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McRainy

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I've just left or unfollowed most of the groups I am in, and deleted a huge swathe of my 'friends'; people I say hello to once on holiday, then spend the rest of the year looking at pictures of their horse.

I'm sick of it, so I'm making an attempt to change my experience of it before I bin it all together. I've joined a writers' group, which seems quite good, deleted all the adds for cardigans, banished most of the news sites, and given up on the pretence that I'm 'keeping in touch' with people I've had very little in common with for the last twenty years  

I'd like it to be more of a platform for sharing creativity, but maybe my expectations are unrealistic. How do you interact with it, if at all?

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I'm similar to you @Lambchop. I rarely post or "like" anything nowadays and am more of an occasional lurker. I haven't got round to deleting friends but that's the next step.

If it wasn't for being a member a couple of local groups, I don't think I'd bother at all.

It annoys the hell out of me that an algorithm decides what I get to see instead of what's posted most recently. I get fed up of the stupid "if you care about this issue then share it - 97% of people won't".....type posts. Plus of course the Britain First - type, supposedly patriotic posts, which are usually fake news anyway.

I've got group chats on Whatsapp & Messenger for conversations between either friends or family. All of the the "look at me" stuff on the news feed is nauseating.

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Where do I start with Facebook hmmm.

I barely use it, but I regularly open it before quickly closing it.

It used to be great, the days when people posted statuses of what they were upto, people you don't regularly see, but now it's filled with nothing but shared memes or lists of names who are the best lovers or due to have a baby this year.

If it's not that it's shared memories or pages where friends and family believe that by liking and sharing this post they will be entered into a competition to win one of 10 unwanted Audi R8's that for some reason cannot be sold.

In between all that Facebook is recommending me items from the marketplace, knock off trainers to stolen bikes and phones or people to befriend because X is a friend.

The rare occasion someone actually makes a status I probably won't see now as Facebook think they know what I want to see first, but they don't because I close the app before I reach the content I want to see. I will reopen it again by habit half hour later though. On occasion make a status which will probably be dog related.

I deactivated my profile a while back, but I actually missed some photos from family which I was questioned on why I hadn't liked or commented on.

Think Wixman added me the other day from the forum, first person I've actually added in a while, haven't bothered to look for anyone, think my settings are only adds from friends friends. If I could moderate my newsfeed I would probably add more, not used to having power ?

Always said that Twitter was far far better, but even now they are going down the same path of trying to hold your eyes on their app by feeding you content from people you don't follow. Robotic algorithms that think they know what I like when they have no clue.

Sad thing is Instagram is next to be ruined, the founders have left this week which leaves it fully in the hands of Zuckerberg, expect more FB crap to be introduced.

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10 minutes ago, Wolfie said:

If it wasn't for being a member a couple of local groups, I don't think I'd bother at all.

This is the thing - I get most of my info about local events, bands, etc from there, because that's how people seem to promote themselves. I have also had a lot of useful info from things like autism awareness groups in the past, so I'm reluctant to give up altogether. 

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10 minutes ago, David said:

If I could moderate my newsfeed I would probably add more

This is what I am trying to do. I always go onto my profile and click 'most recent' when I open it, and I try to 'like' things I want to see more of. I always click 'hide add' on every advert as well, but that's because I have a pathological aversion to advertising. 

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Maybe we're unknowingly joining the older generation of "social media isn't the same as it was in my day" crew?

Everyone is right though - the model being repeated seems to be...make it useful, get as many users as possible, let it find it's way and then trash it with advertising and targeted content. Then hope that most users stay on board. Part of me does think "who can blame them?" - they have to make money out of it somehow I suppose.

My FB I've had to whittle down to only the people I'd consider real friends. The ones I'd be happy to chat to in real life if I bumped into them.

Then the other thing I did was set up my security controls so that I could target my posts to different subsets of friends. I know that some people won't be interested in political stuff, some won't want to see my kids, some won't want to watch me bang on about football, music, films, my auto-erotic asphyxiation fetish etc.

I wish more people did that - as it would make the whole place more tolerable. Problem is that it's fiddly to do and the onus is on you to make sure you post stuff to the right audience. FB won't enhance that functionality and make it easier as it is by nature putting limits on their reach

 

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2 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

Then the other thing I did was set up my security controls so that I could target my posts to different subsets of friends

I'm trying to do this too. I have writing, art and music friends, autism friends, political friends, when are we meeting up in Dorset friends, etc...

