good points DV, just caught this from another thread (http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/im-miserable-and-think-im-having-…) - relevant points in bold

slowdive:

I'm pretty impressed by the outpouring of support from the community. Nicely done, WSO. Now it's up to the OP to listen, and get his life back on track.

I've gone through a lot of shit, and honestly never imaged I could have gotten to where I am today. One thing I'll say, life is all about momentum. It can move in either direction, and once it gets started, it's hard to break free. When you are locked in that downward spiral, you feel powerless to do anything other than the same old destructive routine, day after day. It takes courage and strength to bust out of those patterns. It takes a lot of willpower, but it can be done. Remind yourself that it is possible to have momentum in the opposite direction, where success begets success, and your confidence keeps growing as you achieve things one by one. You have to start small, see that it feels good to make changes, and keep building on them. If you really want it, I know that you can get there.

TheKing:

Febreeze:

as soon as you admit to them, you'll see that no one gives a fuck about how much of a boss you're supposed to be - they have their own shit to deal with.

This. Everyone. EVERYONE has their own shit to deal with. Some worse than others, but everyone has some shit. People just don't like talking about it. But, I bet as soon as you do, your friends will understand and, if anything, tell you that they've got shit they deal with as well. You're definitely not alone.

This is absolutely when I feel like things like Facebook are poisonous. If you've got crap in your life like the OP does and you spend even a second on Facebook, you'll end up feeling like the only person on Earth with problems. Only, that's not the case, but no one posts anything "real" on the book.

This, a thousand times this. Everyone just posts a highlight reel of their life - perfect photos with their significant others, crazy parties, extravagant meals, picturesque vacations. Everyone assumes that they are missing out because their lives aren't as great as the ones portrayed on their newsfeed day after day. It's such a facade, a self-perpetuating cycle of insecurity and anxiety.

After leaving college I find myself using FB less and less... and it seems most of my friends who graduated are doing the same. I don't love it but I also don't hate it, mainly for the following reasons:

Instant messaging: AIM is dead and FB chat has taken over as the online IM tool, at least for me and most people I know. I understand that there are other ways such as Skype to talk to your friends when you have some free time but the chat helps me stay connected in a way

Birthdays/events: Useful for remembering people's birthdays and organizing get togethers, especially with a good amount of people (like a reunion with a big group of friends). I'd rather use FB to organize something instead of a group text with 20+ people and your phone buzzing every two seconds.

Pictures: I miss school. Every once and a while it's nice to go back and take a look at some party/ sports game/ random pictures with your friends. Instagram may serve that purpose as well but I don't use that at all.

Now the News Feed I agree sucks and is a perfect tool for people to measure up against each other. But if it annoys you so much to look at everyday, why not only limit the updates you see on the home page to the people you are really interested in, such as your close friends? No reason to be a prisoner of the circumstances; if you can't stand a person, just ignore them or block them.

This is something I've really been thinking a lot about lately. Honestly, I'd really like to disable my Facebook because 1) It's a huge time-waste, 2) Everyone I know from high school (especially those STILL in high school) are very annoying but I feel obliged to keep them friended while I have one, and 3) I'd feel sufficiently more private. I might even feel happier. I remember reading some articles/posts that touched on something you were talking about: everybody seems so perfect and happy because that's how we TRY to portray ourselves on it. Going through these pictures and statuses can leave us with a bitter taste in our mouth of a strange mixture of envy and depression. Hard to describe, but some might know what I'm talking about.

I am strongly considering disabling it, though, especially for the points you've discussed OP. All that is holding me back is being afraid of being one of "those guys" who doesn't have a Facebook, and that I'd be missing out on a lot of activities.

Has anybody here made the jump away from Facebook? And I don't necessarily mean to another social sharing website.

Oh, and OP: You got one of my three starting SB's. Thanks for the thread.

This is very convenient timing. I am just now climbing out of a "quarter life crisis", and one of my developments over the past few months was the deactivation of my Facebook account. Took about a week or two to lose the addiction, and it's insane how much more time I have left to fill in a day.

I do miss being plugged in though. I don't miss the incessant and compulsive refreshing of the news feed and knowing every detail about everyone. FB groups were pretty useful. And a lot of companies are plugged into FB unfortunately which makes it hard to access and take advantage of some things.

Ditched my Facebook account in March 2011 and havn't looked back. The people I want to keep in touch with, I do either in person, by email or by phone.

I've been clean for 2 years. I used to be huge into it (think one of those people with lots of pics/"friends"/wall traffic), but then I started feeling/noticing the things OP touches on and decided to cut as a new years resolution.

