On Leaving Facebook
I stopped posting on Facebook in November 2016. I’ve long thought that I should delete my account, but I’ve kept it open, primarily because I appreciated what I learned there about the lives of people in my life — people I didn’t encounter much anymore, both because of my introverted approach to the world and also because I’ve moved around so much in my life. It was one way to stay in touch. As time went on, Facebook’s algorithm presented me more and more advertisements and videos about the Celtics and fewer and fewer postings by these old friends, but I still learned something about them from time to time. Now, however, I’ve finally decided that it’s time to leave facebook behind. In some ways, that decision is long past its expiration date, but now it’s even more obvious that it’s time. For all sorts of reasons, many of them captured in this New York Times column, I think it’s better to leave Facebook behind. (That’s a gift link — no subscription required.)
But since you’re reading this you have good reason to think that I’m not abandoning online life. If you’re someone from my past who wants to reconnect, there are several ways to do that. Click on the email icon to the left. Or leave a comment below or on some other post. Or, if you’re on Mastodon, click on that icon instead. I know that Bluesky rather than Mastodon is where many of the kool kids are going these days. Obviously the choice for you is up to you, but for what it’s worth I’m convinced – or at least hopeful – that a move to Mastodon is a much better move for the long-term than a move to Bluesky. I expect Bluesky eventually to give into corporate pressures to use something like the sorts of algorithms that have ruined facebook. (Those venture capitalists and crypto bros really do expect a return on their investment.) Or maybe, just maybe, Bluesky can make a subscription model work – that would be much better. Mastodon faces its own challenges, but for the moment it’s much closer to what I like to see in an online community. Someday, I hope (if we survive), we’ll find a social media environment in which we really are the users rather than the product.
If you’re here because you read my last post on Facebook, I hope you’ll dig around a bit and perhaps even leave some evidence that you were here – an email, a comment, or a ping on Mastodon. Even though I live in this introvert cave, it’s nice to be reminded now and again of long-ago friendships and conversations.