As one half of an artist duo that makes work that is quite critical of the way in which social media is distorting our lives, I felt like a hypocrite to continue to have an account at Facebook.
Somehow along the way, I was coerced into joining (somewhere around 2008) to see what all the fuss is about. Looking back at my posts, I can see where I was being cautious, and a definite point at which I became addicted.
Suddenly I felt it was ok to share even the most bland of things or have a good old rant about something, but for who?
Why do we all feed our most personal of information into this private corporation’s database? We would never be ok about our government knowing this much about our personal lives!
On top of this, each one of us with an account in the western world is worth approximately $34 a year in advertising revenue to this multi-billion dollar corporation. Advertising and tracking that follows us around as we browse the web elsewhere. Doesn’t that feel invasive?
Today I stop feeding this machine. It’s time to take back what is ours, and our personal information is the most important thing we have. Consider whether you want to continue down this rabbit hole and join a growing number of people deleting their Facebook. Let’s stop hashtagging and start to get back into real contact with the people we care for.
Use Facebook to promote things to friends and followers? Consider a mailing list. Use it to keep in touch with friends and family? Use one of the many many messaging apps around that don’t track you. You enjoy the personal blogging? Start a WordPress blog. Everything can be done without this tool, it’s just become easier for some reason to use it.
If you need help for alternatives to use in future, get in touch, I’m happy to assist.