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Good counter-point.

A social network is not inherently bad. It could be a simple extension of our analog life, a simple tool to stay in contact with friends an family or share things with people that we do not have regular interactions with in our day to day life.

The problem is not the social media, but the way is has been instrumentalized to capture our attention, since this is the product being sold to advertisers. All the mechanisms to keep the user hooked -- akin to the way slot machines work -- have been pointed out many times already.

It doesn't have to be that way, we could design a neutral platform that is built around fostering personal connections with the people we care about.

Everything you say is true, but unfortunately a viable economic model for social networks that doesn't make use if the dopamine hook hasn't been discovered.

I felt similar, except in creater scale. There used to be forums and portals, where people share their experiences and knowneledge. Now many forums are almost dead, some are spam towns, some are closed. Few weeks ago was closing party for biggest local music community website. There was heathy forum but owners saw bigger picture and didn't want wait, until place dries up. Facebook seems taken over all kind communication.

This is the most disappointing thing about the facebook revolution to me. Facebook is useful for a lot of things, but specific forums covering specific community topics have mostly died out.

Reddit kind of fills the gap for larger niches but some of the smaller niches aren't well filled

Yeah, tons of board game discussion (gamers, designers, and publishers) migrated over to Facebook Groups. I don't mind it too much because Facebook will let me know when anyone I'm friends with posts to one of these, which includes local gamer friends and people in the industry.

I actually kind of like it, since I only have to check what they posted and can respond to them, and not have to check and read every single thread in a forum to see who I know has posted.

I don't think the solution is to your ailments is to reconnect on Facebook.

I think there's pressure to keep people in your lives that are not involved, partly to do with tradition and partly to do with the way social media now works.

Instead of browsing Facebook, why not make the time to actually see these people in real lives, call them on the phone, facetime them, write them a letter?

What I am trying to do for myself is invest in the meaningful relationships and eliminating personal social media has helped provide that focus for the people that I want in my life.

While I understand your sentiment, I just don't think connecting with most people by phone or in person is actually feasible. I keep direct text groups open to my immediate family members and closest friends, but I rarely text my sister-in-laws, and I almost never directly contact my cousins, aunts, or uncles. It just doesn't make sense to say "why not call them" as a counter-argument when we don't have that kind of relationship. As for sending a letter... most of us stopped doing that in the 1990s unless you were in jail or sending banking statements.

I've noticed the most active commenters on my Facebook stuff these days are all family members, so I have a ton of extended family that stays aware of what I'm doing through that. And of my ~850 connections on Facebook, I could probably delete 80% of those and it would be a more realistic picture of either 1) family or 2) people I actually know and have talked to in the last 3-5 years.

I completely understand your point.

I am perplexed at the value of these 'distant relationships' and question if they're necessary. I have spent a lot of time thinking about that and have no good answer.

They aren't really necessary.

Honestly, if you aren't super worried about privacy, having a FB account just to open when you get curious and want to check in on someone (if they are an active poster) isn't so bad. It's the mindless addictive scrolling that gets me.

I tried that for a few years, actually. It made it seem even more pointless.

I held on to the account because I am into competitive Bass Fishing and my clubs only presence was on Facebook.

Since I've left Facebook, I'm no longer in the club and it really hasn't made much of a difference.

I used to think I was using Facebook to stay in touch with people. But I really didn't enjoy using it, so I decided to challenge my assumptions. I went through 3 months of my activity, and saw that the overwhelming majority of what I was doing was sharing links that had no engagement. Personal photos got some likes, but just like. I maybe sent one or two messages. I was barely staying connected to people like I thought I was. So I left Facebook without regret.

I don't feel out of the loop, though. I text or email friends and ask them what's going on. If there's an event I ought to go to, one of them usually lets me know. It's more effort, but I think that's a benefit: relationships based on scrolling through feeds and liking stuff are pretty shallow. And I don't let myself feel bad if I do miss something, because I know that's a small price to pay to excise that source of anxiety from my life.

while i hate FB so much for their shitty practices I keep it because i find it very valuable to see what's going on with distant family and friends and to share my photos to keep my personal photography hobby going...

for me the trick is that i set my password to random and keep it locked in keepass and never installed the app, never logged in from work computer. so i do only check in 1-2 / week and only briefly. that's enough to catch up on extended circle, local skateboarding groups etc, but not waste too much time on memes. i am also hopeful that without sharing any personal info and installing the app FB does not track too much about me .. maybe just wishful thinking!

I understand where you're coming from, but in my opinion the benefit you're describing isn't worth the privacy concerns for me. I do wish there were a service that allowed for event organizing that didn't try to track me around the web and that didn't sell any information they could find on me to third parties.

There is also the idea of "quality of interaction". My relatively nearby sphere of family that posts updates aren't really looking for my validation. They'll let me know what their children have been up to the next time I see them in meatspace. I'll get more enjoyment out of talking with them about them, too, then I ever will by posting an emoji or liking their post. My proverbial crazy uncle that posts political screes will still corner me at the next family gathering and I'll using coping strategies until I can escape. Do I really need to keep tabs on the lives of the people I would casually say 'hi' to in the hallway in middle school 40 years ago?

If the cost were trivial, then maybe this would all be worth it. But the privacy concerns drive me away. I have an account. I use it once every year or two to give my condolences when I hear someone I know had a relative pass away or something. Other than that, I do without. It makes me wonder what life would be like if there was a corporation like that that I could actually trust.

If you can remember your middle school classmates after 40 years, you're doing better than me after < 20 years.

My dad loves Facebook, but he has no clue about security, so he isn't burdened by any of the same thoughts as you. I'm overall a tech-person and software developer, but I either don't care that much about privacy or I'm just clueless. Ignorance is bliss?

The only thing I regret about not having FB anymore: I don't know when peoples' birthdays are.

For the entire history of humanity, we didn't know anything about anyone's lives unless we saw or talked or heard about them. I don't consider it a loss to not know distance acquaintances' life updates...if it's important, I'll hear it from other FB users or from an important friend.

There used to be a way you can populate calendar apps with facebook birthdays. I still have it from a decade ago but I don’t use the site enough anymore to know how to do it again.

If you only know stuff about your brothers kids because of facebook (and he lives withing reasonable distance, granted!), you are already a hermit.

I agree about the invite part, some communities are really build on top of fb. Here in the Netherlands I started missing things when I was off of Whatsapp (lived without a smartphone for 1.5 months).

I just have a list of people that matter to me, and make sure to text or call each of them every couple weeks or so to see what's up. And I have their birthdays next to their names :)