I joined Facebook years ago not long after it took off from its college roots. I also quit it years ago when my feed became full of junk.
The one thing I miss is contact with my friends, family, and ex-cowokers. Most of them weren’t technically inclined so that was the only platform they were on. Some of them did move to Instagram, which I did as well until Facebook bought it.
I then tried wt.social shortly after it started up. It seemed like a great alternative, but its growth is very slow, It has 450,000 users according to wikipedia. Now there’s a version 2, Trust Cafe. The same article also mentioned that they’re looking into connecting to ActivityPub.
What do you use in place of Facebook to stay in contact with friends and family? Mainly, I just use text messaging apps. I use Lemmy and Mastodon for news and information.
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@curt Friendica
I am ex-Facebook user since November of 2017. So far nothing but I recently learned about Friendica. I am curious about it.
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.
The only thing Facebook has is people, and to get the people elsewhere you need to have more than what Facebook has. So I think there is no alternative.
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. 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.
Quit FB back in 2015, but still use messenger to keep in contact with friend and family.
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.
Nothing that’s the same, but Telegram chats/channels and BeReal.
Text messages.
Nothing. I never stayed in contact with people and regularly downsized my friend list. I found that I was keeping people as friends but hadn’t talked to or messaged them in years. People I actually talk to have my number and I have theirs. Scrolling through people’s lives kept me from reaching out and having real conversations with people so…yeah.
This. Ever since I quit facebook, I find myself reaching out to friends who I care about rather than just following their feed. I also find when we hang out, there’s more for us to discuss and we cherish each other’s company more because we no longer have the convenience of staying hyper updated about each other. It’s the whole idea of absence makes the heart grow fonder. My advice to everyone is to stop relying on social media to keep up with people and go have some real relationships with those you care about. You’ll find yourself much happier.
Exactly. I remember I used to try to have the most “friends” possible but at some point it was like “yeah I don’t actually talk to these people and I don’t think I will.” Used to also keep FB for certain groups I was part of but in the end, there was just no point.
Signal. We just have a group chat. No idea what the extended family is up to anymore though.
Same.
My grandmas and I are pen pals. I text my parents.
I got on facebook to meet girls at university, not to keep up with family. I slowly got off facebook when my friends from university quit posting anything useful.
My other sort of anonymous social media stuff was on reddit and now Lemmy.
Nothing. Out of all the ‘friends’ I had on there, only a handful were ones that are irl mates and I have their numbers. We text occaisionally.
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.
