More Than 1 In 4 American Users Have Deleted Facebook, Pew Survey Finds (washingtonpost.com) 113
Gayle BAS writes: Nearly three-quarters of American Facebook users have changed how they use the social media app in the past year, following a barrage of scandals involving the abuse of personal data, foreign interference in U.S. elections and the spread of hateful or harassing content on the platform, Pew Research has found. According to the survey, over half of Facebook users ages 18 and older (54%) say they have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months. Around four-in-ten (42%) say they have taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, while around a quarter (26%) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone. All told, some 74% of Facebook users say they have taken at least one of these three actions in the past year. The survey findings include: There are, however, age differences in the share of Facebook users who have recently taken some of these actions. Most notably, 44% of younger users (those ages 18 to 29) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their phone in the past year, nearly four times the share of users ages 65 and older (12%) who have done so. Similarly, older users are much less likely to say they have adjusted their Facebook privacy settings in the past 12 months: Only a third of Facebook users 65 and older have done this, compared with 64% of younger users. In earlier research, Pew Research Center has found that a larger share of younger than older adults use Facebook. Still, similar shares of older and younger users have taken a break from Facebook for a period of several weeks or more.
I doubt it (Score:2)
If that was true, there shouldn't be anything left of it. Including backups.
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If we want to be pedantic, doesn't the headline implies that users went to Facebook's offices and deleted Facebook itself from their servers?
Re: I doubt it (Score:2)
Most americans dont have a facebook account let alone a smartphone and data plan to even consider the privacy evading app
As of January 2018, 68% of Americans used Facebook, and 77% had a smartphone. Maybe the word "most" means something different in your language?
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And if I eliminate everyone who isn't a blind vietnam veteran with no left hand named Merv, I get to 0% penetration, and 0% usefulness of my numbers.
More than half the country lives in urban areas (actually the rural base of america is only 19.3 percent of the country- source: https://www.census.gov/newsroo... [census.gov]). Basing numbers on just people outside of cities is cooking the data. Nobody, from advertisers to companies to users actually give a fuck about number of counties for anything.
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... are you sure you aren't posting to the wrong conversation? This is about facebook, not political parties.
Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary makes it clear that they merely deleted the Facebook app, which is a far cry from deleting their Facebook account, which means they're still using the web interface.
That's like saying that they took back the key to their house that they given to their abusive ex-spouse, but they still let the ex-spouse in every night to have a "chat", which consists of the ex-spouse relaying every banal and horrible thing they heard in the last day while being repeatedly told to stop installing cameras and turning over any object that isn't nailed down.
Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Interesting)
It's still a good sign. The ex can't just pop in and peek on you as you take a shower now. Instead they have to rely on the hidden cameras they left in your house and collect the pictures next time they visit...
But you control when the ex can visit now, so maybe, eventually, you'll get tired of opening the door to them over time... and stop letting them in.
I'm optimistic this is a positive sign. Give it a decade and Facebook could be the next MySpace.,
Re:I doubt it (Score:4, Funny)
I doubt the average Facebook user knows the difference. Like people who refer to their browser as The Internet (as in "Your mother's deleted the goddamn internet again!"). As for the web interface, if it's not in their face every time they look at the phone, pumping out notifications, they're not going to use it much (assuming they even know how).
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Re: I doubt it (Score:1)
There's nothing a user can do to remove their data from Faceboot's servers.
Only the US Congress can accomplish that. America needs our own GDPR++ to stop the invasive, abusive business practices that have become commonplace in the tech industry.
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I doubt they deleted the app. Because most people buy their phones from the carriers, and Facebook comes as a part of the bloatware package that you can't delete at all. At least not without root access... and these days even most slashdot readers don't root their phones.
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You can disable it though. The reason you can't delete it is its literally in a read only mount. But disabling it turns it completely off with no code in the app allowed to run.
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If that was true, there shouldn't be anything left of it. Including backups.
Swarms of bots have filled the void left behind.
Re:I doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
I can only applaud this! (Score:2)
Re:I can only applaud this! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't think so. Personally, I think it's kids moving away from a medium where parents roam. You can't quite really be yourself when your parents are around, and you can't really not "friend" your parents without causing trouble, so our youth is moving to a different platform.
