It started with my 32-year-old son experimenting with deactivating Facebook and finding that he got a bump in his well being. I tried it too and found similar benefits, but my accounts were still there. Then the reports on the abuses of Cambridge Analytica and realizing that only a small part of what they did was illegal. I was furious and I couldn’t enjoy Facebook or Twitter anymore. I deactivated Facebook and stopped checking Twitter. Yet, I have not deleted my accounts. I’d think about it, get overwhelmed and move on to other tasks on my to-do list.
Deleting my accounts on these two platforms is way past due for me. If it were a library book I’d owe more than the value of the book. The sick beauty of Facebook and Twitter’s business model is that they get their revenue from selling our attention and our data, so using their platforms is “free.” So we don’t feel an economic incentive to quit.
I asked my son’s advice on how to eliminate my accounts. He plugged me into an article on Wired magazine. It breaks it down so even I can figure it out.
I have to admit: I still use Instagram, because my daughter posts about her life and includes lots of photos of my grandson and I don’t want to miss out. And our family stays in touch on WhatsApp. Limiting my social media time to two platforms has greatly enhanced my life. I have more time to listen to podcasts, read books and magazines, or do the crossword. I have less comparison anxiety.
And Facebook and Twitter have done almost nothing to address the issues raised in 2016 and 2017 and 2018 and 2019. #FuckFacebook
Thank you to Adbusters magazine for the inspirational collage art in the March/April 2018 issue. Subscribe and support their subversive art.
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