Tag: facebook

Quitting Facebook

Jane 4 Comments

I’ve written about this before. Many times.

Even a short period of time spent on Facebook leaves me feeling at best lethargic, at worst angry.

I haven’t been writing much on the blog lately, and that reflects in the amount of time I (haven’t) spent on Facebook. I only really go on to post my blog articles anyway.

After being off it for so long, I felt absolutely no desire to go back on. Maybe that’s part of why I haven’t been writing much on here. I didn’t want to feel like I had to go back on Facebook to share my articles.

Back on Facebook for a Visit

Yesterday, I published a blog article. My blog automatically posts to my “thebraininjane” Facebook page, but I need to actually go write a post on my own profile in order to share my articles there.

With some trepidation, I opened Facebook in my browser.

The first thing that I saw was that I had dozens of notifications. The little red notification icon with the number in it is just irresistible. I clicked on it.

Immediately I saw updates from friends, mentions of me in comments on posts I was clueless about, and all kinds of other things I had been perfectly happy not knowing about.

Almost Down the Rabbit Hole

Before I knew it, I had been ten minutes getting myself up to speed on a thread I had commented on weeks before and lost track of.

I hadn’t even seen the time go by! I had only wanted to post my article and leave!

I yanked myself out of the rabbit hole and quickly marked all notifications as “read”. I shared the link to my article, and closed the window in my browser.

Then I sent a text message to my sister-in-law (dear friend and beloved recipient of the Weekender sweater). I told her how I’d nearly gone down the rabbit hole.

Her response was pretty much perfect: “Facebook is not for me.”

Wow.

How simple. How uncomplicated! How true! HOW LIBERATING!

What To Do Now?

It became clear to me then and there that I want to delete my Facebook account.

And not just “deactivate”. No no no, I want to actually delete my account. I don’t want Facebook retaining information about me.

(Yes, yes, I know Facebook has my information on Whatsapp and Instagram, and don’t even get started on how much Google knows about me. Baby steps, people!)

My first step was to google (I know) “how to delete my Facebook account”. The first result was this C-Net article, published only a few days ago, which gives helpful step-by-step instructions.

Let People Know

One of the only things that I like about using Facebook is Messenger. I haven’t had the Facebook app on my phone or tablet for nearly four years now, but I have kept the Messenger app. I think that’s been one of my main reasons for keeping my account: having that ability to write to a Facebook contact if I want to.

The C-Net article recommends posting a status update a few days before deleting your account by way of an announcement. Let people know you’re closing your account and ask them to send you other contact info by Messenger.

Let this post serve as my notification: I’M QUITTING FACEBOOK!

Send me your contact deets, folks. I’ll actually create a contact for you in my address book! Imagine that!

What I’ll Miss

As a hopeless extrovert, I will miss the possibility of getting in touch with people from my past out of the blue. It’s nice to think of a person, remember them for some reason, and write them a little note to say you’re thinking of them. I’ll miss that.

I’ll also miss the local stitch n’ bitch group. There’s something about crafty people who knit and crochet that makes them some of the craziest, zaniest and most entertaining people around. The group will continue to meet, and though I may miss out on things online, I definitely won’t miss out when we meet in person again.

Finally, it’s true that there are lots of really fun and interesting Facebook groups out there. I’ve enjoyed my local Buy Nothing group tremendously. I worry that cutting myself off from Facebook will also mean cutting myself off from groups like these.

Maybe it will. But maybe that’s okay? We’ll see.

Quitting Facebook Feels Scary

Maybe it’s FOMO, maybe it’s because I’m such an extrovert. But the idea of quitting Facebook feels scary. Though I spend maybe 10 minutes out of every two weeks on the platform now, its just being there as an option feels reassuring.

But everyone I know who has taken this step has not regretted it. They’ve never looked back.

It seems that slowly weaning ourselves off of social media is, dare I say it, healthy? Perhaps it’s because social media is so hard to do in moderation. You’re either not on, or your doom scrolling.