A lot of my anxiety lifted, and I felt freer. In the beginning I was a bit disconnected from my friends but over time we evolved to emailing, and my real friends always make the effort to email me. Now technology has moved along so far I don't even feel disconnected as many Facebook substitutes have come through. Someone mentioned how FB is good for instant messaging, the best substitute for this now is whatsapp. Ever since I got a smart phone a lot of my friends have got them too, so I can instant msg with a lot of my friends around the world and its completely free. For those who don't know whatsapp, its worth checking out.

Here is an article about about how it totally killed on NYE: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413802,00.asp

Anyways, in short, life is freer without facebook and with all the tech that's coming out now you can recreate the aspects of FB that you like while avoiding the ones you dislike.

I don't have Facebook, I've never had it, and I will never have.

My privacy is a concept much higher than my sociability or my possibility to reach to someone by the Internet.

Life already existed before Facebook.

As annoying as I find the fake stories, and "highlight reels", I check Facebook daily for one reason - motivation. I came from a lower middle class public high school, so ~50% of my Facebook feed is posts about "getting a job at the new plant that pays $13/hr!!!" or "just got out of jail, hit me up", or "called off work to fake sick haha" etc.

We all need daily motivation to get out of bed and go through the grind, and this, as perverse as it may be, is mine.

I recently deleted my account.

Loved having it in college -- I would argue that it's probably essential, since it's really more of a 'tool' than a stalking platform (okay, in college it's both a tool and a stalking platform). After college, I think it still retains a bit of its utility, but the negative aspects (which the OP did a great job of summarizing) far outweigh any residual benefit (at least for me).

I have loved -- loved -- not having Facebook. For anyone who's going through a Q-life crisis, I would highly recommend shutting it down. Although I think it's pathetic that an Internet app has had such an effect on my life, I think it would be far more pathetic to not be honest about -- and more importantly deal with -- that fact.

I've been on the fence about this for a long time now. I think I'll stick with it because it makes it easy enough to keep in touch with friends who live out of town and whom aren't big emailers. I don't think there's much harm in that.

One thing I recommend is to unfriend people who don't pass muster. Generally, my theory is that if I wouldn't stop and chat with someone if I saw them out and about, then they get cut. If you have more than 150 friends, something is likely wrong. Given LinkedIn's professional network status, there's no real benefit to racking up a ton of FB friends.

I think the worst part of facebook is the news feed, and not just because of the "comparison" element. It is essentially an addiction mechanism because it targets your brain's affinity for "newness," which is as the heart of all internet addictions. Any electronic means of refreshing something in search for newness triggers a small dopamine response, which starts an addiction train and all the deleterious effects therein. This is why people constantly sit around checking their email / texts on their iPhones, why people constantly refresh news sites for new stories, and constantly check facebook feeds.

I think if you really want to slay the beast, you need to stop ALL compulsive internet surfing, which includes constant email checking, news checking, WSO checking. I've recently tried to start doing this, but man is it a hard habit to break.

Frankly, although Facebook can certainly be depression inducing, the issue is more of a cultural one and how we define ourselves through others rather than worry about what makes us happy. Facebook is no different than retouching photos of models for magazines or TV shoots to make sure they are perfect and represent as well as possible. It really is the culmination of a celebrity and appearance driven culture focused predominantly things that, really, at the end of the day don't matter. Do I really need to know that you just ate the most delicious sushi ever at the most famous resort in an obscure tropical location? Not at all, but I on some level knowing that is desirable for any number of reasons. Like any drug it will induce a different response depending on the person and their personality. Some get depressed, some get motivated etc. In a more direct response to your question i think it is a necessary evil because people need something to make themselves feel better because nowadays just doing your job and going home to whatever it is you do isn't nearly enough. We need to be constantly moving of we will fall behind the trend and be reduced to simply watching everyone else move. It doesn't matter if we aren't actually moving and just looking at others move, we need to feel involved. I'm not really saying if it is right or wrong, it just kinda is at this point.

I do agree 100% about the addiction to the news feed aspect of Facebook being absurdly addictive. I mean hell, I refresh my twitter feed every minute or two just to make sure I didn't miss anything that's going on in the world. There is a point, and I'm not sure when but it very well could be now, where we realize that there is a limit to how much information is useful to have available and we take a more muted stance towards the rapid integration and expansion of information systems for a little while until we can actually get a handle on what is happening. I mean just the other day I realized that the article I was reading on a news site were being fed to me from recommendations by my facebook friends which were pulled by my logging into facebook on this computer and then I went over to buy something and I could like the damn product with my account already there. In the same instance I both marvelled at just how awesome that is to be able to do that and horrified at the same time. Anyway.

