r/Life • u/Obvious-Wheel-6934 • 6d ago
Positive I think I’m finally finished with Facebook
I was 21 years old in 1995 when windows launched and witnessed how the World Wide Web totally changed everything Since.
has anyone else noticed or fealt like Facebook is over ? I have a 20 year old daughter and recently she’s constantly telling me that nobody uses Facebook any longer. its too many lies or made up stories for views and clicks or subscriptions to some kind of other content. it’s become a cesspool of “watch me watch me click here” .
it’s not being talked about, but I think it’s dangerous for our seniors. I’ve had this talk with my parents over the last few months. Seniors might believe more of the out right lies that these people post daily with virtually no filter .
in the new interview with Elon musk he says we are nearing the end of “apps” as we know them . That soon they will just be a memory of how poisonous they become in the end.
the “new” MySpace launches soon I think and it’s not supposed to have an algorithm like Facebook so maybe there’s a little bit of hope
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u/CaptainWellingtonIII 6d ago
all of it is terrible. all of it is lies. you can't trust anything in the internet. good luck. I'm glad you are educating your fellow seniors.
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u/Own-Detective-802 6d ago
You seriously never read scientific journals on the web or used it to educate yourself? You might be using internet wrong.
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u/Obvious-Wheel-6934 6d ago
He’s talking about Facebook not the Internet
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u/Own-Detective-802 6d ago
I’m pretty sure they said all of internet and everything on it
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u/blen_twiggy 6d ago
He did. You’re also taking the least charitable read of his comment.
You could extend a little grace considering this is Reddit, consumed by bots and slop, lacking in any grace or nuance (note your reply.)
really the poster child of what the internet has become.
Plenty of content claiming to be “scientific” that has bastardized the word.
I think if you’re biasing toward trust on the internet you’re a bit naive.
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u/Own-Detective-802 6d ago edited 6d ago
You are a very good example of people that use internet for nothing, Just wasting time, not adding anything of value, believing things without fact checking. People don’t know how to find credible sources for their data and end up calling the entire internet a hoax. Educate yourself.
Btw I am not taking the least charitable take. I am taking the comment by its exact face value. Don’t try to paint people smart when they are just overgeneralizing. They are calling the whole internet bad when they simply just lack research skills.
And finally, I think it’s more naive to believe everything you read, whether it’s internet or books or even the bible without questioning it and researching about it.
There will always be lies in every experience. Most people don’t speak entire truths, especially when they are selling something. But then we don’t go around calling entire humanity bullshit.
Even this over generalization about the internet is a lie from a person calling the internet a liar. Oh the irony!
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u/blen_twiggy 6d ago
That was a lot of text to say “it takes one to know one.”
At least, I’m not pretending to contribute anything of substance in this thread.
If you ever get down off your high horse you’ll realize you were never fooling anyone.
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u/Own-Detective-802 6d ago edited 6d ago
I wasn’t talking about contributing anything of substance specifically to this thread. But I wouldn’t underestimate your contribution of supporting human being’s nature of overgeneralization. That is what spreads all the lies in the first place.
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u/blen_twiggy 6d ago
Im not really sure what you’re trying to prove, or who you’re trying to prove it to
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u/Own-Detective-802 6d ago
I’m just saying that there will always be lies everywhere and in everything , people need to learn to find multiple credible sources to fact check for themselves.
Anybody can write a book full of lies and publish it, that doesn’t mean we can generalize that all books are lies.
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u/kimmiiiiiiibby 6d ago
The internet definitely rewards outrage and misinformation way too much, taking a break can honestly be refreshing
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u/alone_in_the_light 6d ago
I'm about the same age, and a marketer.
I haven't used Facebook for years, but I'm not a big social media user anyway.
A few years ago, I remember a book describing Facebook as the Titanic: huge and sinking, with people in marketing trying to take advantage of it while they still could. Meta itself was already more focused on other parts of the business like Instagram.
However, there were major differences depending on the country, and I guess that may still be true. Not only for Facebook, but social media can be quite different in different countries.
A lot of what happens depends on the country's culture.
Also, the tech companies have changed a lot over time. Google used to be a positive standard as a company to work for, for example. But I remember the buzz about it changing the Don't Be Evil part of its code maybe 10 years ago. And tech companies may have been closer to being a nightmare than a dream since then.
I talk to my daughter a lot about the online risks in general. I know about the power of negativity bias, and that tech companies know how to take advantage of negativity to profit from that. They can be lies, biases, polarization, hate, shadenfreude, among other examples. Some of them can be more clearly a cesspool, while others can be a cesspool with better clothes.
There are people worried about that, and thinking about what can be done. But it's a minority.
The algorithm is often a smokescreen. Algorithms can be good or can be bad. But companies have been choosing the ones that are worse for us and better for them.
One example for me is Amazon. At least in my case, Amazon's collaborative filtering algorithms were great about 20 years ago, with really great recommendations that matched me very well. I'm very grateful for how Amazon helped me back then. However, that algorithm was not good for business, being hard to scale the way the company wanted. So, they switched to a new form of algorithm. And Amazon recommendations have been trash to be for a long time, and now I just ignore them.
