My new relationship with Facebook

I've been a Facebook user for 15 years. A daily user. If I'm honest, more like an hourly user. It didn't feel like it was ruling my life or anything -- if I had other stuff to do, I'd do that, but when I was between stuff, I'd quick check on what my friends are up to.

On October 18th, I tried to log in and was told that my account had been disabled. There was a link to a page where I could supposedly appeal, but that page just told me to log in to do the appeal, which I couldn't do without being routed back to that page. It was frustrating to say the least.

Anyway, I started carving out a new life without Facebook. I'd been playing with the idea of giving it up for a couple of years, so it was sad that I was gone, but also kind of a relief. And then I noticed that I was happier. I had no idea what asinine thing my politicians said and did. I didn't know which company enacted a new policy that I should hate them for. They made me free of all that...I guess Paul would call it sleaze. (He's been using that word a lot where I am in the podcast.)

Three weeks later, out of habit, my wife "tagged" me in a post she made and it let her! My account was back. No warning or notice, just like when they disabled it. I have no idea what's up with that or whether they'll do it again.

So now I'm facing having to figure out what role that site plays in my life. it's been six weeks or so and I've logged into Facebook something like every four or so days. I deleted it from my phone when I thought I no longer had access, and I haven't reinstalled it. I did log in and post an update about what was happening and made sure all my friends have my email address. And occasional "this is what's going on in my life" updates. But I don't really have the urge to check it all the time. I would never have guessed leaving my overuse of it would be that easy. Mostly, I sort of slipped into living there gradually and accidentally and now I don't trust that they won't jerk me around at random -- I know for sure that's a thing that can happen. And it's a shame not to keep up with my friends. I sort of wish I could just pay $100 per year so that I was the customer instead of the product.

Anyway, I'm just sharing this thing I went through.

I have had a certain amount of hassle from several of my friends over the fact that I am *not* nor ever was, signed up for Facebook.

Considering how that makes me beyond an outlier into someplace like Martian territory, it makes me worried a little that it would actually raise a red flag if anyone ever decided to "check my record".

Jay Angler wrote:I have had a certain amount of hassle from several of my friends over the fact that I am *not* nor ever was, signed up for Facebook.

Considering how that makes me beyond an outlier into someplace like Martian territory, it makes me worried a little that it would actually raise a red flag if anyone ever decided to "check my record".

Permies is the only thing I've ever participated in like this. I too have thought about this becoming a problem whenever I need to apply for anything. It would not surprise me if insurance companies are already using it in their scores. China is already using reputation scores. For what I don't know. It's all a bit creepy.

Hello Chris, I too have been banned from fb for supposedly violating community standards and not had access since early November.

However, my account hasn't been reinstated! I caved and opened another account but not bothered to rejoin any groups or contact any friends.

I have gone through the frustration of being told to appeal but not having any means of doing so in the app.

Fortunately, it has only been a personal account so I am not dependant on it for generating an income.

It has been annoying to have lost contact with many people that I have only communicated with via their messenging service and I do miss some of the special interest groups that I used to belong to.

I was also an admin on several special interest groups and whilst I occasionally mourn the loss of contact with a few of the individuals in those groups, I am finding that I do not waste as many hours scrolling through cute photos of dogs and watching mindless videos.

I do not miss the frustration of fb constantly pushing ads on my feed instead of updates from my actual friends and welcome the extra time in my day!

About 7 or 8 years ago I was a "heavy user" of facebook. I owned several very active local community groups and adminned a few others. It was useful for me professionally (profile, and keeping up on training) as well as personally (as a person who moves a lot, for keeping track of friends abroad, particularly). Then came our local election season, which was so politically divisive that everyone I knew had someone in their family that either wasn't talking to them or they weren't talking to-- including my own family.
I have never been shy about my persuasions and this caught the attention of some cyberbully, who sent me a private message detailing what sort of torture my daughter and I deserved for being "uppity women" with the nerve to have political opinions. Mentioned knowing our addresses and where the kid studies (all rather obvious for anyone who can use the internet) but then started spamming my husband's business with 1-star reviews.
I decided I was done with facebook and shut down my account within the week after I found new owners for the groups. A few people simply cannot communicate any other way, and I have lost touch with them. The rest, we have migrated to whatsapp or telegram or linkedin (which has become the new facebook for a lot of people). I do miss the local groups, which were a big part of my life, but I also spent ridiculous amounts of time on facebook. Now that gets poured into my business or garden instead.
I do think sometimes that a Facebook presence would be better for my business. On the other hand, I think I can count on two hands the number of jobs I got through facebook over all those years-- in terms of return on time invested, it was definitely a loss.

And Jay-- I recently applied for a job that asked for my accounts for various social media. No option for leaving blank. so much for that!

This topic prompted me to go over to Facebook yesterday where I spent an hour or so.

Maybe I will start going there more ...

Humorously, it had the same effect on me.

I gave up on FB when the tech bros started talking about our collective AI future and that they’d be  looking at all your personal photos and computer content whether you consented or not.  No thanks.  

I’ve got an account on a small federated social media site to talk to fellow craft/art hobbyists and other rock dorks, but it’s slow social media and I’m lucky if I’m on there once a week.  Heck, i’m lucky if I’m on here once a week.  I’ve got too much real life stuff to do to waste my time on popular social media platforms listening to my friends argue over whether target is woke or not woke enough.  I tell people to just stop by if they want to chat.