I got rid of FB a long time ago and I can honestly say I am so happy that I did. All of my friends that still have it do nothing but complain about certain posters and their news feed. I tell them they don't have to and it's like they are enslaved to it.

I honestly wasted a lot of time when I had it clicking on things I didn't remotely care about. I see more and more early FB adopters stepping away from it which I find interesting.

dropped it 3 years ago never looked back. just don't see it lasting

Deleted my account 3 years ago, haven't regretted it since. Although I did have to reactivate my account briefly to submit an application for corp dev at FB..

I go on Facebook to see people have fun. Because good God, I can't entertain myself as an adult.

"Clean" since ~May 11' here. You probably won't find a bigger FB hater than me. I could write a thousand word diatribe about how stupid it is and the E-dick swinging contest it has created. That being said, when I canceled it, I had the whole "friends will keep in touch with or without FB, so what's the point" mindset. Turns out that's not entirely true. Times change, and so too do how people stay in contact. While the whole "oh, we can just call each other or create an e-mail thread" idea sounds great- it doesn't really pan out too well (at least it didn't for me, especially when everyone you're refering DOES still have a FB). So, I'm probably going to be bringing it back.... and I'm not too thrilled about it. I will just be treating it completely differently. The old profile had like 700 friends, >50% of which I'd barely even meet before. New one is going to be ~20 friends, no pictures, no statuses, no bullshit. Purely contact based. I'm thinking the site may actually have some utility when treated like that.

In the interest of some diversity of opinions here is a pro Facebook one.

Like myself I am sure many of you were involved in Greek life in college. While I may not be best friends with all the guys in my chapter I would consider 90% of them to be a friend who I would like to keep in touch with. Facebook makes this so easy to do and keeps the friendship so much more in depth. Now I'm not talking about writing on their walls for their birthdays only, but being able to chat and see pictures of kids/house/car lets me know that people I consider my friends are doing well with their lives. And that makes me happy not jealous as many people seem to get when they see others successes.

Now I'm not naive enough to believe that everyone lives a perfect life but what makes you think that when catching up with an old friend via email or in person that they are going to tell you that they hate their job and that their SO took up eating as a hobby? People will always try and display themselves in the best way possible and facebook is just another means for them to do so.

So ultimately smile and know that if I am friends with you on Facebook (~400 people) that I am actually happy to see that your life is going great and that you managed to vacation to Cabo or Croatia or Courcheval. Maybe one day ill go there too and we can relate because I've seen your pictures.

If I ever get a job in IB with a good salary, I will surely show it off on Facebook, let them see where I am now. Neighbourhood I come from there are nice amount of never-achieved-anything ARROGANT people so Im gonna show them bitches real good

ResidentPatient:

Such a huge part of some of my failures was gauging myself alongside below-average people.

Good point. It's very dis-motivating to see people getting fired up about silly shit imo. Not to mention it's just generally annoying. Like I was depressed for 2 months because I missed magna cum laude by .02 points, and you're happier than a pig in shit because you just completed your comm degree from a 3rd tier UG in 6 years with a

The bottom line, with respect to FB and life in general: people spend far less time thinking about YOU than YOU think they do.

Use it for networking and don't read the feeds. There is no need to quit facebook; it's still immensely useful as an avenue to connect and reach out to people.

Use it to post news links that I find interesting, and it's pretty valuable for instant messaging. I agree Twitter is a more valuable news source but when it comes to events in college, FB is more or less indispensable.

Insecure much ppl? It's your fault if you're turning it into a dick measuring contest.

Facebook is a great way of keeping up with ppl you'd otherwise rarely interact with. The way some of you posters write about comparing SOs, money, and careers makes me think you are simply over competitive jerks.

Facebook isn't the only place where you will come face to face with people that gasp have some things you don't have. Learn to deal with it.

I've never had a facebook account. One reason is I didn't buy a computer until I started university. I was 20 by then and I think it's teenagers who are the most into facebook. At university I had no problem with talking to people in person about social events and stuff.

one trick i use to keep my friend count down is removing "friends" on their birthdays. Without scouring through all of your friends, you see people you would never stop to talk to on the street (or even write on their wall) and delete them. Works wonders for decluttering the news feed

This is easily the only Blog post on this site that I really enjoyed and found thought-provoking, and it's not even about finance. Maybe that's a sign...

