6 years ago
12
I tried leaving Facebook. I couldn’t
Facebook is an emotional labor machine, and if you want to leave it, you’re going to have to start doing a lot of work
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https://www.theverge.com
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This was a well-thought-out article. For a long time, I had wondered why people who didn't like Facebook were still on it. I would wonder "Why not just quit?" This article explains the difficulty of doing so.
The article says that the extra work of making social connections in real life makes it hard to quit Facebook. Facebook allows people to have a network without as much effort. I find it hard to agree with that thought because I personally don't feel it's much effort making social connections in person. Then again, I don't know any different because I've never been on Facebook. Maybe I'd feel exactly like the author if Facebook was a large part of my life.
In fact, my current attitude is that I'd feel it was weird or creepy to sort of "know" someone on Facebook without knowing them in real life first. Again, I'm sure I'd feel differently if Facebook was the norm for me, but it's just not. Anyway, this is a good article that makes some interesting points and has had a lot of thought put into it.
I'm in a similar boat with you. I was on Facebook, but deleted my account twice. I only came back because there was a local disc golf group that was active and I wanted to know when they were playing. Once I spent enough time on there I remembered why I deleted my account in the first place. When the data breach happened that was the last straw for me. I find it interesting that people would rather trade their rights, privacy, and personal data for the facade of socialization.
Yes, so true that so much is done via Facebook groups. The article covered the fact that even some privacy-awareness groups are set up as a Facebook group - this seems like an oxymoron! I specifically haven't joined my local Linux User Group because it's run as a Facebook group. That setup also seems crazy to me, since I'd say there's a fair proportion of Linux users who are privacy-oriented.
I'm with you on this completely. I would agree that a Linux user that is into it enough to join a user group would be more likely to be privacy oriented. Regarding your first point I agree and would like to do something about it. I've been looking for a software project to work on and one that can replace a part of Facebook, such as event management, would be great. As the article mentioned there is more to Facebook than the combination of the features, but it's at least an alternative.
You know,we have a tiny Linux users group you might fancy:
http://linuxinternationals.org/forum/index.php
Hi, thanks, I checked out your Linux users group, it looks interesting. Thanks for sharing. What I was seeking though was more of a meet-up type of event for Linux users, not just online. I already belong to the forums for the distro I use, so that's where I tend to be for online Linux stuff. But, I did happen to find out last weekend that an acquaintance of mine (that I know in real life) is also a Linux user - she and I are on different distros, but we both use Linux. So that's one person I know in real life on Linux.
Some of the people have met up irl. Ladybug,(,now deceased) visited me once and e2 twice and Jim,I think twice. We have had meet ups in the Google Hangout and played poker..Anyway,I get what you mean.
Which distro? I'm an Arch diehard. :)
For me it's more about staying in touch with people I normally don't call or hang out with on a regular basis. I try and leave as little as possible about myself on there, but feel that even with minimal details I'm still giving away way too much. I guess it's a trade off in the end.
That makes sense, but I'm a pretty heavy introvert so anyone that is that low on my list to not have my phone number isn't someone I'll be keeping tabs on.
Agreed with what you said about it being a trade-off in the end. I have some friends who use it minimally like you do, and with privacy settings for exactly the reasons you said (and they even put on their profile they don't really check their Facebook much).
Yet, for me, the trade is not worth it, so for me I'd have to say I'm completely on one end of the spectrum. That being that any of the positives are not worth it to me for the privacy trade-off. If anyone really needs to get hold of me (friend of a friend or whatever), they know how to (e.g. my email address or via text message), or they can request these details from a mutual friend. Neither of which requires me being on Facebook.
Precisely my sentiment!