I posted this on Facebook and Instagram this morning.
It’s funny, I’ve really cut down on my Facebook time this year – January 6th was an inflection point for me, and right afterwards I deleted the app from my phone, which took away about 90% of the use cases for me. I kept Instagram and have been posting some daily affirmations but have mainly stayed away from posting or participating in the kind of inane finger-pointing diatribes that I tended to get sucked into.
But still, I felt a bit of a pang last night as I read the news about Francis Haugen’s testimony — like a person who used to smoke two cartons a week, then a pack a day, then wakes up finally to realize, wow, I can’t stand the smell of it anymore. There’s a bit of nostalgia and a bit of musing about how I could ever have thought it was healthy.
One thing I see clearly is how pervasive it is — even finding links to my profiles on this site has taken a while. It has seeped into everything. Social links all over the place, the sign-in credentials, share buttons… yikes.
I also see how much Facebook benefits from creating a dependent, self-defeating FOMO in people — you have to be here or you’ll miss out. You have to market here or you won’t grow. You have to consume here or you won’t be informed. You have to share here or you won’t be seen.
And yet, if you use Facebook you are in a large part handing your sight over to someone else. It’s hard to miss out on something that isn’t real in the first place, and I don’t trust what they are showing me any more. Or rather, I trust what they are showing me is 100% to their benefit rather than mine. It’s a great big world out there, and I’d rather see it unfiltered through my own smaller lenses than skewed through Mark Zuckerberg’s tunnel-vision glasses.
In any case, this felt good to write.
I don’t feel good about supporting the Facebook ecosystem any longer.
I know that losing my one-three billionth of support won’t impact Facebook in the slightest — but I’m sure that dropping it from my life will make a positive difference on me.
I’m leaving my profiles up mainly to ensure that they aren’t usurped by international criminal bots, or worse, technocrats from Menlo Park.😉 I’ll pop in from time-to-time to wipe the dust away, but I don’t look at or respond to messages here anymore.
There are a lots of ad- and algorithm-free ways to reach me if you are so inclined. I invite you to join Plenty’s mailing list at www.plentyconsulting.com. For a more personal slant on things, you can also find me at www.yourpartmatters.com. And for me with an 80s filter, check out www.oneroomschoolhousemusic.com.
Take good care. Your part matters. Be gentle with yourself.