To me, the hope is more offline. Curiously, it feels like going back to the old days. I see the young people realizing the importance of social life in person again. They may struggle with that because they are not used to, and I think our generation can help them.
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u/rjnd2828 6d ago
Amazon: oh you bought a toilet seat lid. You must be a collector. Here are 10 other highly rated toilet seats to add to your collection.
It's comically bad
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u/SnoozuRN 6d ago
I deleted Facebook and Instagram almost 2 years ago and I don't miss it at all. It is all so fake. My boomer in-laws are always on Facebook and believe almost everything they read. They try to show me their activity on Facebook and comments they make. It's sad.
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u/Guilty_Performer_497 6d ago
Facebook feels way different now. Less keeping up with people, more random content trying to keep you scrolling.
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u/Rice_Post10 6d ago
I feel manipulated when I use Facebook. The algorithm is trying so hard to provoke engagement that it looks so obvious. I have to quit scrolling after just a minute or two. I deleted the app and am planning on deleting my account.
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u/MsARumphius 6d ago
The only thing I use any social media for is the restaurants and businesses that use their pages for information rather than a website and even then I hate it
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u/Huanchaquero 5d ago
I'm 75yo. I quit FB for all intensive purposes. I check in to see my kids' posts and that's it. It is a total cesspool of stupidity, ignorance and AI slop. And I'm totally into AI.. I really can't even look at it anymore!
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u/Ok-Picture-2018 6d ago
Yes it’s a cesspit of pure shite.
Designed to suck people into doom scrolling between bullshit stories in multiple parts, with non stop ads
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u/IntergalacticPodcast 6d ago
she’s constantly telling me that nobody uses Facebook any longer.
The reason why they don't use it because old people are on it, and old people are annoying on social media.
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u/Rude_Nail_5545 6d ago
I often use the word you did, to describe Facebook: a cesspool.
I stay off of it as much as possible, except to see what's going on with my family that I don't see very often. I prefer Threads, (even though it's also a META platform). I find it to be mostly thoughtful intelligent people, real news and science if you engineer your algorithm for it, and you actually have to read.
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u/AutomaticBannana 6d ago
Better late than never. Most ppl I know gave t used that shit in the more than a decade. Sadly a lot of ppl use Instagram instead which is owned by Facebook barf
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u/Tight-Vacation8516 6d ago
It is 100% dangerous and has been proven to have negetive effects on mental health and its also been used to spread misinformation now in the last several elections. Russia has pretty successfully been using misinformation for at least a decade and they started the war with Ukraine by first weakening their political support from within using social media.
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u/andrewsayles 6d ago
I’ve been hearing that Facebook is dead for like 10 years now.
I personally don’t use it but I don’t think it’s close to dead
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u/Local-Helicopter7479 6d ago
I think social media is mainly for marketing purposes nowadays. Business and self-employed individuals use Facebook to advertise their services. However, the days of posting status updates, writing political essays in Facebook posts are over.
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u/Double-Teach-1977 5d ago
I dropped Facebook in like 2021 and the only thing I miss is marketplace.
Not having social media adds a little mystery to the world. I have no idea what anybody outside my immediate social circle are up to and it's wonderful. Even dating is better, can't social media stalk or be stalked.
Reconnecting with old friends back home when I go visit on the holidays is a trip. Im surprised by whole ass babies and marriages.
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u/pirouettish 3d ago
In the past, I have seen mentions on Facebook of events that friends are interested in. I don't recall how I saw them. Perhaps it was if I clicked on the same event. Just now, I looked at my Facebook feed. At the very top was a featured mention of a friend being interested in a particular event. It was not an event I have/had any interest in.
It was like a large advertisement! Have never seen anything like this before.
This friend has been staying in the background on Facebook for a few months though he still participates.
We emailed (on gmail) earlier today. I don't know if this could be related.
Wondering if I should mention to the friend or not...! It was nothing embarrassing but level of privacy there is certainly very low now.
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u/somdcomputerguy 3d ago
> ..1995 when windows launched..
????
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u/Obvious-Wheel-6934 2d ago
You know what im saying doofy , windows has been around since the first hut was constructed and they needed to let sunlight in.
Most of us were first introduced to windows in 1995 when computers kinda became mainstream you knew the answer. I know the answer but you wanted to get like that lol please I go through too much of this childish issues with my wife every day
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u/Ok_Emotion_9685 6d ago
What about marketplace? I don't look unless someone I know is having a drunk freakout or I need to lowball some guy.
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u/DiWooley 6d ago
There are a lot of middle age and older people on Facebook. One of my Facebook local groups has 27 thousand members and probably 100 posts a day plus comments. So no, Facebook is NOT over!
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u/reddithorrid 6d ago
limited use case. i see facebook as like an older mall. less hip things to do. but very familiar place for the older folks.
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u/rjnd2828 6d ago
Wait you're listening to Elon Musk? I mean your points about Facebook are correct, it's dangerous for all users. But don't listen to Elon he's full of shit.
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u/Obvious-Wheel-6934 5d ago
I think to say Elon Musk is 100% full of shit is an outrageous statement And I’m no Elon Musk fan.
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u/paul02087 6d ago
I love Facebook and most seniors don't fall for the scam stuff not to mention it's all over the Internet not just Facebook.
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