Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
No, and I won&#x27;t delete my Facebook account in 2018 or 2019.<p>I log in to Facebook Feed maybe once every 2 - 3 months, just to see how the space looks like, always disappointed in how irrelevant the information is to me. No friend posts, no insightful publishing, just randomly shared articles, ads, sponsored content and page suggestions.<p>I also do Instagram sometimes, that feels a bit more towards what I want in that I can actually see what some friends are doing but seeing my wife and close friends scrolling on and on on their feeds and praising it really makes me wary of immersing myself too much in this gamified addiction center.<p>I use Facebook Messenger to keep contact with my friends and WhatsApp to talk to my family; I have my track blockers on, I have my ads blocked and notifications disabled on my phone so Facebook is minimally invasive for me. Not sure what point I&#x27;m trying to make, I think it&#x27;s a bit counterproductive deleting your account on the biggest network on the planet. What I think we should be pushing for is people disengaging with their devices and their notifications and being in charge of when they want to connect.<p>I was once a daily Facebook user, I felt connected, I felt empowered, I felt knowledgeable and I never stopped to consider if it is truly so. The change for me happened when I decided to disable notifications on my phone. Ever since then, I&#x27;ve been a lot better at managing my daily attention and random apps don&#x27;t really hold my attention any more than what I am willing to offer them.<p>Again, I&#x27;m feeling like I&#x27;m rambling without a cohesive thought, so I&#x27;ll end it with the personal insight that it&#x27;s not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you. The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service, but being on it constantly is a choice individuals can make for themselves.