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11 minutes ago, Lambchop said:

This is what I am trying to do. I always go onto my profile and click 'most recent' when I open it, and I try to 'like' things I want to see more of. I always click 'hide add' on every advert as well, but that's because I have a pathological aversion to advertising. 

Problem being they don't want you to do that though, so anything to help personalise your newsfeed is taken away.

They think they know you better than yourself, feed you content that wow, this is great, you like the page, add that person, they create more content for you to enjoy which = longer on their site, longer on the site, more revenue.

You say you have a pathological aversion to advertising and I understand that, but end of the day websites need to generate revenue to pay for running costs which Facebook's will be huge due to the size of it.

I wouldn't mind a square ad when scrolling down my feed if it's the option of that or the site is gone, but they as others have gone to far to hold your attention, wanting to be the site you spend hours on to the point where it's ruined the entire experience.

I think it's more healthy to have a break from the internet, maybe browse a few other sites. I try and do it myself now.

Feel free to quote me on this in 10 years when I have an algorithm in place that puts posts and topics in order that I think you want to see and remove all sorting options thinking I can hold your attention for 18 hours a day ?

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I realised that some people just use it to make out what a great life they have. I never see many people post bad news about themselves or when their kids have had a bad report from school. It is a load of crap and I have never seen such a load of political crap from both far right and far left political views.

Having said that I enjoy a group that discusses events and old times where I grew up, the self promotional idiots and some loons that think everything is a conspiracy.

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40 minutes ago, David said:

You say you have a pathological aversion to advertising

I mean that literally, it's a Pathological Demand Avoidance thing; I would rather have no internet than be forced to look at adverts. As soon as they come up on a YouTube link, or whatever, I turn it off. Agree the moving ones are worst. 

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I had a few too many beers a while back and went on a friend frenzy and worked on the basis of if i walked down the street and wanted to avoid you then I'm deleting you, the beer helped me be ruthless but I think I went from around 400 odd 'friends' to around 120 which was good for a while but it soon builds up again. I deactivated it last year and deleted the app and it was brilliant to be honest and I actually felt better for not being drawn to it but alas I got dragged back in as I got in contact via Twitter with someone to do with my daughters disability and his advice for research was to be in a load of Facebook groups so after about four months of freedom I got dragged back in. I rarely actually post anything now though like mentioned above I'm always stalking away. I use it mainly for fundraising and following football groups. Once my daughter has her op I may just let the wife deal with updates for people and then come off it again.

 

One thing a friend once said to me about Facebook which struck home was that its very rare that people post a status unless they crave attention or they're trying to be funny. Every time I got to post on there I think about that and then delete what I was saying because it's usually right.

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Tbh I use it quite a lot. The content you get is a lot based on your friends and thankfully I don't have too many EDL types on there. The craziest thing that it does though is if you have the location thing on is that it sends your location every 5mins or so to Facebook. I recently found the bit where you can see where you've been and frankly is weird that they have been able to see exactly where I've been basically every minute of the last 2/3 years.

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45 minutes ago, alexxxxx said:

I recently found the bit where you can see where you've been and frankly is weird that they have been able to see exactly where I've been basically every minute of the last 2/3 years

Google maps does that with "Timeline"- Don't use Facebook, Instagram at all. Used Twitter once but read it occasionally for news for things like powercuts. WhatsApp the younger family members instead of texts and some silver people like me who know how to use it. Can't say I've noticed a gap in my life as the evangelists say.

Saw some kid walk into a lamp post in town the other day, cut his head but was more worried he'd cracked his screen. Pollock!

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4 minutes ago, Lambchop said:

I never worked out how to use Twitter.

I followed one friend, Jeremy Corbyn and DCFC, got bored and gave up. 

Quite surprised by that! If you like art, music and writing Twitter is great for keeping tabs on hot topics in the community. You just need to find people that tweet about things that interest you. 

Having said that, I rarely tweet myself – just enjoy the lurker lifestyle. I'd also recommend avoiding politics if you can – it's can get really toxic on there. 

It's also great for calling out brands and businesses when you have a bad customer service experience. 

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1 hour ago, alexxxxx said:

Tbh I use it quite a lot. The content you get is a lot based on your friends and thankfully I don't have too many EDL types on there. The craziest thing that it does though is if you have the location thing on is that it sends your location every 5mins or so to Facebook. I recently found the bit where you can see where you've been and frankly is weird that they have been able to see exactly where I've been basically every minute of the last 2/3 years.

Yeah I'm that odd guy who has loads of friends with one view and I have a different view so  I tend to try and keep politics off Facebook.

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