Post
by Portreve » Sun Jul 15, 2018 3:03 pm
I still have a Facebook account, but I'm going to close it as of August 1. Here's why...
Back in June or July of 2014, I was really starting to get burned out with Facebook and the never ending barrage of pop culture stuff and some of the onset of what would become the nastiest season in American (and other countries') politics in many generations, and everyone's projected self-importance. I had already created a Twitter account, but had really never used it. So, I decided to do a couple different things. The first was to "switch" from Facebook to Twitter and/or Google+ (depending on what I found I liked the best). The second was to try and use what influence I had with friends and others on FB to get into some other form of communication (this is in reference to IM, not social media). Basically, I felt like I was trying to help break the kind of Facebook dominance that we all previously had gone through with AOL.
I announced then that I was going to close my account out by January 1, 2015, and I did my darndest to get people to establish new conduits of communication. I brought up what we had then learned thanks to folks like Edward Snowden, the fact that social media seems like an amplifier for a very negative mindset, etc. However, I only got a couple people to show interest, and in the end, I didn't close the account. I had, however, effectively stopped using Facebook. Of my total use of social media, FB dwindled to probably like 5%, Google+ increased to 5%, and the other 90% became Twitter. To this day, that hasn't changed.
Then, the 2015-2016 era of American politics happened. British politics happened. European politics happened. The whole thing effectively turned social media, and as we are to this day learning Facebook in particular, into the worst s***-show we've probably ever seen. Because of how Twitter is set up and how I make use of it, that means I (quite fortunately) missed the absolute worst of it.
Between 2014 and today, I have just barely moved the needle on getting friends to have other mediums of contact and communication, which now covers the bare minimum core of who I consider legitimate friends and actually want to stay in contact with. Anyhow, a couple days ago, I finally decided that I'd really had enough of FB. I've had enough of a few other (and unrelated) things, and so I'm closing it down. I have a few other folks that I'm not already otherwise able to communicate with that I'm giving one last heroic effort to to try and get to set something else up, but that's it. I figure that if two more weeks is not sufficient, then it's time to cut the cord.
Please be polite and remember to mark your fixed problem [SOLVED].
Presently running Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.3 beta.
Also looking for a new job.