I returned to FB last year after a 3-4 year hiatus.
I limit my use of it, maybe one visit p/day or less, it seems to work OK. The nice thing about it is I get to see photos of my family and friends who I don't see often.
I visit Hacker News more than I visit Facebook, I'm not sure what that says about me.
I just returned myself after about the same length of time. I was shocked to find that most content is no longer personal images and text. I counted the first 66 posts in my timeline, and 2 were personal content. The rest were viral videos and news items and others junk. That's 3% personal content. Absurd. I've been spending the last two days clicking "hide all from <media outlet> to no avail, as the outlets are essentially endless.
Facebook purposely does not provide the ability to separate or filter content from your friends and content from 3rd parties. That is borderline malicious behavior, and definitely sociopathic.
That's why I'm on Facebook: family and friends. We live away from most of our family and friends. When we had our first child, we discussed it and decided that it would be best to very actively share pictures and stories via Facebook with our family and friends. I do a pretty solid job of posting almost daily updates and whatnot.
This strategy has worked great. People "know" her. When we go to the race track (my hobby), everyone knows who she is. Many, many people comment on how much they love watching her grow up, etc. This is exactly what I was hoping for. She isn't some random kid at the track now, she's my kid, and everyone knows her.
Maybe Facebook is evil. I have no idea. I don't really care. I care about the bridge that it provides between me and other people.
I limit my use of it, maybe one visit p/day or less, it seems to work OK. The nice thing about it is I get to see photos of my family and friends who I don't see often.
I visit Hacker News more than I visit Facebook, I'm not sure what that says about me.