Between the two, I’d rather be off it altogether.

I’ll keep you posted!

The Last Straw?

Jane 2 Comments

The straw that broke the camel’s back? The weight that tipped the scale?

Could this be it?

Let Me Explain

I wrote a long time ago about how I was losing faith in social media.

A couple of years ago, I took Facebook off my phone altogether, and limited the time I spent on there to when I actually opened my laptop.

Now, as I am writing on a much more regular basis, I am opening my laptop more frequently. And since I post the blog articles I publish to Facebook, I end up on the platform.

In fact, in July I wrote about how being on Facebook more often makes me feel.

Then, Yesterday…

I’ve seen articles over the years that talk about the spread of negative, or just plain wrong information on Facebook.

Yesterday, however, I was listening to On the Media, a long-running media analysis show. The podcast extra featured an interview with Fadi Quran of Avaaz (a non-profit organization that focuses on identifying misinformation in social media).

The host, Bob Garfield, was interviewing Quran about Avaaz’s latest report, entitled “Facebook’s Algorithm: A Major Threat to Public Health” (link to the full report).

In a nutshell, the report shows that health misinformation spreads like wildfire on Facebook, and the company does very little to stem the tide because doing so would endanger their business model.

Not New Information

This is not new. It is not surprising. But this time, it shocked me.

I don’t know why it hit home so hard this time.

Not after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Cambridge Analytica. Brexit. QAnon. And all the shady shenanigans Facebook has failed to do anything about (or participated in).

And especially considering my own instincts! My own feelings of lethargy, dissatisfaction, and general malaise after spending any amount of time on Facebook (and, increasingly, Instagram).

My better judgment has told me for years that Facebook is not healthy for me.

Why Not Quit?

Honestly?

Because pretty much all the traffic to my blog comes from Facebook. If I were to delete my Facebook account, it would be the death knell for this blog (already on life support).

And because I can see a lot of positive uses for it, too. It’s helped me to connect to people in new places time and again (in Canada, Brasil, Germany, the U.S….)

But how do I get the positives from Facebook while also shielding myself from the insidious nature of the beast?

The feeling of being sucked in, of being trapped into a vicious scrolling cycle. Of being marketed to.

How You Can Help

I’m getting there. I’m about ready to cut the crap and just delete my Facebook account.

But I need your help. If you’re reading this, can you do me a solid?

Can you sign up for email updates from this blog? You’ll get a nice little email whenever a new article is published. It’s super easy.

But who am I kidding? We all know that blogs like mine and small businesses are why Facebook keeps afloat. We can’t survive without it.

*Sigh*

Now I’m kind of depressed about it. Time to pick up my knitting! I’m finishing up the Tempestry project I had set aside a while back. And I also owe you an article about my Weekender sweater.

Stay tuned!

(Sign up for email alerts!)

Remembering Why I Quit

Jane 3 Comments

I’ve been spending more time on Facebook lately.

And it’s not a good thing.

I hadn’t really “quit” per se, but I had drastically reduced the amount of time I spent on Facebook before moving to the States.

Here, though, Facebook seems to be an integral part of the social fabric. It seems to be part of finding your community.

Don’t get me wrong, some parts of Facebook are good. I like that community groups are active there, I enjoy friends’ entertaining updates, and I like learning about fun local events.

But at the same time…

Every time I get on Facebook, I become enraged. Sometimes it’s by a news article someone has shared. Other times it’s by a post from a friend.

And then I become further enraged when I remember that Facebook is trying to capitalize on my rage.

It’s a vicious cycle.

No Middle Ground on Facebook

Mostly I get annoyed by the vitriol. The us-them attitudes. The “I’m-right-you’re-wrong” statements. The laments of, “Why can’t everyone be smart like me?”

Sometimes I see posts like this from people I’d expect.

But sometimes I see them from people I know for a fact wouldn’t dare make such strong statements or judgments face-to-face with people.

That gets me even more riled up! That people feel safe saying often hateful things because they’re behind a screen.

