Why I deleted my facebook account

[highnote]

I have never trusted facebook and when I heard they want to work with banks to get access to their users financial info I had to draw the line. So I deleted my account. It's too bad because they did offer a convenient way to keep in touch with family and friends.

Today I saw this in my email box and now I figure you really can't trust any online site:

UK regulators fine parenting website Emma's Diary £140k ($180k) for illegally collecting and selling personal user data including names and addresses; the company sold the info of more than 1M users to a political party via an intermediary; the database was then used to target new mothers with direct mail - Link

Sad state of affairs.

[Inner Dirt]

No worries for me, I have never been on Facebook.

[highnote]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

No worries for me, I have never been on Facebook.

Good move

[thaskalos]

I enlisted on Facebook over a decade ago, didn't visit again for about a year...and consequently forgot my login information there. I haven't bothered to log on ever since. My life just isn't interesting enough to be reported to the minutest detail for a mass audience. Is ANYBODY'S?

[highnote]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I enlisted on Facebook over a decade ago, didn't visit again for about a year...and consequently forgot my login information there. I haven't bothered to log on ever since. My life just isn't interesting enough to be reported to the minutest detail for a mass audience. Is ANYBODY'S?

Mine used to be. Then I turned 35.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by highnote

Mine used to be. Then I turned 35.

"Like me on Facebook", I hear people say...and I weep for what our society has become.

[highnote]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

"Like me on Facebook", I hear people say...and I weep for what our society has become.

I liked keeping in touch with college classmates that I would otherwise have lost touch with. So on the one hand, without facebook I wouldn't have contacted them, but on the other the connection isn't that strong to begin with.

I went to Kent State and there are some good groups that discuss the May 4, 1970 shootings and other groups that post cool things about the punk rock music scene from the 70s and 80s. I lived through those things. Then I relived them on facebook. I guess I don't feel the need to keep reliving them.

What is needed is a site like facebook, but that is not instrusive.

I would rather pay $10 per year to join a facebook-like site without ads and intrusiveness than to pay nothing and be the product. If facebook would pay me enough to be a member and for using my personal info then I might consider joining up again. But what they offer is not equal to what they take. They're a bad bet.

The thing that is really sick is that the more intrusive they get the higher their stock price goes! Wall Street loves the fact they're getting in to personal finance.

[TJDave]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

No worries for me, I have never been on Facebook.

Worry. If you’ve ever shared information with a site that links to Facebook...they gotcha.

[thaskalos]

Everywhere I look, human robots are continually web-browsing on their phone as they go about their day-to-day lives. At the grocery store where I go to shop, people have one eye on their phone, and the other on the grocery shelves...and the same distraction predominates at the restaurants where I go to eat. It's as if everyone has simultaneously concluded that our "real world" has become too boring for us...so we have invented a "virtual world" to inhabit, in order to keep ourselves amused.

My own son, who is currently home from college, falls asleep with phone in hand and earplugs in place...as his friends buzz text messages to him into the wee-hours of the morning. I try to talk to him about the madness that he is falling prey to...and he looks at me as if I am speaking to him in an incomprehensible language. I am "behind the times"...he tells me.

If this is what we mean by "progress"...then I weep for the future.

[highnote]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Everywhere I look, human robots are continually web-browsing on their phone as they go about their day-to-day lives. At the grocery store where I go to shop, people have one eye on their phone, and the other on the grocery shelves...and the same distraction predominates at the restaurants where I go to eat. It's as if everyone has simultaneously concluded that our "real world" has become too boring for us...so we have invented a "virtual world" to inhabit, in order to keep ourselves amused.

My own son, who is currently home from college, falls asleep with phone in hand and earplugs in place...as his friends buzz text messages to him into the wee-hours of the morning. I try to talk to him about the madness that he is falling prey to...and he looks at me as if I am speaking to him in an incomprehensible language. I am "behind the times"...he tells me.

If this is what we mean by "progress"...then I weep for the future.

Agree. My teenagers and do the same thing. According to link below 90% of teens have cell phones and 45% say they're online full time.

TBH founders provided their new colleagues at Facebook with “a psychological trick” to acquire more teenage users, according to an internal document obtained by BuzzFeed News. The strategy involved setting up Instagram accounts for each high school the popular polling app was targeting, drum up curiosity by keeping the accounts private and then adding the App Store URL to the profile and making it public at 4:00 PM when school lets out, known internally as “The Golden Launch Hour™.” Similar TBH-style tactics may be used in the future on Facebook to engage with the teenage population due to its falling behind YouTube and Snapchat in terms of popularity. — BFN

[Delta Cone]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Everywhere I look, human robots are continually web-browsing on their phone as they go about their day-to-day lives. At the grocery store where I go to shop, people have one eye on their phone, and the other on the grocery shelves...and the same distraction predominates at the restaurants where I go to eat. It's as if everyone has simultaneously concluded that our "real world" has become too boring for us...so we have invented a "virtual world" to inhabit, in order to keep ourselves amused.

Sadly it is not only while at the grocery store...it's often while driving!

I got rear-ended by an idiot this spring. As soon as she gets out of the car she cheerfully announces "I was on my phone getting directions."

[elysiantraveller]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

"Like me on Facebook", I hear people say...and I weep for what our society has become.

That's mostly for business. Facebook is a great billboard.

For every video I post I know I can get at least one or two deals and 3x as many prospects.

[xtb]

I have almost zero personal information on my facebook page, I even made myself 10 years younger. The only reason I'm on it are the dog and motorcycle groups I belong to for sharing information.

[MargieRose]

While having dinner at a Saratoga restaurant a few years ago (after a fun day at the races), a couple and one child were seated at a table next to my friend and me. From the moment that they were seated, the child had his head buried in his phone. Approximately, two hours transpired, and the child had not once looked up from his phone (literally) to converse with, I'm assuming, his parents. The parents didn't seem mind (or care), as they didn't attempt to engage the child in conversation, either.

So, what's wrong with this picture? What are parents so afraid of, today, that they can't enforce some simple black and white, non-debatable rules...regardless of age, while dependent in any way?

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by MargieRose

So, what's wrong with this picture? What are parents so afraid of, today, that they can't enforce some simple black and white, non-debatable rules...regardless of age, while dependent in any way?

Indeed, you are correct.

Messaging & social media have given us connections to way more people. If we think of that as society spreading itself wider, it is at the cost of depth.

IMHO, people who have grown up with electronic communication as the normal way to communicate will struggle with finding deep, meaningful relationships.

Read an article where the author spoke about how "safe" messaging was compared to spontaneous conversation because you essentially get to re-read everything before hitting send.

Not so in an in-person conversation.