You might wonder why I suddenly decided to delete Facebook after all of these years, and leave my beloved Instagram. Well, it's because I read a lot of articles that share just how much Facebook and now Instagram have messed with our society. It's not good news! If you're interested, here are the articles I read that solidified my decision:
Also, in late 2018, I watched Frontline's documentary, "The Facebook Dilemma," and it definitely had an influence on my #deleteFacebook! decision. I highly recommend watching Frontline's entire presentation! ⭐
What's crazy is that those articles are just a sampling of the negative press about Facebook! Instagram didn't used to have much bad press, but since it was bought by Facebook, I've seen IG in the press more and more and it's not good news. Oh, how I wish Instagram had never sold-out to Facebook! 👎 That said, let's continue with my story. 😊
On March 23rd, 2019, I logged back into Facebook for the first time in four years so I could finally delete my account once and for all! (I deactivated my account on March 9th, 2015.)
Let me tell you, logging back in to Fakebook was the strangest moment I've had in the past four years! It was so odd seeing very familiar parts of FB, but there were also new things I wasn't familiar with. I read the instructions as to how to download all of my data and permanently delete my Facebook account; it took me a while to figure everything out.
While I waited to get my Facebook account's data download, I looked at several people's pages that I hadn't had contact with since I left that blue and white world. I was surprised to see that a couple of my friends had new babies, and several friends had moved to new homes, but everything else in everyone else's lives pretty much fell in line with their posts from four+ years ago.
It was so interesting to note that all of my Facebook friends and family (that I don't have continuous/regular contact with) basically stayed the same—meaning, we are who we are! Good, bad, or indifferent, we fundamentally don't significantly change over the years! It really was such a fascinating "experiment" on my end! I'm actually really glad I was able to experience my own version of a "social scientist study" by being active on Facebook, then deactivating my account, and later going back on it for a couple of hours!
What surprised me the most about my adventure of logging back in to Facebook is how much time I spent there! 😬 I pulled up many pages of people I wanted to check up on, so that took time in and of itself. Yet I never could have predicted my many random clicks—i.e., my wonderings about other people who showed up on my friends/family members pages—and how long my "inquiries" took to resolve! 😆
I really "fell down" the Facebook Rabbit Hole and it was nothing close to a happy Wonderland! Ha ha. It was a stark reminder of how Facebook is/was not good for me—it's a HUGE time waster!
*Please let me clarify that the people I care about aren't a waste of time. It's just that the way Facebook is set up is meant to make us waste as much time on there as possible, which is not good for us. If you'd like concrete evidence of that fact, read this statement from New York Media's Intelligencer article, "Sean Parker: We Built Facebook to Exploit You":
If you'd like to hear more from Sean Parker's interview, watch this video that also includes an interview with Chamath Palihapitiya, an early senior executive at Facebook
*Please let me clarify that the people I care about aren't a waste of time. It's just that the way Facebook is set up is meant to make us waste as much time on there as possible, which is not good for us. If you'd like concrete evidence of that fact, read this statement from New York Media's Intelligencer article, "Sean Parker: We Built Facebook to Exploit You":
"Parker explained just how he and the other early Facebookers built the platform to 'consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible.'"Sean's statement makes me cringe and get a pit in my stomach! It's terrible what the Facebook machine has purposely and very knowingly done—and continues to do—to our society!
If you'd like to hear more from Sean Parker's interview, watch this video that also includes an interview with Chamath Palihapitiya, an early senior executive at Facebook
*As a warning, be aware that Chamath uses strong language—i.e., swear/cuss words which I can't stand!
