I estimate that over the last 3 years, I’ve collectively saved around 2920 hours of time that would have otherwise been spent mindless scrolling through mostly uninteresting content.
How I deleted my Facebook (Meta), WhatsApp and Instagram.
The human problem
It started with an urge to delete my Facebook (Meta / Metaverse) around 3 years ago.
I had noticed how Facebook was mostly just a highly filtered stream of content. Everyone’s happy thoughts and high moments in life, delivered to me in an algorithmically curated form.
I was part of the problem too. I posted things I was proud of, or the happy moments in my life. Very rarely anything else.
Facebook is for the most part, just a small, narrowly defined window into people’s lives.
We see the full picture of our own lives, but end up comparing what we have to this small, ‘happy’ slither of other people’s lives.
For those who don’t notice this unfair comparison, it can lead to moments of envy, anger, or even depression.
Don’t forget about the fake news, agendas, and other drivel that is posted around Facebook either. Scrolling through this kind of stuff on a daily basis will numb the mind and lead to one becoming complacant and perhaps even completely mislead.
One only has to look at how entire countries have been divided and swayed by lies posted to social media platforms to see how poisonous they can be.
The poison runs broad and deep on these platforms. There are many bad actors that wreak havoc, from state sponsored, to criminals and scam artists. They all have agendas to propagate, or nefarious goals to accomplish.
The data problem
The number one question to ask yourself whenever signing up for a ‘free’ account of any type is “Why is this free?“
A free product, is not really free. There is always a catch. In the case of Facebook, you are paying with your own data.
Your own private life, details, habits, information and more is being collected in the background and used to make money for Facebook. They sell your data, and you pay with your privacy.
Deleting Facebook
As I mentioned at the start of this post, the urge to delete Facebook began around 3 years ago. It took me year of thinking about it before I took the plunge.
I exported all of my data as a .zip file, and uploaded it to some encrypted cloud storage for safe keeping.
Then I logged in, went to my account settings and requested that my account and data be deleted.
Facebook leaves your account in a ‘to be deleted’ state. They say that if you login again in the next week or so, it’ll automatically be re-enabled. This is a sneaky attempt at catching people out who have a habit of using Facebook on a daily basis.
I was diligent, and after a week or so my account was permanently deleted. Good riddance.
Instagram purge
Next up was Instagram. Facebook owns a bunch of products of course, Instagram being one of them. My Instagram account had been up and running from when the product had first launched, and was not a part of the Facebook group, but now that it was owned by Facebook, it had to go too.
The same reasons apply as I listed them above for Facebook.
Instagram was the easy one to delete, I didn’t really interact on the platform, and had just kept a bunch of interesting photos on my account. On a rare occasion I would browse through photos that others posted and that was about it.
The account was purged from my life with little fuss or care. More time cumulated over years to come for me to use on more useful endeavours!
Killing WhatsApp with fire
WhatsApp hung around for a long time. This one was more difficult to get rid of. I had my family contacts and many friends on WhatsApp, and it had become my primary messaging platform.
I started using Telegram alongside WhatsApp and convinced quite a few friends to join.
Telegram is by far a superior product to WhatsApp. I’m not convinced it’s perfect, (hey it’s free too). But at least it’s not in the hands of a massive entity like Facebook. Less power to monopolies is a good thing.
About 9 months or so ago, I sent out a message to most of my WhatsApp contacts telling them I was deleting my account and telling them where to find me on Telegram if they joined there.
Shortly afterwards I deleted my WhatsApp account and have not looked back since.
Telegram offers far superior group chat options, more chat features, bots, and more. I’ve been very happy with it as a replacement for WhatsApp.
Post Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram
I really feel happier without these three apps in my life. Facebook was a time sink, where I wasted time that could have been better used directly interacting with family and friends, or working on hobbies.
Instagram wasn’t too much of an issue, but there was (as with the others) the problem with my data being sold off.
WhatsApp was useful for messaging, but Telegram replaced that and gave me way more useful features.
I feel happier knowing that my data from WhatsApp is no longer up for sale, even though it was of course just a blip in a massive ocean of data.
I estimate that over the last 3 years, I’ve collectively saved around 2920 hours of time that would have otherwise been spent mindless scrolling through mostly uninteresting content. Simply as a result of me having deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram accounts.
That’s 121 days of my life I have had available to use on better things already.
So that is the story of how I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts.
I encourage everyone reading this to take the plunge and delete your social media accounts wherever possible. Whether it be to save time in your lives, or to stop allowing your private data to be sold, you’ll be happier for it.
This is post #3 in my effort towards 100DaysToOffload.
Nice one JoJo. I love the desktop apps for Telegram. And everything is unified across platforms.
