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Spending Less Time on Facebook: Advice That Works

You need Facebook, but you don’t want to waste time. What to do?

Over the past year, I have tried various different strategies to reduce time wasted on Facebook. A few years ago, I even deactivated my FB for two months, but realized I needed it to communicate with family and distant friends. Meanwhile, I wanted to be more productive, and stop scrolling through the Newsfeed for 45 minutes every day.

In this investigation, I used the app RescueTime (YC 08) to track how much time I wasted given each strategy.

Strategy 1: The Chrome extension “Facebook Nanny”

This Chrome extension blocks you from visiting Facebook after a certain amount of time. However, I have been developing apps on Facebook, so sometimes I’d need to check the developers site.

Or what if a friend sent me a FB message asking about homework due tomorrow, and I needed to respond? I would open up an incognito window or disable the Chrome extension. This strategy failed miserably. I was still spending 4 hours on FB weekly.

RescueTime email

*Note: I spend a lot of time on Gchat since the cofounder of my startup Codentical is across the country.

Strategy 2: The “Self Control” App

This app blacklists IP addresses, so there is no way to visit a site once you activate it. While this worked, it still did not solve the problem of needing to communicate with others. When someone messaged me asking something important, I would get the pop up on my phone, and be annoyed I could not respond on my computer. I type 145 words per minute, and I probably text ~40 words per minute.

The Self Control app made me feel like a kid in a candy store. Except I was restrained by a 2 foot “kid leash.” I refrained from activating it, and I still spent ~4 hours on FB weekly during finals.

At this point, I realized that the Newsfeed was the root cause of my wasted time.

I needed FB chat. I needed the ability to look up where a family member was located, or which friends worked where. I did not need to browse the Newsfeed. Using the verb “browse” in the previous sentence is an indication that this is not a necessary activity. I would find myself looking at pictures of someone I met 6 years ago, or being annoyed by sponsored stories. Ugh.

Strategy 3: The Chrome extension “Stylebot”

I have been using the Stylebot extension to customize the CSS of Wikipedia. Here is what my Wikipedia looks like:

After my realization, I thought of using Stylebot to hide certain elements on Facebook.

I would hide the Newsfeed and the annoying ticker, while still displaying chat, birthdays, and profiles. Perfect!

The past few weeks, I’ve averaged 35 minutes on Facebook. Success.

I have everything I want from Facebook without all the bogus distractions. Is it a coincidence that this is how Facebook makes money? After all, their goal is to make the Newsfeed as addicting as possible.