> If you've never used it, how do you know it does not make life easier?

I've used Facebook and then quit. Facebook doesn't make life easier. It's a huge time waster, in addition to being dangerous for society. My social life improved a lot since leaving. I did have some interesting meetings with people through Facebook, but the overall effect was detrimental to my life. I've seen many people there whose lives are being damaged by the site due to addiction. They want to quit but can't, because Facebook has locked their social connections within the site.

I unfollowed all my friends(you can also use an extension that removes your feed), now I have the pros of Facebook which is being connected to people I care about while not having to fight a feed-looking/time-wasting addiction.

I only use facebook for messenger and events now and it works quite well.

You could add the one thing I do: post links and comments warning everyone on FB how bad it is. It's the people who live on FB who most need to get these messages.

>Similarly, it's possibly a burden (albeit small) on your friends who have to text you in addition to organizing for others.

I really have to agree with this: using your friends as personal assistants is not cool. Planning events can be hard work, just scheduling your own weekend can be a hassle. That said: I do wish people used something other than Facebook to plan events. It's just not gonna happen anytime soon.

I know I'm an old fogey (like half a decade older than the parent commenter!), but I never really understand what people are talking about with this stuff. Throughout my 20s and to the present day, my weekend was not organized by checking for random events on Facebook, but by talking with my friends digitally or otherwise. How that is akin to "using your friends as personal assistants" is an absolute mystery to me. It sounds more like "using your friends as friends", which seems pretty normal...

If you’re talking to one friend, then that friend is essentially having to route your updates on time-constraints, preferences for places to go, etc. out to all your other friends, and route all their responses back to you. They really do become your secretary.

Now, it is possible to fan out these update messages yourself through (lots and lots of) SMSing, but in almost every friend group I’ve been in, the problem is that I don’t actually have contact information for everyone who I want to meet up with.

Basically: how do you negotiate restaurants with your best mate’s new vegan girlfriend? On Facebook, the two of you just have that conversation on the event page. Without Facebook, you have that conversation through your best mate—or maybe not at all, and then one or the other of you gets mad about where you end up eating.

Ok, I see where you're coming from, but none of this is how anything works for me. I just say, "hey let's do something!" and my friends either say, "ok, whatcha want to do?" or "ok, I'm doing X, you want to do that with me?" or "shoot I can't, I'm already doing Y". Then I say either, "well I'd love to Z" or "sure I'll join you for X" or "darn! lunch this week?". Sometimes yeah, people don't want to go to the same restaurant or whatever, but it just gets figured out through communication. It doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm sure this would all work just as well on Facebook, but it works just as well off Facebook too.

> . I just say, "hey let's do something!"

That scales ... Poorly.

> Sometimes yeah, people don't want to go to the same restaurant or whatever, but it just gets figured out through communication.

Sure, solving these problems through communication is fun. Especially with 5+ people involved. Or god forbid 20+.

I wonder how many events these "i dont use facebook its worthless" people organize. And with what frequency.

Even the crappy timeline feature has benefits - I went to awesome concert last week with a friend that I had not met in a while. Only because I saw him interested in it on the timeline.

Facebook sucks, but you people have no idea what its positives are, and therefore you will not ever be able to make any real alternative ... That sucks even more, because I would really like platform with better UI than FB.

> That scales ... Poorly.

Maybe the OP doesn’t want it to scale. Maybe they’re not interested in frequent events with 20+ people. Maybe they prefer going to events with an established group of friends.

Crucially, the OP made a specific point (emphasis mine):

> none of this is how anything works for me.

It’s not like Facebook removes the hassle of organising 20 people. It just makes it less of a hassle. If you don’t typically go to events with that many people, then Facebook solves no problem. Maybe you feel Facebook is necessary for your group of friends, but it’s definitely not necessary for every group.

> you people have no idea what its positives are

I’ve used Facebook. I’m well aware what its positives are. For me they don’t outweigh the negatives, so I deleted my account. Maybe “we people” are not interested in “making a real alternative to Facebook”. Maybe for us the better alternative already exists and it’s called “no Facebook”.

> Maybe the OP doesn’t want it to scale.

Frankly, in topic about "#deletefacebook" that seems like moving goalposts. Plenty of people enjoy those events of 5-10 people, so why so much hate on facebook.

> Maybe they prefer going to events with an established group of friends.

I don't understand, you claim that you can't have established group of friends with count over 20?

> It’s not like Facebook removes the hassle of organising 20 people. It just makes it less of a hassle.

That is funny. Organizing event for 20 people actually IS easy with Facebook, only hassle are those "I don't want to have a Facebook account" people that can't be just copied from previous event like everyone else.

> Maybe “we people” are not interested in “making a real alternative to Facebook”. Maybe for us the better alternative already exists and it’s called “no Facebook”.

True, sorry for the strawman. It sometimes seems to me like some people are posturing about their superiority due to not using FB, and it gets on my nerves.

My point (made more explicitly a couple comments upthread) is just that my life is not organized around "events" like you're describing. So yeah, it doesn't "scale", but that's not the point. I'm also not suggesting that Facebook is "worthless", what I'm pushing back on is the idea some people seem to have that this "someone has to organize an event" way of socializing is the only way. My way is a different way that works well for me (and I think lots of other people), and I'm certain there are lots of other ways, some of which benefit greatly from Facebook, and some of which don't.