Brilliant. Definitely food for thought. I recently stopped keeping a Facebook tab “always open” in my browser and wow, my billable hours shot up. I just installed Telegram on my phone. Love it already. I had recently used it as an app on my PC and so was happy to find my history there on my phone!!
Good point Lindsey. I said Telegram wasn’t perfect as a replacement for this reason too. Perhaps as Telegram grows they’ll also come under the same kind of scrutiny? Only time will tell.
When it comes to relying on these platforms for business, then that is where things get tricky. For those already reliant on FB and Instagram etc for their business it’s a tough call to get off the platform. The best we can hope for is stronger competition from other platforms that don’t breach our data rights and do as much harm as the current ones.
Nice to hear Josh. I’m also impressed with your photo hosting solution you’ve got. I had a look at your site and it’s put together very nicely. You’ve pretty much taken what you liked about Instagram and re-implemented the good bits yourself.
Kudos Amrit!
Sam,
I totally agree. My ‘previous’ main google account had tons of subscriptions, and often I found myself disappearing down the ‘youtube rabbit hole’ as I call it. I’ve since logged out of that account in as many places as possible and now tend to use Youtube exclusively as a ‘guest’. They still track you in some ways, but I’ve found it less invasive and now I have a handful of creators I like to regularly watch that I browse to manually. Other than that, I use it for specific reasons when I’m searching for a bespoke video or how-to, or interesting subject.
My wish is for other content platforms to rise in popularity and give Youtube some strong competition. Floatplane.com is one such platform that has potential, we’ll see where that goes.
Cory,
Great post. I agree with what you say – link bait and content consumed on these platforms tends to reaffirm what others already believe, making it very difficult for them to leave their own ‘bubble’ or think about the possibilities outside of that.
Cheers!
This is great news. I will be doing this shortly.
These platforms are extremely distracting and a loss of good meaningful time to use for constructive projects. Thanks for the inspiration and will share this information with others.
I went off FB 9 months ago, but had clung to WhatsApp because of one friend group. Just moved that thread off of WhatsApp and am now off all FB properties. Thanks for the inspiration!
Ok but telegram does not have any transparency. They say they are mostly funded by one rich guy,. What is that guys agenda? We don’t know and he never has to face media scrutiny like what Mark Zuckerberg has to face.
I have a doubt. Facebook is just meaningless agreed. But instagram is used for brand engagement and I have 3 account on insta 1 personal and 2 content account. So where do we get that things.what are their alternatives
Hey, I’m in the same boat. I deleted all my social media apps a couple weeks ago. I wrote a post about it too:
https://www.corycollier.com/2020/06/10/why-i-removed-my-social-media-apps/
The shepherded anger on those platforms is driving people crazy.
It’s a surprise how much we feel dependent on social networks and then we realize how false that is after we stop using them.
I closed all my social network accounts more than five years ago. I remember that I was really worried that I’m going to miss a lot before doing it. And I was so wrong. Nothing changed in my life not knowing about my friends vacation, their cats and dogs, or people’s political views and random internet comments.
I use a few tech feeds and weekly newsletters to stay up to date for my job.
I’ve so much time to spend in real life. Explore, travel, exercise and sport. Try new tools and technologies and learn new languages.
I’m writing here to mention a network that often nobody talks about it.
During the lock-down I realized that there is still one service that does sometimes control me. And that’s Youtube. It’s a great platform. You can entertain, and learn. I really like it. But, what can suck you in to waste your time is Youtube algorithm.
Overtime, I’ve subscribed to about 500 Youtube channels. Many of those really don’t add any value to me but I enjoyed some of their contents. After realizing that, I spent half an hour unsubscribing to any channel that I don’t think it’s relevant to me last month.
I’m left with around 100 channels that I feel they do add value or entertain me. Youtube still gives me lots of recommendations but without any other efforts I’m spending third of the time I used to spend on Youtube just by unsubscripting. I think deep down those channels are things that can trigger me to stay longer on Youtube and that’s how they got me on the first place even if they don’t add a huge value to me. And as long as they appear more on recommendations, you have less chance to avoid them.
Hey ,
You spoke my mind purely…. Please need the advice to gather my “stuff” from FB..and am vrrroooooom!!!!
Telegram ….hnmmm
Sounds like… Getting bird of LEPROSY and allowing ECZEMA to fester,!!!?
.
I have also deleted my entire social media accounts about 3 moths ago,
And i am so happy that i left that time wasting things.
?
Koodos my dude.
I dropped facebook about 2 years ago and Instagram just last year.
As a photographer, Instagram just never felt like a good community.
So I’ve been advocating photographers stop posting to Instagram.
I currently only host my own photos, and I find it much more rewarding.