Kicking Facebook, Part 4
What can we do? Quit Facebook, reclaim your autonomy, and rebuild the social fabric.
With all the toxic stuff Facebook is doing to us as individuals and communities, it’s important to ask, well, what can we do about it? We need to start by getting off Facebook — as individuals and as communities.
Ultimately, we can reclaim our autonomy by quitting Facebook. It works best if we all do it, but even leaving one at a time is a start, if we help others out too. Last one out can shut off the lights.
Getting off Facebook is not as difficult as they make it seem. Facebook will use persuasion to try to get you to stay, but there’s no need to listen. You may want to go cold turkey, or you may want to wean yourself off it a little at a time.
The Time Well Spent movement provides some general tips for taking back control of your life from invasive digital technology. Applying those to unfriending Facebook, here are some actions to take.
First thing first, immediately turn off any notifications or alerts you get from Facebook. Don’t let them badger you into spending your time there. Shut off the emails they send, turn off as many of the in-app notifications as possible so you don’t see as many when you do use Facebook, and absolutely cut out push notifications altogether.
Even without notifications, the pull of the app and site will still be strong, so delete the app from your devices, and make sure to log out of the website. Do not save the password in your browser or password manager. Make it as slow as possible to get into Facebook, so that you will have time to pause and think about whether you really want to spend your time on Facebook right now.
When you’re ready, delete your account, and try to delete as much of the data they hold as possible. If you’re worried you’ll miss looking back at the things you’ve done, you can always download a partial record of your Facebook existence.
Change all the social logins you have and create direct accounts with any online services you use — you’ll probably have to do this once you’ve deleted your account, so might as well get started now.
And then what?
Once you’ve successfully disconnected yourself from Facebook, spend some time reconnecting with the people close to you. Not just with family and close friends, but also with the people in your neighbourhood and at work. Get to know them. Build relationships, build trust, build interconnection. Rebuild the social fabric. Do things together. Make use of public space. All this and more is critical for solving the countless social, political, and ecological problems we face today.
This is part 4 of a 4-part series. Read the whole shebang, in one, nearly 5,000 word essay: Kicking Facebook