In any case, great job, DonVon

This just seems like a bit of an overreaction. I am a member of Facebook, yet I spend less than 10 minutes on the site daily. I keep up with the people that matter to me, see a few stories from old friends - it's interesting to see where everyone has ended up. Unlike virtually every other poster on this thread, I never find myself reveling in "how great other people have it". On the contrary, reading Facebook makes me feel more confident that I have pursued the right path for me. I don't want what other people "have" according to Facebook, and that sounds like a hapless pursuit anyways.

Facebook doesn't strike me as being uncontrollably addictive, nor do I view it as a brain-drain on society. Instead of blaming wasted time on Facebook, perhaps we should instead assess why it is that we are attached to the site. I suspect it has more to do with internal issues than external influences. Like any new technology, it doesn't change who you are, just reveals a different side of your personality. I'd like to hear what truly negative side effects the website has, other than wasting time and engendering envy (which both sound like personal problems to me).

I think the people claiming the FB hate is a "jealousy" thing are kind of missing the point. If I went on an exotic vacation, bought a new car, had an awesome Fri night, etc, the LAST thing to occur to me would be to spew it across FB through either photo albums or status updates. To claim that it's a "jealousy" thing entails that I'm bothered by the underlying facts, when really it's just the way that they're presented that bothers me. Back in UG, I can't remember the amount of nights we'd go out and a girl would have a camera and start forcing people into group shots talking about how "you could find them on the book tommorow!". If I had it my way, it would be a bunch of friends having a good time with no corny, forced group photos- because quite frankly I could care less if anyone knows I had a good time. I could also care less if anyone knows about my vacation, new job, new car, new watch, hot new lady friend, etc. Ya know, because I did them for me and not my hundreds of E-friends I barely know (crazy concept). Anyway, I know I'm not alone in feeling this way, and think most people who have canceled it would agree.

I disagree with a lot of points in this thread. Facebook is great but you need to have self control, its great to keep up to tabs on people from your past who you haven't kept up with or to look up someone new. But you must be mature enough to know that someone posting photos of an awesome party may not be happier/better off than you or they are, it doesn't matter.

Self Control Maturity

Have both of these and you would either not have any issue with Facebook and keep it or have no need for Facebook and delete it. Either way it would not be due to jealousy or insecurities that people seem to have in this thread.

edit: And to note about privacy, if you are concerned, don't put it on Facebook. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

interesting/relevant story... http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/dilemma-co-workers-and-social-netwo… -

It depends on the person who uses it.

DonVon:

The bottom line is that Facebook creates the perfect environment for a measuring contest.

Yes and no, its how you look at it.

I initially saw facebook as a way for people to advertise their life (obviously advertising the most exciting/impressive bits) but now its different. People usually fall into three boxes when I use facebook (which bare in mind is less than 5mins a day not including personal messages):

1: Don't care. Usually their news feed is full of party pictures, drunks, food (fark I hate those) etc. Little to no time wasted looking at their profiles.

2: "wow I am glad I am not you!" people. Smokers, having unplanned babies, hangovers, hating work etc. Little to no time wasted looking at their profiles

$3: The small bunch of what I consider 'interesting' or 'successful'. Traveling (no contiki tours do not count!) with interesting pictures/stories, working towards a rather unique goal (national rowing champion, chess champion etc), funny people, those living abroad and their experiences etc.

I find its those in group 3 which sparks my curiosity (e.g. I how long it took to learn x? I wonder how much they train a day? I wonder what they had to give up to live in x? I wonder what they think of x) and makes facebook a worthwhile tool to have.

At the end of the day... Facebook will hurt you more than help you.

If you must choose a social network get on linked in. At least that can help you make money.

If you have time to upload "instagram" photos of your feet on the beach. I'll assume your sex life is weak... You will slowly but surely get crazy bitches stalking you. Crazy bitches trying to size you up. Crazy bitches tagging you in photos... Crazy bitches spreading rumors... Crazy bitches... ahh you get the point.

Delete and move on.

I graduated in 2011 and like of everyone I graduated with (that got a legit job, not life insurance sales, selling shit door to door, etc) like 90% aren't active on facebook.

By active I mean what you do while you are IN college... constant status updates, pics up every monday of the weekend, 20 notifications a day, wall posts constantly, etc.

I still have one and my circle of friends do, just so we can keep in some form of contact.. the "pick up and call" line is kinda not the same.. How many dudes call another dude and gossip and go "hey, man whats new? How you been?".. My gf said the same thing.. She keeps it just so she can "see" her friends on a semi daily basis. What do you think her friends would say if she texted them like "oh hey send me a pic of you and your bf, I wanna see what you look like these days"...

Facebook is only detrimental if you let it be... Will Facebook prevent you from getting a job? Only if you let it, by doing stupid shit openly and publicly.