So Why Don’t I Quit?

I ask myself this all the time.

I feel like I get very little out of a half-hour spent on Facebook. So is it really worth it to keep coming back?

I don’t have the answer. It’s true that the vast majority of my blog readers find their way here from Facebook. So there’s that…

If I’m honest, though, there is a certain amount of FOMO.

I’m not quite sure what I’m afraid of missing out on, but there it is.

losing_faith_in_social_media

Losing Faith in Social Media

Jane Leave a comment

Up until now, I’ve been billing myself as a social media specialist. I’ve worked as a social media manager, and I’ve done some consulting work in social media for small businesses.

But the truth is, I am losing faith in social media.

Lately, I’ve felt that social media is used far too much for marketing; it’s turned into an echo chamber (especially Facebook); and its value for providing engaging content has dwindled.

Social Media Marketing

I have written about social media marketing on this very blog. It has been, after all, my métier! But while I practiced social media marketing in my professional life, I find myself being put off by it in my personal life.

Ads are everywhere.

Every time I log into Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram now, I am faced with ads. This, of course, is completely to be expected! How else are these platforms going to make money to develop for their users? But what irks me is the way advertising is done.

Facebook right-hand column ads are notoriously bad. Twitter “promoted tweets” are hardly better. Instagram’s sponsored images are, at least, a little less annoying, since the images are usually nice. But for the most part, the ads are tacky, tasteless, and irrelevant–or worse, tastelessly relevant (one particularly badly timed ad for baby clothes showed up after I had had a miscarriage).

To be fair, that’s mostly because the people advertising have no idea what they’re doing, or how to target their ads. It’s no wonder management are constantly doubting the ROI potential of social media advertising.

Most brands get it wrong.

Then there are the brands that pay so that their content shows up in my newsfeed. There are very few brands that inspire enough enthusiasm for consumers to actively engage with them. Nike and others are the exception to the rule.

For the most part, the promos, Facebook contests, and “relaxed language” that brands try to use in social media fall very flat. It’s artificial, forced, and awkward. All things that are poison to social media users.

The Echo Chamber

This mainly applies to Facebook, due to their filtering practices. As soon as you like one or two baby pictures, wedding announcements, or articles of a feminist nature, that is all that you see in your newsfeed.

Just because I got married, had a kid, and have feminist sympathies, does not mean that I want to see only wedding shots, baby photos and articles about why the heating in my workplace is inherently sexist.

Looking at my Facebook feed, you’d think that breastfeeding mothers are being expelled from dining establishments all across North America. I can tell you that I’ve been breastfeeding in public on a regular basis for more than nine months (and in more than five countries!) and no one has ever asked me to cover myself up or nurse my child elsewhere.

The algorithm of boredom

It seems like Facebook is targeting content at me based on what its algorithms think will delight, incense, outrage, move, and otherwise scintillate me.

On the contrary, I now find Facebook extremely boring. It’s a sad, uninteresting person who only wants to hear their own ideas and opinions shouted back at them. There is no back and forth, no debate (I don’t count people hurling insults at each other and spewing vitriol as debate), and very little room for thoughtful interaction.

I’d much rather have a face-to-face conversation over a coffee, than kill even 5 minutes on Facebook.

So what does that make me?

I’ve called myself a social media specialist. I’ve maneuvered myself into this niche of online content marketing. And yet I find it boring.

The one social media platform I enjoy spending any time on is Instagram, and that’s because my closest loved ones are there. I keep my profile private, and share moments of joy from my daily life with those I love best.

But other than that, I’m over Facebook, Twitter, and the lot. So what do I do now? Career change? I can’t very well market myself as a social media expert when I spend very little of my own time there.

Well for the moment, I cannot be said to have a career. I’ll just have to continue writing (which I do like), trying to read broad and varied content, and keeping up my knitting, which is a great way to meet new, and interesting people.

Is there any way I can make meeting people through crafts my career? Any ideas?