When it came down to actually deleting my Facebook account, I double checked everything very carefully. I made sure I had all of my data because those posts/messages/comments were important memories from my family's history! 💖 Once I was certain that my data download was complete, I clicked the blue box that said "⚠ Delete Account"! It was such an amazing feeling to click that button, you have no idea! Wow, talk about an adrenaline rush! 👏😃
Okay, that might seem like a strange reaction to have, but knowing I still had a Facebook account—even though it was deactivated—was always in the back of my mind, and it bothered me! I felt like a hypocrite because I so did not support Facebook and all of the problems it's introduced into our society, yet I still owned my deactivated account! 😬 By continuing to have a deactivated Facebook account, I wasn't living congruently to my soul. Thus I was so very happy to rectify my incongruous situation by finally deleting my Facebook account! Yay yay happy day! 😁
*In my estimation, my previous Facebook account has now been deleted from our universe for two-and-a-half weeks! Woohoo! 👊
*In my estimation, my previous Facebook account has now been deleted from our universe for two-and-a-half weeks! Woohoo! 👊
Deciding to also delete my private Instagram account was a bit more difficult for me. I absolutely loved my time on Instagram over the past five years—I joined on February 26th, 2014—and I knew I'd deeply miss it. 😥 Yet after reading all of the articles I listed above, and knowing how Instagram has fundamentally changed for the worse since Facebook gained control, I knew what I had to do.
When I downloaded my private Instagram account's data, I was extremely disappointed to find that Instagram doesn't put your photos and captions in the same files! In fact, I couldn't even find all of my photo captions! They seemed to be hidden away deep within my data download, and the only way I could access them was to download my captions' file folder contents to a sketchy online program that converted them into an Excel spreadsheet which I then had to re-download.
I later discovered that that online conversion program downloaded a tracking virus to my computer, too. Boo! 😠 Thankfully, I eradicated the virus from my computer. But even when the sketchy online conversion program separated out my captions into the Excel spreadsheet, some of my captions were still missing—which ticked me off!
After all of the time and effort I spent downloading my Instagram world, I realized that this manipulation of our data is yet another devious Facebook tactic meant to keep its users hooked and brainwashed every day! But I will not fall for it! No, I will not! #feistyAdrie 😇
Thus, as much as I was so giddy to also delete my private Instagram account right away, it will have to wait for a future day hopefully not too far away. For now, I need to work on copying/pasting all of my photo captions into a Word document. Unfortunately, my captions won't match up exactly with my photo files as Instagram's data download just groups them by month 😞, but at least I'll have them!
Greg suggested that I create a private blog to post our photos and captions there, but that would take up entirely too much of my time as I have 950 private Instagram posts and multiple photos on many of them! So yeah, at this point, I'd rather have a journal-type document and keep it in the same computer file as my Instagram photos. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than not having my captions at all!
You see, I absolutely loved writing photo captions on my Instagram posts! It really helped me remember all of the wonderfulness or frustration of each day or experience that I posted about. Plus, I just love love love words!!! #EnthusiasticFantastic! 😁 So yes, a big part of the reason I loved contributing on Instagram was because of the wordy details I shared there. I love composing captions! 💛
And yes, I fully know that blogging is the best way to share large amounts of words, which is why I'm currently in the process of retraining my brain to come blog at my computer rather than composing and posting via my smart phone. It's been a long process to eradicate the "addictiveness" of Instagram from my daily life, but I'm totally getting there! I am making progress in my Instagram-free efforts! Yay! A fabulous quote I heard last night (while listening to a wonderful BYU Devotional, "Wrestling with Comparisons" by J.B. Haws—go listen to it right now! 😀) really helps me solidify that writing on my blog is one of the best things I can do:
Here are some of my Instagram side notes: my final post was on April 3rd, 2019; I completely deleted the app from my phone; I no longer scroll my feed; and copying/pasting my many photo captions into a Word doc will be one of my summertime projects of 2019!
I later discovered that that online conversion program downloaded a tracking virus to my computer, too. Boo! 😠 Thankfully, I eradicated the virus from my computer. But even when the sketchy online conversion program separated out my captions into the Excel spreadsheet, some of my captions were still missing—which ticked me off!