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What platform would that be?
Snapchat/Instagram with their short lived stories? I think the value of Facebook is more about nostalgia, than what's-happening-right-now. Soon the youth will appreciate that part of Facebook and most likely gravitate back to their platform. I've seen quite a few profiles that were deleted (they remain as friends but with gray profile pics) all of a sudden spark back to life over the last few months.
iMessage (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes. Snapchat and Instagram. I think the nostalgia for what has been is not as strong in the next generation as it was in the previous one. I have to admit, my nostalgia for anything is pretty much nonexistent, too.
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MySpace is the ultimate in nostalgic social media.
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Nope, private group chats. At least that is what my step kids do. They maintain a harmless presence on Instagram to fool their parents. From what I can tell, there will be no appreciation of Facebook on the basis of "nostalgia" because they haven't built up a Facebook history to be nostalgic about.
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This is what Discord is good at. Private group chats, and you can, with some trouble, run a client-side script to clean out every message you wrote on a server, although it is a PITA. Server owners can do some privacy controls, including requiring members have two factor authentication or a phone number on the account.
Telegram is similar, to a lesser extent.
Facebook is becoming what E-mail once was, a "legacy" way of communicating if someone else can't be reached anywhere else.
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Those are really still just facebook.
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More time for real life, real friends & family! ;-)
I don't have those things, you insensitive clod!
I do have some real friends, but none of them live where I live now, so I can't have actual face to face time with them. I suppose I could just isolate myself completely, I bet that would help!
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You could kill yourself. Your life doesn't seem worth living.
One could more reasonably say the same to you. You're a coward who spends its time telling people to kill themselves. Run along now, coward.
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Friends and family in my cellar?
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Friends and family in my cellar?
I do hope they're restrained properly or they might escape.
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He hobbled them, Annie Wilkes style. Saves paying for rope that will just get bloodstained.
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I doubt it.
I think people are moving away to avoid their friends and families.
Having to see people who you once respected just kinda degrade down to political babble reposing lame o political posts just get annoying.
I didn't delete it. (Score:1)
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Why not mess with them? Go develop a new persona, Photoshop is your friend. It's fun to be someone else for a change.
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Photoshop is your friend
Photoshop hasn't been anyone's friend since October 2011 when Adobe introduced Creative Cloud.
They back that up every night (Score:2, Funny)
rm -r facebook.com/*
Dammit.
rm -rf facebook.com/*
Dammit!
killall facebook.com; rm -rf facebook.com/*
Dammit!!!
My experience (Score:5, Interesting)
I came off Facebook about a year ago because it was a time sink. I got nothing out of it, just the habit of checking the news feed and scrolling scrolling scrolling. Within a few hours I didn't miss it.
I came of Twitter a couple of months ago due to it just being a really nasty place. Within a few hours I didn't miss it.
My life is better without social media.
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One thing I like, is that it's popular to hate Facebook now. Several years ago I felt like a lonely island in the middle of a sea filled with facebook loving sharks who kept pestering me to join.
Now most people hate Facebook and see it for the toxic water that it is.
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Posted this before -- I undid everything I've ever done on FB with the Socialbook Post Manager, so now my FB account is really just a contact list.
People always speculated FB may disappear due to users moving to different social media, they never guessed it may go away because people can't stand any social media anymore.
If it really happens I'll give Trump credit for that.
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When will you be without /.? ;)
My wife deleted hers (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife quit after a few things. She made a reasonable comment in a political discussion thread and someone reported it as offensive, and the conversation ended up being removed. Then one of her coworkers got falsely accused of being a drug dealer on one of those "busybody" gossip pages that have cropped up recently -- Facebook should ban those. That would be bad enough, but somebody apparently informed her boss's boss, and it came back down to my wife as the coworker's supervisor, so it has even seeped into the office politics.
I kept my account because I have a few apps that are tied into Facebook--it's the only way to use them. However, I haven't posted in several weeks, and only check in on occasion to see friend & family photos and such. Now FB keeps sending me email that says "Did you see what X said about Y's post!?", as if Facebook is gossiping itself. If it weren't for the apps, I'd probably delete it too.
