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It's been 2 years that I have deleted both my FB accounts (one for family and friends, the other for business), my IG account and my Twitter account. All accoun

by srge 9y ago

It's been 2 years that I have deleted both my FB accounts (one for family and friends, the other for business), my IG account and my Twitter account. All accounts had many years of activity and substantial following. I never looked back and I am very much happier. What made me decide is that I realized that I had become an self inflicted obligation to create content to feed my online personas every days. Basically I was doing things in my real life that I did not want to do just to feed a virtual person's life (mine) on other people's websites to impress my friends and contacts. This is insane.

jamesrcole 9y ago
I've heard other people make the same point, and I don't understand it. Why did you feel obligated to create content? A lot of the time I've used it, I've personally been happy just seeing what other people have posted.
- srge 9y ago
  One could argue that those social platforms are designed to keep you engaged.
- kelnos 9y ago
  I've slowed down a lot lately in my posts to FB and IG. I think the turning point for me was when I saw a friend at a party (someone I don't see often and don't have much of a one-on-one relationship with), and she told me something to the effect of "I decide where to eat based on the photos you post on IG". I'm sure she was exaggerating, and certainly didn't mean to imply any sort of obligation on my part, but it hit me... why am I posting all this stuff? I've never had any burning desire to be some sort of "online influencer", so what was I really doing? Either I'm bragging about all the cool places I've been to (which I think would be pretty lame of me), or I'm in effect advertising for the restaurants I visit (which isn't too objectionable, but certainly isn't my job). If I were posting things for artistic or comedic value that I wanted to share, or posting actual photos that illustrated what's going on in my life, I'd feel better about it. So I post less. And as for FB, my feed is overloaded with politics and social justice posts. Both of which are important, but it gets to be too much, very quickly. And it's not what I want to use FB for -- I have news aggregators for those sorts of things. I used to have pinned tabs in Firefox open for FB and Twitter, but upon closing them a couple months ago I find I'm much happier. I can still manually navigate to FB when I need to, and I still have the mobile app, but I think I'm starting to find the right level of engagement with FB that makes me happiest and gives me the most utility.

by srge 9y ago

jamesrcole 9y ago

I've heard other people make the same point, and I don't understand it. Why did you feel obligated to create content? A lot of the time I've used it, I've personally been happy just seeing what other people have posted.

srge 9y ago
One could argue that those social platforms are designed to keep you engaged.
kelnos 9y ago
I've slowed down a lot lately in my posts to FB and IG. I think the turning point for me was when I saw a friend at a party (someone I don't see often and don't have much of a one-on-one relationship with), and she told me something to the effect of "I decide where to eat based on the photos you post on IG". I'm sure she was exaggerating, and certainly didn't mean to imply any sort of obligation on my part, but it hit me... why am I posting all this stuff? I've never had any burning desire to be some sort of "online influencer", so what was I really doing? Either I'm bragging about all the cool places I've been to (which I think would be pretty lame of me), or I'm in effect advertising for the restaurants I visit (which isn't too objectionable, but certainly isn't my job). If I were posting things for artistic or comedic value that I wanted to share, or posting actual photos that illustrated what's going on in my life, I'd feel better about it. So I post less. And as for FB, my feed is overloaded with politics and social justice posts. Both of which are important, but it gets to be too much, very quickly. And it's not what I want to use FB for -- I have news aggregators for those sorts of things. I used to have pinned tabs in Firefox open for FB and Twitter, but upon closing them a couple months ago I find I'm much happier. I can still manually navigate to FB when I need to, and I still have the mobile app, but I think I'm starting to find the right level of engagement with FB that makes me happiest and gives me the most utility.