Dropping social media -

JW77

I really was getting overwhelmed, & frustrated by FB in particular. FB's ONLY purpose really is to gather your data, and keep you clicking, earning the multibillionaire thousands by the second. Every second post is an advert, not from your friends but a clickbait to someones ticktock/ or advert that I'm REALLY not interested in.

So up until the new year, at least, I'm giving myself a complete break. My account is suspended by choice. I'm not checking several times a day/every time I pick up my phone..

And so far I'm not really missing it. People know how to reach me if they really need to or want to..

So, some time in January, I'll decide for good. If or not I leave FB..

charlie79

I was in a refuge for a long time. I learnt thr dangers through FB from staff due to the nature of our safety.

It's amazing how much info can be gathered. Any free platform like FB is free as you give permission for 3rd parties. That's how they able to do successfully with no fee.

ThEse parties pay facebook. Also any FB friends linked can sign up to things and your info without each others knowledge can be collected as data.

If you block soneone they can easily set up a new account and befriend one of your listed FB buddies through there likes.

It's like a demonic genealogy if in wrong hands.

I have an uncle who has abused children in his family and many others .

I found him on FB during covid. He had previously gone off face of earth years ago.

HHe Had gone on one of these schemes which government had in Scotland a programme to start a new and rehabilitation after prison.

He was on FB with 3 step daughters . All his victim he was sentence for were under 7 yrs old including his baby girl years ago and me as well.

The police were call to alert as he was a registered sex effendi. But due to his crimes being over 20 yrs ago and Internet not a way of life. The sentence would not have included this. It was a policy and procedure thing with fb . There's nothing could be done.

Fb was contacted and he is still on FB today. Something I'm glad I'm not on anymore. I will never do FB again

Littlefatfriend

Hi JW77

Facebook has made it's owners/investors huge amounts of money, it was always inevitable that it would end up conforming to the lowest of our common denominators. We respond more quickly to the sound of screaming than we do to laughter.

In the circumstance of all the hype currently available about AI taking over the world it gives me comfort that companies like Facebook spend many billions on AI aimed at attracting our interest, yet all that technology performs so poorly.

Their suggestions of what might interest me are so relentlessly bad that I've never really got the habit of browsing FB.

Similarly YouTube and TV stations constantly fail to guess what I might want to watch next, although my taste in music and videos doesn't change much.

I worked in digital marketing in the 90s and 00s and was often amazed by how effective such advertising is. It's genuinely remarkable. Cookies also make it easy for companies to join the dots between which ads people see which ads before they go on to buy those products. We could prove such links. That put marketing companies in the novel position of being able to directly demonstrate the effectiveness of their advertising. Loadsamoney all round!

TV adverts always at best irritated me as a child in the 80s, but they clearly worked sometimes. Sadly that was ever the way with capitalism.

My social media accounts don't include any accurate details about me, they're often in the names of my pets. Nobody who doesn't know me would be able to find me via those accounts, but my friends/relatives/etc who I have known in person know they're my accounts. That's just how I roll...

Lots of people leave social media for all manner of reasons, and it'll still be there if they return. Their primary purpose will always be to profit from us.

I only use it when it's useful to me. It's of no consequence to me because (as you wrote) we usually have other means of contacting the people we care about.

Good luck

Luke

Holly_Scope

This is refreshing @JW77. Sometimes I feel the same about social media and myself have cut down recently. 😊

Loumc48

so true . I was just looking at mine thinking that the ads have become more and more, as you say, every second post @JW77 .

The other thing that does annoy me is that friends posts are not in any date order so you end up seeing a post which may or may not be significant several days later !

Enjoy the break from it ! I may do the same !

Albus_Scope

I personally think having regular social media "holidays" is great for ones mental health. I try and take at least a week off from all social media once a quarter. Especially Facebook, as I find that's where most of the toxicity comes from now I've stopped checking Twitter (X) often. 😊

JessieJ

I don't have any social media accounts. Had FB years ago, only to play Scrabble with friends, that was removed for copyright issues. I was also a moderator & used to check emails of new sign ins. Checked one guy's & it led to FB, his email & password were on a hackers account, along with 1000s & 1000s of others. I informed him & he was shocked. I reported it three times to FB, along with fellow moderators & the guy did too & it was never removed, for all I know, the account may still be displaying new details of folk. The fact that it wasn't removed, I closed down my account, as I was totally disgusted.

BTW, have you ever Googled your email accounts? I do it every now & then, first time I did it, one email account with password appeared on a foreign hackers site, a prompt change was made. Have a Google & I hope yours doesn't come up.