After all of the time and effort I spent downloading my Instagram world, I realized that this manipulation of our data is yet another devious Facebook tactic meant to keep its users hooked and brainwashed every day! But I will not fall for it! No, I will not! #feistyAdrie 😇
Thus, as much as I was so giddy to also delete my private Instagram account right away, it will have to wait for a future day hopefully not too far away. For now, I need to work on copying/pasting all of my photo captions into a Word document. Unfortunately, my captions won't match up exactly with my photo files as Instagram's data download just groups them by month 😞, but at least I'll have them!
Greg suggested that I create a private blog to post our photos and captions there, but that would take up entirely too much of my time as I have 950 private Instagram posts and multiple photos on many of them! So yeah, at this point, I'd rather have a journal-type document and keep it in the same computer file as my Instagram photos. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than not having my captions at all!
You see, I absolutely loved writing photo captions on my Instagram posts! It really helped me remember all of the wonderfulness or frustration of each day or experience that I posted about. Plus, I just love love love words!!! #EnthusiasticFantastic! 😁 So yes, a big part of the reason I loved contributing on Instagram was because of the wordy details I shared there. I love composing captions! 💛
And yes, I fully know that blogging is the best way to share large amounts of words, which is why I'm currently in the process of retraining my brain to come blog at my computer rather than composing and posting via my smart phone. It's been a long process to eradicate the "addictiveness" of Instagram from my daily life, but I'm totally getting there! I am making progress in my Instagram-free efforts! Yay! A fabulous quote I heard last night (while listening to a wonderful BYU Devotional, "Wrestling with Comparisons" by J.B. Haws—go listen to it right now! 😀) really helps me solidify that writing on my blog is one of the best things I can do:
"Writing makes an exact man."I absolutely love that quote and couldn't agree more! Yes, writing makes me an exact woman! #choosetowrite! 😁
– Francis Bacon
Here are some of my Instagram side notes: my final post was on April 3rd, 2019; I completely deleted the app from my phone; I no longer scroll my feed; and copying/pasting my many photo captions into a Word doc will be one of my summertime projects of 2019!
Guess what else?! I have even more information to share about why we should just say "NO!" to Mark Zuckerberg and get off all of the social media platforms Facebook controls. Are you ready for this?! 😃
A little while after I started my Facebook account deletion process, I saw this incredible new TED Talk given by Carole Cadwalladr at TED's April, 2019 conference—it's an absolute must-watch!
Around that same time, I stumbled upon this article that deeply disturbed me 😧:
Here is the gist about what one former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did to his family members and friends, and the other people whose family/friends signed up for his "services" online via personalized Facebook ads—it's utterly appalling to me! I just can't believe that Facebook allows such blatant targeting of its users!
"...The project was called MormonAds, and it was a brief but perhaps unprecedented experiment in targeted religious dissuasion. In four months at the end of 2017, the project targeted more than 5,000 practicing Mormons with messages painstakingly crafted to serve as gentle introductions to the messier elements of LDS history that were glossed over within the church. All the names and email addresses for the campaign came from disillusioned ex-Mormons.
"...Jones had a working knowledge of Facebook's ads tool through his business, and he knew that he could precision target an ad to a custom audience as small as 20 people. All he needed were their email addresses. 'If I target my family with ads, then I’m not the apostate messenger,' he said. 'Maybe they’ll look at it or read it. If they knew what I knew about Mormon history, they’d understand why I left the church.'"Based on that article alone, it's clear that Facebook is not safe for any of us! Facebook is not our friend in any way, shape, or form! We should run as far and as fast as we can away from Facebook's creepy alternate universe!
All of the information I've shared in this post would have easily been enough, but yesterday morning, I was introduced to two additional, shocking articles that further support my stance that we should all delete our Facebook and Instagram accounts immediately! I highly recommend reading both of them as they will blow your mind! 💣💥 I hope they will convince you to strongly say "NO!" to Mark Zuckerberg, too! #justdoit! #justsayNO!
