You should not force yourself to quit X/Y/Z, rather, you might want to choose a balanced approach: limit the use of such sites to 5-15 minutes a day, a have best of both worlds.
I'm taking a partial break from Facebook. I consider it a tool for broadcasting information to a network of people who know me, and I ignore everything else (especially the part where I could spend hours each day consuming all of the information that my friends broadcast). That way I can get some eyes on my personal projects and give others a chance to passively keep up with my life. (I would miss this aspect if I were to leave Facebook entirely -- I don't feel like emailing a group of people everytime something important happens.)
Occasionally I break my rules and skim the news feed, but since I'm not on the service all that often, most updates just seem mundane, so I zero-in on the bigger things like life events and stuff that people might not always email me personally about (but that I wish they would). It's nice to feel a little connected still, without letting it become a huge time-waster.
It's been a year since I deleted all my photos, removed all friends, changed my name and iirc swapped in a throw-away email address on fb. Haven't missed it a bit. Was doing some fb integration for work and logged-in to test out a few things. Seeing the timeline layout for the first time made me miss facebook even less.
I didn't. I created account for some integration in work started getting tons of invites. Eventually stopped using it nearly years ago. Not missing it at all!
If you keep your friend list small (< 70) then it's not too addictive since there's not that much content (unless you're a stalker) and it's actually a meaningful way to communicate.
On a side note, Spotify's Facebook only policy makes me rage like nothing else. I would kill for a normal username that I could use to open up my playlists on other people's computers running spotify. If you don't know, usernames on Spotify are a sequence of numbers that you'll never remember. There are pages of forum and support posts about it and Spotify doesn't care.
Can you go into more detail on how you use an RSS reader to consume Facebook? I've seen that you can subscribe to individual pages, is that what you're doing?
I installed Nanny for Google Chrome and leave it enabled during the work day, blocking Facebook, HN, Amazon.com, and my other vices. It helped me to break the "Facebook habit" that we're all familiar with. Sure, I check in every once in a while, but not as habitually as I once did.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 51.7 ms ] threadOccasionally I break my rules and skim the news feed, but since I'm not on the service all that often, most updates just seem mundane, so I zero-in on the bigger things like life events and stuff that people might not always email me personally about (but that I wish they would). It's nice to feel a little connected still, without letting it become a huge time-waster.
On a side note, Spotify's Facebook only policy makes me rage like nothing else. I would kill for a normal username that I could use to open up my playlists on other people's computers running spotify. If you don't know, usernames on Spotify are a sequence of numbers that you'll never remember. There are pages of forum and support posts about it and Spotify doesn't care.
I had to type spotify:user:Usernamehere in the search bar to be able to find her. She also didn't have a numerical username.
So you don't technically need a facebook account to share music with a friend.
I consume Facebook with an RSS reader. It is quick, efficient, filters out the crap, and ensures you don't miss anything without constant refreshing.