I am loving it!!! No, not Mc Donald’s. I totally do not like junkfood, though, pizza is an exception! I’m talking about not having Facebook anymore, not having Twitter anymore and not having Instagram anymore.
As I wrote before in the other posts about leaving Facebook, I don’t need many friends, I’m not after likes, and comments and all, and, here on this blog, since I left Facebook, I already have written much more and in-depth than I ever could do on Facebook.
Here is what I have experienced so far:
Maybe you can use it as inspiration for yourself too?
- Leaving Facebook was ‘scary’ but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. For many years, several times a day, daily, I, just like the majority of Facebook users, was scrolling through the app or online. Was there something new, didn’t I miss something, what about this page, what about that page, this news, that news, pictures, comments, how ridiculous!! How can you comment such a nasty thing? and replying on that. This certainly became a habit maybe a small addiction even. In reality? I felt free! Yes, I did have to get used not to scroll down and use that as a distraction, but, that took a day or two. Then that part was over.
- Facebook keeps records of everything and sells it! That is happening unconsciously. It is happening from the moment you activated your profile to this single second you are using it. Facebook claims you’re in control, well, I assure you, you. are. not. in control. Your data always comes in hands with companies who target you with relevant adds, and yes, that madness works as I did buy something from such an ad. Download your data and see yourself who has access to you! Maybe companies cannot relate to you personally but somehow I believe there are more companies besides this Cambridge Analytica who has access to more data you actually want to share for, for example, political profiling. It does feel so awesome not to be a part of that anymore.
- But hey, what about Google? They have even more! Yes, true. I’m also not a huge fan of that either, but, they do not sell what they have of me. I prefer to have targeted adds than random annoying adds on websites I visit. Besides, I have an addblocker so all good. I used to advertise on google myself and that mostly goes on search terms and keywords and in organic hits it is about the content I write myself. That is different than profiling, which is Facebook’s strategy.
- Losing friends. Or better, losing “friends”. How many of you have people as ‘friend’ who you never have seen? How many of you accept random friend requests? How many of you add ‘friends of friends’ as your own friend? How many “friends” do you unfriend or even block who has a different opinion than you? Or with how many are you arguing, cyber-bullying, etc? I only had Facebook-friends who I also know in real life, or, who my wife knows in real life, and as exception people I had a good interaction with before adding them. I have been traveling all over the world and people I met were ‘friends’. Many of who don’t wrote English I unfollowed or unfriended and the last were like 140 people or so? Many aren’t part of my life now anymore and now, here in Malaysia, I will make new friends and either I visit them or they can read this blog, or whatever. From the people I thought they were friends, unfortunately, some I really wished to keep in touch with but they never replied anymore. I am also not keeping facebook because of them, so… too bad.. but, that’s life and I’m not sorry for it either.
- New friends! YOU! dear reader. You subscribed to my blog because you enjoy what I write, or you’re family who wants to keep in touch and see how I am doing over here, or you are part of my group of friends I love hanging out with in real life and who I miss. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FOLLOWING ME!! This blog is not only a memory for myself but also for you, everyone who reads it and enjoys reading it!
- Lastly, taking back control. I did a Google search on my name and looked what popped up. In my case it was all good, no embarrassing things from the past. Google didn’t find out yet that I don’t have any social media account left (except LinkedIn) and what I see is where I worked, some comments on blogs and what not I left over time. Also in the pictures is nothing weird, just me.
Friendship has to come from both sides irrespective of the platform you’re having the friendship on.
However, I do believe it is good to have a public profile somewhere so people can check you out. Future employers, customers, or when people want to come in touch again. Just, I simply don’t want that such a profile is in hands of Facebook or something alike. That’s why I have this blog for the more personal information and……… a couple of days ago I started danielarendzen.com. That will be my ‘public profile’ from me, for me, written by me and I am in control of it, entirely. There’s not much on it yet, but, that will change over time when I take more time to update it.
Daniel Arendzen 