While number of active users still grows, one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots.
The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.
While number of active users still grows, one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots.
The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.
“Who is left on Facebook besides dopamine junkies and bots?”
“I only use it in this limited circumstance”
You are on Facebook. That’s who. It’s like saying you’re not a drinker because you have a glass of wine every once in a while. Sure you’re not an addict (probably) but you still drink.
> It’s like saying you’re not a drinker because you have a glass of wine every once in a while.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/20110...
> Take a 2002 Times/CNN poll on the eating habits of 10,000 Americans. Six percent of the individuals surveyed said they considered themselves vegetarian. But when asked by the pollsters what they had eaten in the last 24 hours, 60% of the self-described "vegetarians" admitted that [they] had consumed red meat, poultry, or fish the previous day.
> Six percent of the individuals surveyed said they considered themselves vegetarian
In any casual poll like this, every number has a large margin of error. When 6% of respondents select an answer, some of those were mis-clicks, people who misread the answers, or people who were just clicking through randomly. The latter happens a lot when bad UX means the only way to see the results is to take the poll.
So the more likely explanation is not that people were calling themselves vegetarian but also eating meat recently, it’s that around half of those reporting vegetarians were either mis-clicks or people blindly clicking things. It happens a lot in online polls.
> So the more likely explanation is not that people were calling themselves vegetarian but also eating meat recently, it’s that around half of those reporting vegetarians were either mis-clicks or people blindly clicking things. It happens a lot in online polls.
No, you're just making things up. For one thing, these are telephone polls, not online polls.
You say that, the the psychology today deliberately does not link to the study. It links to several studies but not the one they're writing about. The most they identify it as is a 2002 Times/CNN survey.
If you have the actual study please share it. Right now, I doubt the veracity of psychology today's claims.
In fact I've done more digging since posting this and the only other people talking about this survey is citing psychology today as their source. I can find no primary sources.
That poll is not published. But if you doubt the veracity of Psychology Today, it's easy enough to verify that Time/CNN sponsored it and published on the results: https://time.com/archive/6666859/should-we-all-be-vegetarian...
You can find other Time articles that cover their methodology, which involves paying a polling (or consulting) firm to run the poll.
> It links to several studies but not the one they're writing about.
Which one do you think is "the one they're writing about"? The Psychology Today piece opens with a description of the current state of affairs.
You might or might not have noticed that immediately after the mention of the Time poll, Psychology Today links to a survey published by the USDA finding that, among self-described vegetarians, 64% reported eating meat within the last 24 hours. Why do you doubt the Time poll?
I wonder what the breakdown between meat/poultry and fish was. I know it isn't the dictionary definition, but I think the common definition of "vegetarian" in the US includes people who only eat fish. I don't know anyone that uses "pescatarian" in conversation or identifies as that, even if it's accurate.
Like humanity in general, there is a lot of variety. My dad has been a pescetarian for 30+ years, so I'm aware of the term and use it at least two or three times a year. Personally, I'm a flexitarian and eat a reduced animal flesh diet. I know quite a few vegetarians, and they don't all eat the same diet (one does eat eggs on a weekly basis and still calls himself a vegetarian, which is somewhat controversial according to the other vegetarians that I talk to). Most vegetarians I know don't consume fish or dairy.
I get it, I hear that too, but it’s wrong.
Vegetarian = no meat, no chicken, no fish, no crustaceans, no dead animals, no meat/fish broth, no lard. Nothing derived from a dead animal. Or as my little sister used to ask: “did this have a face?”
But that’s what “vegetarian” means to me. I guess that’s a “strict vegetarian”?
Time didn't break down their results between meat/poultry and fish, but they did break them down between "red meat" and poultry/fish; 37% of vegetarians had eaten red meat within the last day.
I'm happy they've been able to build a $1,660,000,000,000 company on the back of me logging in once every two months, scrolling 3 posts, getting disgusted with slop, and closing the tab. Gives me hope that my harebrained ventures may also succeed!
I love the unabbreviated $1,660,000,000,000 lol It reminded me of Waxahatchee's
> You let me take my own damn car
> To Brooklyn, New York, USA
I don't buy it. You use it more than that - otherwise you'd just delete your account.