Opinion
If we want anything to change within our social media atmosphere, we must band together and stand up for what is right and true! You might think I'm overreacting, but I know I'm not. The future of our society for generations to come depends on what we all do right now! We cannot wait for some government to change our social media climate! Only we can make that positive change that needs to be made!
With every bit of seriousness I can muster, please understand that (from everything I've read, watched, and listened to) Mark Zuckerberg certainly will NOT be the positive and righteous change agent for our world. No, Zuck is fully looking to keep his world domination and has zero intentions of ever stepping down from his data-driven, citizen-powered throne! Furthermore, the many Facebook executives and employees won't step up and make the necessary changes either because they're all enjoying their vast amounts of money entirely too much—money that they've all made from us wasting our precious time on their addictive and destructive apps!
So, you might be wondering where I will go in our social media universe, as there aren't too many options outside of Facebook's empire. It's true, I'm definitely not going to give up social media all together just because of a few really bad apples in the basket. Thus, after doing a lot of research, I decided to join Flickr! Yay Flickr! 😀
I really like that Flickr was sold by Yahoo in 2018 to a conscientious, family-owned company named SmugMug. Based on what I've researched, Flickr is now all about its users': photographs; experience on Flickr; connection with people they want to be connected to; and privacy!
I also love the fact that I can pay for Flickr Pro(!) and get the following, "Unlimited storage, ad-free browsing, advanced stats, and more." I am so interested in unlimited storage, and especially in an advertisement-free(!) Flickr experience! Yes, I am totally willing to pay a small fee for social media freedom from constant advertisements and insane invasions of my privacy!
If you're interested, here's more information about the Flickr/SmugMug partnership:
*In case you're wondering, no, I have not been asked to promote Flickr in any way. I've not been contacted by Flickr to sign up, share my thoughts, nor anything close to that. I'm simply sharing my opinion on what I think is currently the best replacement for Instagram and Facebook.
The only problem is, I can't get any of my friends to sign up on Flickr with me because they're all so in love with Instagram and Facebook! (They're probably also "addicted" to IG and FB to some extent.) #sosadface! 😢 My dearest mom and sweet auntie have both signed up on Flickr (Thank you, darling ladies!) and we're now following each other, but we're it! Oh, how I would love it if my other family members and friends joined me on Flickr!
Here are my stats for my other social media accounts:
I don't plan to ever quit Twitter unless something really crazy happens in the future. I haven't used Twitter a lot yet, as I've been super busy lately, but that awesome time will come in the future where I'll be sharing my blog post links to Twitter on a regular basis! Yay yay happy Twitter days! 😄 I've researched Twitter's CEO, Jack Dorsey, and while he seems a little extreme in some of his personal views and habits, I feel much better about him and his leadership capabilities than I ever did about Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe I'll just refer to Jack as being a little eccentric...as we all are in our own ways! 😉
I will totally keep my Pinterest and LinkedIn accounts, too. I share my blog post links on Pinterest, but I also love posting the many additional articles, videos, and podcasts I feel are worth sharing and referring back to. I'm not super active on LinkedIn, but I absolutely understand the tremendous value of being a member on LinkedIn! It is a great networking tool!
And of course, I will continue sharing here on Enthusiastic Fantastic! It is and will remain my main internet and social media love forever! 😄 Unless something catastrophic happens to me or the world wide web, I will always keep posting here!
Finally, I understand that many of you will choose to stay connected via Facebook and Instagram indefinitely, which is totally your right and privilege. I won't hold your choices against you—I promise! 😘 We are all so blessed to have the God-given gift of free agency! Each of us gets to choose how we live our marvelous miraculous lives and spend our precious beautiful days. 💗 But we are also subject to the consequences of our many actions—be they good, bad, or boring. 😉 Thus, we must be satisfied with the choices we make, for it is terrible to be filled with regret! Yes, I'm so happy that I choose to live my life free of regrets every day!
My sincere hope is that each of us as individuals, and our society as a whole, will wake up to this mess Mark Zuckerberg has created and be the positive change that makes our world a better place for everyone!
Have a great day making your best choices! 😘
