep in touch with me IRL, over SMS, by phone calls, or by email. Yeah, I have Signal and Telegram, but few contacts that use either. I have a Discord with a few servers, but I'm not on the mobile app - I intentionally only use it from my PC. Yes, there are a handful of organizations in my periphery which only post on Facebook Groups and which only communicate by Facebook Messenger, I'm out of the loop with those orgs, but most are understanding when I explain that I don't have Facebook. If I click a link to their pages and try to view comments or pictures, Facebook constantly advertises that I need to create an account because life's better on Facebook - but I know better.
Stop waiting for someone else to upend a trillion dollar industry that literally defines network effects and which isn't aligned with what's best for you. Disrupt your social media addiction yourself!
There will be a few weeks of adjustment as your brain struggles through withdrawal of the easy dopamine habit. Don't give in, when you recognize the impulse, just choose to do something better: go for a walk, read a book, volunteer with a local organization doing good work, pick up a new habit you can be proud of.
I'm someone who deleted my account back in 2010. I've lived life without Facebook, Instagram and it's been hell. I've been targeted with emotional sabotage for not having Facebook.
"You don't have Facebook?, well your a red flag" and that hurts when your trying to connect. I now look back and am I glad that no data of mine really exists on the platform.
My twenties and university I've missed out on parties, arrangements, opportunities for not having access to groups. Facebook forces you in to their walled garden; disallows & scalds you from sharing anything outside.
Shops use Facebook/WhatsApp and I am unable to access their pages. Should I boycott my local organic grocery store because of my own anarchy? Customer support for some large main-high street chains first point of call of contact is via WhatsAp, unhelpful if I need to chase up a refund.
My family only have a signal group only because of me. They all default back to WhatsApp, Instagram and the rest because that's where their contacts are. I have no right to tell them not too.
CraigsList isn't really thing here, Gumtree works, but not as efficient as market place.
Deleting your account leaves you heavily isolated and if you can deal with that; great. With doing so, you however miss out on a lot of stuff and receive not many perks in return. Other than your data isn't being combed to manipulate and poison others.
FOMO becomes real.
> Actual friends and family can keep in touch with me IRL, over SMS, by phone calls, or by email
My actual friends, live in the foreign countries so IRL isn't possible. SMS and Phone calls are expensive. I use a iPhone and they use Android. Apple/Android integration has only just become available but people don't want that.
I've tried to onboard them but the mindshare of what WhatsApp gives doesn't match those to of Signal or Element; it's seen as a chore. Discord has some things right and as much as I loathe it, it has been the "one-fits-all" but definitely not suitable for my 70 year old something mother.
It's a nice ideology "just delete" but it's flawed concept when the whole world uses the technology you're trying to escape from. MySpace was perfect and I didn't need anything else.
guess what, you're still a facebook user whether you use their platforms or not. This post shows a lack of understanding of how this company actually makes money.
I'm on HN and Bluesky. I have a Reddit account I can manually log into if there's something important (but I deleted my login credentials from my browser after the 2023 boycott and rarely post now). I wish I had access to Marketplace sometimes, but enough people still post to Craigslist. If you offered me some cash, equivalent to the amount I've overpaid for stuff because I didn't have Marketplace, to reduce my quality of life with the misery that Facebook once inflicted, I'd laugh in your face. I have no Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, WeChat, Twitter, or any of the rest.
Actual friends and family can keep in touch with me IRL, over SMS, by phone calls, or by email. Yeah, I have Signal and Telegram, but few contacts that use either. I have a Discord with a few servers, but I'm not on the mobile app - I intentionally only use it from my PC. Yes, there are a handful of organizations in my periphery which only post on Facebook Groups and which only communicate by Facebook Messenger, I'm out of the loop with those orgs, but most are understanding when I explain that I don't have Facebook. If I click a link to their pages and try to view comments or pictures, Facebook constantly advertises that I need to create an account because life's better on Facebook - but I know better.
Stop waiting for someone else to upend a trillion dollar industry that literally defines network effects and which isn't aligned with what's best for you. Disrupt your social media addiction yourself!
There will be a few weeks of adjustment as your brain struggles through withdrawal of the easy dopamine habit. Don't give in, when you recognize the impulse, just choose to do something better: go for a walk, read a book, volunteer with a local organization doing good work, pick up a new habit you can be proud of.