I've used my Facebook account once in the last decade, still keep it open as I have no reason to delete it and give up my parked identity (I share a name with a nationally recognizeable politician).
I’m down to 3 hours a week of social media woot!
Does that include HN?
Absolutely lol - as a human in tech; I like to try and live like it is 1999 - and the 1999 where I wasn’t inside writing Perl but 1999 like when I was outside roller blading, skateboarding, bmxing, before I had a cell phone.
A very aggressive noprocrast could certainly get you there!
How long until Claude has noprocrast?
So if someone doesn't use something they must delete instead of letting it rot?
That is about right for me. I scoll a little longer but as soon as it changes from people I care to follow to slop I'm gone for a couple more months. there is value in following distant friends but it isn't worth hours per day of sorting through slop to find it. When it is only every month or two the non-slop still seems to rise to the top. (But God only knows what non slop they choose not to show me) I wish there was a way to block all 'so-and-so shared' as that is where most of the slop comes from. (Ads at least I can say is how they pay the bills and so I accept a few as non-slop)
I keep mine alive a) to squat on the account for my identity, b) just because I know there are family members that will do posts/messages once in awhile instead of sending me a direct SMS, so I log in every few months
It's for messaging with old people. It's like having a telephone doesn't mean you're talking all day. It's for people to be able to contact you and vice versa.
> who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots.
Political activists, like a former partner of mine.
… who I mute, because I am a British person living in Berlin, I don't need or want "Demexit Memes" and similar groups, which is 90% of what they post …
… which in turn means that sometimes when I visit Facebook, my feed is actually empty, because nobody else is posting anything …
… which is still an improvement on when the algorithm decides to fill it up with junk, as the algorithm shows me people I don't know doing things I don't care abut interspersed with adverts for stuff I can't use (for all they talk about the "value" of the ads, I get ads both for dick pills and boob surgery, and tax advisors for a country I don't live in who specialise in helping people renounce I nationality I never had in the first place, and sometimes ads I not only can't read but can't even pronounce because they're in cyrillic).
> I get ads both for dick pills and boob surgery
There is some percentage of the world-wide population that would find interest in both ads simultaneously.
While true (you're not the first to suggest it, even), in the context of the other things they show, I think it is more likely to be an example of them not knowing which advertiser to pitch my eyeballs at, and less likely to be them identifying me as a member of this set.
I take poorly directed targeting advertisements as a performance indicator for how well my data privacy efforts are working. When the ad targeting has you dead to rights is when you need to worry.
To an extent, sure, but I think also a sign their analytics were never as good as they claimed.
For example, so far as I know my name is strongly gendered male, so why the boob surgery ads?
> my name is strongly gendered male, so why the boob surgery ads?
Probably so you can suggest it to your partner.
This. My wife and I can hardly buy each other surprise gifts because the targeted advertising gives us away every time.
Plot twist: all old folks were also on Facebook only to chat with other old folks. Once this fact was spotted, they all just moved to Discord.
The cognitive dissonance in some of these posts is strange.
> one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots.
> The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.
How are you confused about who still uses Facebook in one sentence and then immediately in the next sentence you describe yourself as a user and explain why it’s useful to you and the people you know.
Around me I see this usage:
- Older folks.
- People using marketplace
- People exchanging inter-personal tips and info: best stroller, contractor, etc.
Not saying FB is best for those things but it doesn’t seem dead at all.
There are some apparent niche communities both on Facebook and Instagram. Heavy metal and hardrock music fans is one group that hasn’t migrated anywhere else yet. I both play in a band and promote events, and both are still required in my geographic area to reach out.
The growth is across the family of products (inc Instagram and WhatsApp) not Facebook itself. Facebook itself is a zombie, and I don't believe they have a way to innovate out of it. I'm not going to predict the end of Meta, they have more than enough products, but agreed that it's actually quite difficult to understand who's really left.
it's like wondering why pubs or restaurants exists if I'm not visiting them everyday, but they do because they have other businesses (birthday parties, company events etc.). Look at Facebook for business.