It’s been two weeks since I pulled the plug on Facebook and its slightly-less-evil twin, Instagram. I have been bombarded with concerned emails and text messages from friends and family not at all. It took my Facebook-active daughter over a week to notice my absence and as far as I can tell, she’s the only one. Based on that, it seems the reasons for departure were fairly spot-on.
Do I miss it? To be honest, for the first few days I would click on the shortcut out of habit and was quickly reminded that my account was pending deletion. I have since removed related shortcuts and apps form my devices and find that I really don’t miss it. With every other post being a “sponsored” ad and suggestions on who’s video feed I should follow because they are so cool, it just became tedious. Remember chain letters? “Make three copies of this letter and mail to three friends and you will have good luck for a year!” has evolved to “Only 3% of good people will copy this post on their wall and help me get 100k likes for my ego!” I also tired of having posts tagged as misinformation because some angry Woker complained about the original subject that I was linking to and commenting on, and the algorithm spanked anyone who dared to color outside the lines.
Maybe I’ll reactivate Twitter if Elon buys it and schools it on what free speech and two-sided discourse really means. Meanwhile, I’ll find something to do with all that extra time I now have…all ten minutes a day.