> you will not ever be able to make any real alternative

This seems like a bit of a non-sequitur. I'm not sure who suggested they want to make an alternative. Certainly not the person you replied to, because that's me, and I don't want to do that :)

> what I'm pushing back on is the idea some people seem to have that this "someone has to organize an event" way of socializing is the only way.

And I am pushing back on idea that organizing events can be done equally without FB. When you say:

> I'm certain there are lots of other ways, some of which benefit greatly from Facebook, and some of which don't.

then we are basically in agreement.

We're taking around each other. You're saying "you need Facebook to organize events" and I'm saying "you don't need to organize events to socialize". It's two different conversations.

If they're your friends, why don't you have their cell #? This isn't rocket science, throw everyone in a MMS group or Signal group and boom, you can easily coordinate two dozen people to get together sometime on Saturday.

Facebook went in the rubbish along with High School for me, its been years since I last logged in. I doubt that cesspool will see me anytime soon.

Did you read the example? The point is coordinating (and negotiating) with friends-of-friends, when your friends expect to bring said friends-of-friends, without requiring your friends act as a proxy.

> MMS group or Signal group

I don’t see these as fundamentally different from a Facebook event; the point, in my mind, was to compare the class of digital ephemeral forums from the coordination strategies possible when you don’t have any such digital ephemeral forum available.

However, Facebook events have the advantage over MMSes, at least, of people who join/are invited into the event being able to see the history of the conversation so far.

Dear god, however did we survive before Facebook saved us all???

I know, Facebook is god, we can't socialize or plan things without it! /jk

It's not that you can't, but I won't invite you to many parties if I have to message you separately on everything. It's the common platform.

I have 2 friends that don't have Facebook, they get considerably fewer event invites, because it's such a hassle to plan with them.

When everyone was still of Facebook I also attended fewer events. It is something made easier by Facebook. The only redeeming feature if you will. But a significant one.

> I have 2 friends that don't have Facebook, they get considerably fewer event invites, because it's such a hassle to plan with them.

Maybe what they need isn’t more parties, but different friends. That’s not a judgement on you — I don’t know you nor your friends, so if you think the hassle of inviting them does not outweigh the pleasure of their company, that’s your decision to make.

But maybe they don’t care. Maybe to them not being invited to a few (or even the majority of) events is worth it, considering the alternative. If you’ve asked them and got an answer, I’d be interested to know what it was.

>Maybe what they need isn’t more parties, but different friends. That’s not a judgement on you — I don’t know you nor your friends, so if you think the hassle of inviting them does not outweigh the pleasure of their company, that’s your decision to make.

If everybody takes about 10 minutes of individual communication overhead for a party and you have 50 guests. then that's 500 minutes of communication of what might just be a simple 10 minute organization over Facebook. If some exceptions aren't on Facebook it's maybe less of an issue, but it still is a disrespect for other people's time.

>But maybe they don’t care. Maybe to them not being invited to a few (or even the majority of) events is worth it, considering the alternative. If you’ve asked them and got an answer, I’d be interested to know what it was.

I asked them, they both cited privacy concerns as their main reasons to quit Facebook (which is completely valid).

> I asked them, they both cited privacy concerns as their main reasons to quit Facebook

The question is not “why did you leave Facebook”, but “is not being invited to a majority of events worth it to you”.

Honestly speaking... the idea of going to a party that nobody cares to specifically invite me to feels super weird. Are parties the only places where you socialise with people or something? Would you feel that you’re missing out on something if you only met in smaller groups for more ad-hoc things?

Coming uninvited is less the point. But it's easy to just invite 30-50 people. It doesn't make much of a difference for small ad-hoc events (which I usually plan through WhatsApp, which is still somewhat a social network).

The number one thing is that you have to be reciprocal. As mentioned in a different comment I recently moved across the country to a new city where I did not know anyone. I would meet people at random events, connect with them, and then invite them and whoever else they wanted to bring along to different events I heard about when looking for things online. I was very aggressive in telling my friends about different events via text and organizing that way. I did this with 3-4 well connected people and then they started texting me about interesting things they found that I could go to and invite friends of my own. Once this was established both me and my friend(s) would text each other and ask about plans for the weekend.

If you're planning something large I understand that something like Facebook is required. But if you're just trying to get a few friends together I don't see why you can't do it via text.

> I really have to agree with this: using your friends as personal assistants is not cool.

From personal experience I can say: asking your friends to sign up with some questionable service, when you don't care about privacy but maybe they do... and forcing them to make a choice of either giving up on their privacy or being excluded from social activities... that's totally not cool either.

> Additionally, there are many opportunities I have discovered through Facebook that I likely would not have otherwise. For example, just last weekend I happened to be flying across continents and when I checked Facebook on my phone, I discovered a cousin I haven't seen in a while also happened to be flying to the same city on the same day. There would have been no reason to share this with each other, but because it was out there publicly I was able to see and organise time for us to meet. I often see content which prompts me to get in contact with people.

I can understand this point but I think you would agree that this is really a case of serendipity and is not reflective of the "average" interaction between two people are connected via social media but do not meet regularly face to face.

I went to high school on the east coast but now live on the west coast. I had instagram for a few years but stopped in late 2017 because the algorithm changes annoyed me. Most of the people in my feed where either friends from high school who I don't connect with regularly (and if I do it would be during the holidays) or local friends who I meet w/ every couple of weeks at the least. The level of 'connectedness' between me and my high school friends on the east coast stayed relatively the same (very low) once I stopped using instagram. I mean it was funny to see memes and interesting to look at what vacations they were taking but there was very minimal interaction then and there is minimal interaction now.