I haven’t vowed not to come back to Facebook, and maybe I’ve felt better overall since deactivating on 12/31, but I still need to reckon with the loss of contact with community. It’s real, and it might be more important than some abstract feeling that my life is “less noisy.”

@ablaze I think Facebook changed the definition for “communities” - the word crossed the limitations of the physical space. May be we need to readjust that again, seek out pre-FB community interactions?

@amit I’m not being fancy about the word “community” here. I’m talking about my actual people in my actual life. Deactivating FB has cut me off from them.

@ablaze May be it is specific to regions. It is still SMS/other messaging platforms/calls for communication for me. Mostly iMessage. FB was mainly popular for public broadcasting.

Having said that, I do realise, without FB, there’s a need for platform that eases communication.

@amit There is certainly a technical need for that, but that’s a more abstract problem than the one I have. The fact is, FB is where they are. They aren’t leaving. If I want to be where they are, I have to go there.

@ablaze I have the same issue with the loose group of expat friends I’ve accumulated over the years... they’re on FB - if I leave, my life will be that much poorer.

@seishonagon So are you staying, or is it more complicated than that?

@ablaze I’m staying. But I’m only using the web interface on phone and Mac now. No apps. I find the timeline is a bit “better” and having to type in the url makes me look at it less.

@seishonagon Yeah, that seems like a pretty reasonable solution. Do content blockers help at all with the miasma of ads?

@ablaze @amit I spend so much time ensuring that I am where other people are - rarely do they spend time where I am?

@JohnPhilpin Do they owe you that?

@ablaze I don’t know cause I never turn them off :-) although I still see ads in the stream -

@ablaze of course not ... it’s me .. nobody wants to hang with me ... unless it’s on their terms ... I’m good with that .. clear message :-) 😎

@seishonagon @ablaze Lists help, too, as an alternative to the timeline—although to be very useful, you have to visit at least about once a week these days, or they are empty of posts :-( They used to be more prominent in the UI but are hidden in one of the left sidebars now (I access mine solely via browser autocomplete now); I don’t know if visiting www.facebook.com/lists/ will cause it to prompt you to create a list if you have none?

@ablaze I have lots of friends who are on Facebook but I do not have it. It’s not really a problem for me. Facebook has been popular for about 10 years now? Humanity managed to communicate (more effectively I believe) for millennia before that.

@SuperMoof I'm glad that's the case for you. Most of my friends and relatives have moved their communication and online gathering completely onto Facebook.

@ablaze We have more ways than ever to communicate these days. It is very strange that we’ve basically returned to the days of a dominant AOL in our online communications in spite of that. I think you would find rather quickly that your friends would adjust to your Facebook absence and communicate with you in other ways. Just look at Snapchat usage among kids...

@ablaze Sure. However, I hope we are able to convince others to not be there — first step may be by ourselves not being there. May be that triggers a conversation on why, which then is our chance.

Of course, this is assuming we do not want to be on FB. I for one don’t 😬

@amit I don't at all, but I do want to be on a social network with all my friends posting updates and photos and links, and that's the only one.

@ablaze True, unfortunate though. Towards later stages FB got so muddled with profit-making crap that the posts that matter got buried often. Wish there was a social network purely for networking with friends and colleagues.

@ablaze That is an interesting challenge. That is one reason I haven’t deactivated my Facebook yet. I’m trying to think through the ramifications and find substitutions for how I can maintain contact with family, etc that are important even after Facebook is deactivated.

@ablaze This is why I've always been a proponent of the POSSE model, treating Twitter/FB as a copy of my data. I get to keep my data as well as stay connected to my community

@ablaze That is an interesting challenge. That is one reason I haven’t deactivated my Facebook yet. I’m trying to think through the ramifications and find substitutions for how I can maintain contact with family, etc that are important even after Facebook is deactivated.

@EddieHinkle My optimistic goal is to come up with some kind of regular rotation through my address book that prompts me to reach out to people directly to keep in touch. Seems like a lot of work, but if I actually care, it should be worth it.

@ablaze Most of my friends are on FB, I haven't logged in a year or so. When there are events that are applicable to me, they send me text or email, and/or in person. Most of my close family doesn't even any social media accounts, so that part I can't speak to, more distant family will usually email/call with relevant stuff.

@ablaze If people don't bother to keep in touch with me (obviously I need to recipicate, it's not a one way street), I don't bother keeping in touch with them. The ones that do will generally communicate in the mode I communicate, be it call, email, or text. I'll send the occasional "how are things" emails/messages every now any then, usually when my brain goes "wonder what X is up to...". It's not as much work as it seems, and it's way more pleasant than scrolling on social media with all the other crap in the way.

@oyam Yeah, that's what I keep promising myself I'm going to try to do with everybody

@ablaze Erg. FB is where they are this grates. FB doesn't provide internet service to them. So, The Internet in place of FB. FB might have trapped them temporarily from thinking of better connections, but does not own them.

@ablaze I found it interesting how it surfaced some people I actually end up talking to more than in the FB days and some. And some way less often, because my engagement with them was driven by how often they posted (they out-shouted/flooded others) rather than genuine interest or relationship with them.

@Sylari I didn't say it owned them, I said it's where they are. That is their subjective reality.

@ablaze Owned, Pwned. I mistyped. Sorry.

@ablaze For clarity, I mean it grates because they believe it, not because you said it. That FB as Internet belief.

@Sylari Right, I feel you. It bugs me enough to regularly inject, "It would be so cool if you just shared stuff on a blog or email newsletter instead" into regular conversation, but it has yielded very little.

@ablaze At least if you bookmark https://www.facebook.com/events/ you can skip all the news feed junk and get right to the important parts.

@ablaze I actually don't have any strong relationships with anyone in Facebook Groups, so that's not really a concern for me. I do copy my events I'm hosting to Facebook, but I still have to go there to look for events from friends.

@ablaze I know of at least one person who tracks her friendships on a spreadsheet in order to be better about reaching out to people individually.

@aaronpk Yeah, I haven't figured out if it's a spreadsheet or a repeating task list, but this is probably the life I'm going to end up with. As I think about FB more, I'm starting to remember some of the behaviors that drove me off, which I've been glossing over in my reveries.

@ablaze I know every time I've ditched FB, I've sent a last post inviting my entire friends list (contestable term, I know!) to visit X (personal website or some other form of communication) and I've had two people follow through. Everyone else has been utterly mystified about the reaches beyond the FB gateway.