At the start of the year, I deleted my Facebook account. It turns out that it was a great move because months later, the news regarding Cambridge Analytica broke out. I could claim that I abandoned Facebook before it was cool*.

(Sure, I would not have been affected by that data leak anyway, and even if I was, I am not part of the target demographic of that campaign.)

The reasons behind it was not complicated at all. I just felt like I don’t belong in Facebook. Whenever I login to FB, all I look at are my own posts. Not mainly to count new likes or comments—although I admit I sometimes do that—but to look at how awesome my posts are! I know that’s a weird way to use social media, but that’s really just how I operate!

I don’t care so much about what others are posting. I only have a handful of friends that have anything clever to say, really. And I think the feeling is mutual: the amount of reactions on my posts are minimal, even if I’m re-posting something that’s supposed to be crazy interesting. My “social” account is for my own, and a handful of friends’ consumption; and these few people, I can reach them directly through their mobile number.

With little hesitation and backed by 2 years of minimal FB activity, I deleted it on December 31st of 2017.

In my head, it was a ceremonious event: end of the year, end of a 10+ year social account. The “ceremony” was ruined by FB’s 15-day deactivation-before-deletion rule (they do not immediately delete your account, they will deactivate it for the next 15(?) days to give you a chance(lol!) to change your mind). Obviously, I didn’t change my mind.

If you’ve ever deactivated your account before, you’ll know how pathetic the deactivation confirmation page looks like: the profiles of 4-5 of the friends you’ve had the most interaction with show up above the shy “deactivate” button (and the blue-highlighted CANCEL button) with the words “…will miss you”.

• actual-friend1 will miss you…
• friend2-who-never-talks-to-you-irl-but-likes-some-of-your-posts will miss you…
• friend-who-suddenly-reconnected-to-lure-me-to-a-ponzi-scheme will miss you…

Suuuure~

I know that doesn’t erase my 10 years worth of data that they have stored, but at least it will be much harder for them to extrapolate* data from the people who was connected to me. Which reminds me…

…that I still have a very active Instagram account. IG, if you don’t already know, is also owned by Facebook, along with whatsapp and snapchat (and other companies with creepy sounding technology)

Which brings me to earlier today, while I was running, I realized how much Instagram is taking up so much of my time, even when I’m not actively posting anything. I am currently reading a book called Deep Work: it discusses the difference between shallow work (repetitive, non brain-intensive activities that can be done by anyone, such as social media) and deep work (intense, focused thinking that is hard to replicate).

Shallow work is at an all time high, which makes deep work more precious and valuable. Almost everyone these days are subservient to their phones, feeding on the next update—including me. If there’s an addiction that the world should be most worried about, it should be our addiction to the internet, social media, and our mobile phones.

As soon as I get off from browsing Instagram, Youtube or Reddit, I sigh audibly at the time I wasted consuming information instead of producing literally anything. The 4 hours I wasted mindlessly watching videos, I could have spent creating that mobile app that I always wanted to make.

It’s the same situation we have with our natural resources: so many consumers, but not enough producers.

I’m still deciding whether I should delete my remaining social media accounts and leave this blog up. Blogging, unlike most social-media requires long continuous periods in your own thoughts.

I want to create things.

*

1. Yeah I know the trend of quitting FB started picking up 2015/2016 so I’m not the first one to do this.
2. Even if you delete your account, there are many ways for social networks to collect your data. You can have a virtual/ghost profile via a your real-world friends’ activities with you. Through a combination of facial recognition technology and some advanced AI algorithms, they can have a precise estimate of this “extra” person (without an account) on their friend’s photos and conversations. (Thanks for selling me out guys! : P )