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Then one of her coworkers got falsely accused of being a drug dealer on one of those "busybody" gossip pages that have cropped up recently -- Facebook should ban those. That would be bad enough, but somebody apparently informed her boss's boss, and it came back down to my wife as the coworker's supervisor, so it has even seeped into the office politics.
If I were working for a company that considered Facebook a serious information source . . .
. . . it would be time to quit and find another job.
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I kept my account because I have a few apps that are tied into Facebook--it's the only way to use them.
What apps are these?
Deleted it over two years ago ... (Score:1)
I deleted mine over two years ago, and it was only ever tied to a dummy email account which didn't have anything to do with my actual name, and was never used for anything else.
My browsers all block the shit out of Facebook so they can't track me on every other damned site which embeds their shit.
I don't trust Facebook, and sure as fuck didn't consent to them tracking me ... so I've made sure they can't.
Adjusting privacy settings (Score:4, Interesting)
These companies are not going to voluntarily stop collecting data on you no matter what settings you use.
Common excuses (Score:5, Funny)
1. I only do heroin on weekends.
2. He won't hit me again, it was my fault anyway.
3. Now look what you made me do.
4. I'll leave facebook next week.
Real Life. (Score:2)
There is a whole planet to look at if you just stop checking your cell phone.
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On the contrary, the world you can access with your phone is much bigger than the world in your immediate vicinity. However, the part of the world you can access via Facebook is the most droll and worthless part.
I deleted Facebook (Score:4, Funny)
But I'm in Soviet Russia and now I'm deleted.
Please send for help. It's cold down here.
Re: I deleted Facebook (Score:1)
In Soviet America, Facebook deletes you!
A different type of user (Score:1)
I use Facebook mostly for the groups and pages now. I have a single source for groups that interest me and businesses that are active on social media. All the groups are closed so it all tends to stay in place. Sure people can screen shot stuff but does anyone really care that I was helping someone with a 3D printing problem?
I adjusted my privacy four ways long ago. The first was to clear all those 'About Me' fields. The second was to lock everything down to friends only. The third was to only have people w
Does it really count if they just delete the app? (Score:1)
What's Next (Score:2)
I'm a relatively private person, never drawn to social networking. If someone had described how Facebook would work and how wildly popular it would be, I would have little interest - I'd rather work on something technically interesting like distributed computing.
That said, Facebook, following MySpace, certainly appealed to some part of peoples' human nature. Facebook's popularity will fade, but human nature remains the same and some other service(s) will pick up these users. Though not technically intere
How many never had it ? (Score:2)
Giving percentage numbers without saying what fraction of the American population were using it in the first place gives misleading numbers. One estimate is 68% [pewinternet.org], so about 1/3 did not use Facebook anyway.
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Too much manual configuration (Score:2)
I was getting too many friend requests from strangers that turned out to be dating scammers (I always check their FB page for telltale signs) and finally had to adjust my settings so that only mutual friends could send me friend requests. I don't subscribe to many groups, but they are ones I have an interest in and I had to change my settings so that they are at the top of the timeline when I start surfing.
After I join a group
I don't miss it (Score:1)
Suprising statistic (Score:2)
I'm amazed that that many had a cellphone that would let them do that. Neither of my two cellphones will allow Facebook to be deleted. I'd like to, because I've never used it and never will.
Join the crowd (Score:2)
Not on my phone.
Rarely on anything else.
Never automatically logged in.
Why? (Score:2)
I deleted my Facebook account... (Score:2)
I'm not a hater but ... (Score:2)
... Facebook has become boring in the last year.
Politics is so divisive that my circle of Friends and I have learned that it's best to behave as most of us do in face-to-face social settings.
The app, not the web site (Score:2)
I also deleted Facebook (the app), long ago, because it's crap.
Although I still use Facebook (the web page) nearly every day.
I don't want to be notified whenever someone has put up a clever post. I want to read it on my own time, when I'm good and ready.
Re: Deleting App != Deleting Facebook (Score:2)
That's called paranoia and confirmation bias. But hey, if people are actually deleting Facebook for that reason, I'm all for it.