I also stopped using Facebook, shortly before the revelations of massive surveillance. At that time I was convinced I shouldn't be in the arms of companies, stopped using many services and started self-hosting stuff. People didn't understand me.
Then, Edward Snowden revealed that the possible abstract threats I wanted to avoid can in fact become real. We are fortunate to have received this information. People still didn't understand me.
In the beginning of my time without the services I clearly felt that something was missing, but it wasn't hard to withstand, for the idealistic flame burning within me.
After some time my interest for the services faded away, like an addiction you successfully cured. Now, I'm not even thinking about using them anymore.
Many don't understand me even now, and I'm not holding my breath, anymore.
Frustrating as it is, it's The Right Thing to do. It's a shame that some people assume you're disinterested, but then don't return emails/calls.
I heard about an old Norwegian guy who had always made short calls to friends and family throughout his life and that those people appreciated that. That's more the direction I'd rather go in over the passive friend-surveillance that has crept in.
I'd rather do that over an encrypted line with open protocols, but you can't have it all! At least I've managed to move over nearly wholesale to open software - phone, OS, email, syncthing, text file notes etc. etc. - so that's one of the major personal benefits to me.
The drawbacks I still need to learn to better work around.
Addiction/productivity doesn't really come into it for me; I have my days of perfect self-discipline and others where my procrast-fu is strong. I've used and use all manner of productivity systems to make sure the bread and butter work gets done (currently running an espeak Pomodoro reminder every 25 minutes, with semi-ironic (totally not...) inspirational quotes read out in the breaks), it's just the side-projects that sometimes suffer. That's no fault of social media, though, that's on me.
I would like to follow your lead, but in some ways it feels selfish of me and thats why I stick around on FB. I live quite some distance from my family and it is the easiest way to share photos of my family with all of them without requiring them to all get a new account somewhere else.
Are there better more private solutions that are still very convenient for everyone from my 15 year old niece to my 80 year old grandparents? I also am friends with just about everyone I've ever had any sort of meaningful interaction with and I hate that I am constantly scrolling through my news feed seeing stuff that I could care less about but just doing it to pass time. I would love to shut Facebook off if it didn't mean losing the ability to share photos with my close family and friends.
Maybe its just a matter of paring my Friend list down to about 20-30 people (from about 350) but I'd still like to stop offering my personal information to a megacorp to sell out to their advertisers and who knows who else.
Maybe a bit out of left field, but I'm using Telegram (that open source messenger app) to share pictures with family. It was on a whim; once when I was at my parents place, I just set up Telegram desktop on both their PC's, the app on their tablet and on my mother's smartphone (dad has this thing with big buttons).
Now we have a group chat together with my partner (would've also added siblings if I had them) and share pictures and simple things. Everything syncs on all devices, my father who needs a big screen follows mostly on his PC and puts their pictures on from there, my mother uses her android phone.
Works better and surprisingly much more intimate than anything before, and everyone participates.
Of course, people around me have been having whatsapp groups among peers, but there's something about the telegram desktop clients' easy sharing of images and links that I started to realize recently 'just works'.
I stopped using Facebook when a stalker mentioned to me about a post they saw that I thought was private which ended being creepy to me as it was quite personal.
I had set everything to private and FB helpfully shared it with everyone. I stopped posting from that day onwards.
I stopped about two years ago also and now have a fake account because I needed one for Tinder. I've been given flack for being 'antisocial' but i'm rewarded by being able to play clueless about the facebook dramas that people talk about.
Then, Edward Snowden revealed that the possible abstract threats I wanted to avoid can in fact become real. We are fortunate to have received this information. People still didn't understand me.
In the beginning of my time without the services I clearly felt that something was missing, but it wasn't hard to withstand, for the idealistic flame burning within me.
After some time my interest for the services faded away, like an addiction you successfully cured. Now, I'm not even thinking about using them anymore.
Many don't understand me even now, and I'm not holding my breath, anymore.