Getting Off Facebook
+ a handy template
Anyone else’s facebook profile just have really random stuff? Like this post:
“OMG Adam is Australia’s next masterchef!!!!!!!
My friends didn’t fail to point out that Masterchef Australia was just airing late it India, the show had already concluded 6 months ago…
Surviving college without Facebook would have been hard — most college-organized events, pick up soccer games, house parties, study sessions, game nights, hangouts were shared as FB ‘events’. FB was actually a really convenient way of connecting with new people. LinkedIn was too professional-ly, Insta wasn’t as popular early on, and taking down everyone’s phone number was just painful and kinda weird.
So anyway, once college was over I didn’t have too many reasons to use FB. Most of my friends were more active on Instagram now anyway. On top of that, I had 10 years of random cringe posts like the one above. On top of that, there were random photos of me as a kid that no one including me cared about. On top of that, I had just seen a random documentary on the invasion of privacy in the digital age and now FB just had to go.
Quitting template:
- (1 month buffer) If someone texts on Facebook messenger, reply on WhatsApp, Insta, or whatever app that’s going to be used to keep in touch with people
- Export friend list, connect with them on some other platform (LinkedIn works great here cause like 95% of your friend list are probably just acquaintances)
- Scrape birthdays from FB contacts, add to Google Calendar (tbh checking birthdays was one of the major reasons why I logged into Facebook)
- Back up all photos on Google Photos (if you’re reading this after June 1 2021, its probs not unlimited and free anymore :( )
(Optional: Keep back up of all messages, posts etc) - Look through old posts, relive them a bit, feel nostalgic
- Poof, delete.
Major after effects:
- 2 extra hours in a day during quarantine (adding more time when you’re looking for ways to kill time is a very questionable move)
- Reduced access to quality memes
Hmm with that said, once covid is a thing of the past, I might need to join FB again for the same reasons I did in college — connecting with new people, birthdays, and events. For example, if I want to host a halloween party at home, I really don’t want to be sending out email invites…
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