Ex-Facebook Users, What Do You Use Now?

techviator, 10 months ago

I have not been able to get rid of Facebook because 90% of my family and IRL friends are there, so I started using Frost as the frontend app since I could no longer stand my feed full of sponsored and recommended shit that I did not care about. Not perfect, but very functional and now I just see and interact with the people I care about.

https://github.com/AllanWang/Frost-for-Facebook

Or also on F-droid.

Hexorg, 10 months ago

8 years ago I posted on facebook that whoever is interested in keeping in touch should text me and I deleted my account a week later. 4 people texted - all 4 were my high school friend. I’m very good friends with them still. We have a tiny discord server for communication. Since then I had maybe 4 more people who I thought “huh, I wonder what are they up to now” over the years, but my curiosity wasn’t big enough to start facebook again. For the rest I didn’t really care.

tiredofsametab, 10 months ago

I didn't, really. I email family and a couple of old friends, use LINE for friends (as it's dominant here in Japan), and generally don't touch other social media like FB, Insta, etc.

I quit FB at least 5 years ago at this point. I never had insta, snapchat, etc. I do kinda miss IRC, but I just can't be bothered.

borlax, 10 months ago

Mastodon has been a fun replacement for twitter, but I don’t really use it to keep in touch with real life friends, I use it to meet new internet friends and keep up on niche topics/hobbies. I have no interest in a Facebook replacement tho. The format of Facebook is lost on me at this point and anyone who I want to keep in touch with since leaving Facebook has my phone number. As for family, I see them for holidays and it’s more than enough for me.

mnrockclimber, 10 months ago

Family group chat and shared albums in iOS. Solve 90% of the needs.

snowbell, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Nothing like Facebook. Signal, Discord, Email, SMS otherwise.

IntlLawGnome, 10 months ago

Same here, basically group chat apps for friends and family (or texting, for the tech-limited). Mastodon as well, but I don't personally know anyone on there.

Holodeck_Moriarty, 10 months ago

For friends and family? Texting, discord, etc.

The only social media I use outside of that has been reddit since like 2011.

photonic_sorcerer, 10 months ago

Exactly. Why do I need to see where cousin Jerry has been for his latest fishing trip? I couldn’t give less of a fuck.

don, 10 months ago

Text messages.

itmightbethew, 10 months ago

Nothing until the start of the pandemic when we all fled to Discord. I have pretty much everybody important in various Discord servers. Being free of acquaintances, coworkers and family members is nothing but positive for me but I realize that’s probably not true for everyone.

What this made me realize though is how smaller interconnected communities are better for those communities and their members. Or it feels that way to me. That’s why I came here after Reddit set its own dumpster fire (and is now apparently gleefully throwing gasoline and tires on it)

Andy, 10 months ago

Nothing that’s the same, but Telegram chats/channels and BeReal.

Fortychops, 10 months ago

Quit FB back in 2015, but still use messenger to keep in contact with friend and family.

bbbhltz, 10 months ago

I’ve had FB since 2004 or 2005. I never deleted it. I visit once a week. It is a wasteland for me. The only person who ever posts regularly is my brother.

When I stopped using it regularly I switched to… Nothing. While I do have Mastodon most of my chatting takes place through Signal. I have 2 contacts on WhatsApp. I am awful at keeping in contact but people know how to find me if they need me. I send out birthday emails to close friends.

Evergreen5970, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

contact with my friends, family, and ex-cowokers

Whenever I wanted to keep in touch with someone growing up, I’d ask to exchange phone numbers. I still do. This habit meant I didn’t really need to use social media to honestly keep in touch with most people. At most the social media would hand me a quick life update (e.g. vacation picture lets me know to ask you how your vacation was) that I could use to start a conversation. I think this worked because most people my age had cell phones that they accessed the social media from.

housepanther, 10 months ago

I am ex-Facebook user since November of 2017. So far nothing but I recently learned about Friendica. I am curious about it.

alcyoneous, 10 months ago

Nothing I’ve found is a true replacement to the good, original Facebook. Even Instagram is filled with ads and random BS nowadays. I made it a point to add all the birthday information I could to my calendars, and then keep up a bit with people on Instagram, but that’s about it.

Tubulous, 10 months ago

I also added birthdays to the contacts on my phone. I found an Android app called Birday that reminds me when someone’s birthday is based on the dates in my contacts. Birday and the clock are the only two widgets on my homescreen. People seem to like that I reach out with a text or phone call to talk to them on their birthday over the FB “click to send happy birthday” thing (which is still better than forgetting, to be fair).