I’ve been giving some thought to social media for a while now and recently a bit more. In general I think I agree with the sentiment that social media, at least as currently implemented by various platforms, might not have been the right direction. At the very least I quite strongly disagree with how companies such as Facebook and Twitter go about their business.

I noticed I had developed habits to periodically check for updates on the various platforms. A new browser tab here and there, a quick glance to my phone. Most of the time the updates were not important and certainly not time-sensitive. This reminded me of earlier when I removed all unnecessary or high volume blogs from my RSS reader and when I deleted my Reddit account. The habits were starting to feel familiar. Wasted time that could be better spent elsewhere. Or even by doing nothing at all.

In order to distance myself from these platforms I’ve long ago disabled their notifications. I don’t think anyone should have unrestricted access to your attention and I feel allowing notifications for social media platforms is overall a bad idea. To take another small step further I’ve relocated their apps into a folder that is not on the primary home screen of my phone.

Facebook is the service I disagree with the most and the one I use the least. I had deleted their iOS app years ago, back when its software quality was declining sharply, and I never installed it back. To further limit my use of their service I’ve had a habit of always logging out of Facebook on my computers so that there is a small barrier for accessing it. I’ve also never started using their messaging app. Therefore deleting my account wasn’t a big deal.

If some services require Facebook authentication I guess I will just feel sorry for their poor decision on that regard and will not be using them. Similarly I would find it difficult to use any service that requires me to have an account on any social media platform, regardless of whether I have the account or not.

I’m tempted to also remove my Instagram account, as they are owned by Facebook, and my Twitter account too, but I like the people I follow on both and I want to continue seeing their posts. While I am annoyed by the current situation I’ll need to think further what my approach would be. I’d like to own my own content, but that is a separate discussion. I already know that I wouldn’t like to post too much into different services if that content will simply be lost when I eventually leave those platforms.

Facebook has its 30-day period during which one can change their mind and still recover their account. I can’t see that I would.