The Internet I Want
Last week I announced my decision to delete my Facebook account. I announced my decision Facebook itself, and many of the replies to that announcement made it very clear how much I was giving up by leaving the site. One long-ago friend from college days, a friend I encounter only on Facebook these days, said simply (and even starkly) “don’t leave us.” Another former friend and colleague bemoaned the splintering of Facebook communities, as some move to Bluesky and others to Mastodon. Those responses and others reminded me of the value of real world connections with friends, former colleagues, and former students. (And, as you might expect, some of those communities overlap).
So there’s a loss in my leaving, but as I said in that earlier post, one of my big frustrations with Facebook is the fact that I had to scroll through advertisements, videos, disinformation posing as news, and angry rants to find the occasional gem reporting on the birth of a friend’s child or death of a dear friend. The first few paragraphs of this Atlantic article capture more poignantly than I expressed the frustrations I felt and my reasons for leaving.
So, I’ll continue to reply to the trickle of messages still coming in comments on my “I’m leaving Facebook” post before deleting the account, and I’ll hope that I’ll find ways to maintain and even renew connections with friends. Maybe even some of them will drop in on this blog occasionally.
I’m still looking for the internet I want. The author of that Atlantic piece offered the Watch Duty app as an example of what the internet could be. I agree that it’s a good start, and it’s obviously been a solidly good resource for those caught in the thick of the wildfires in the Los Angeles area. I’m hoping for an internet that will offer meaningful connections for the more mundane times. That’s what I’m missing from the early days of Facebook.
A postscript – I’m getting something like that community on Mastodon. If only I could persuade many of the Facebook friends I left behind to join me there. But some are staying, while others are going to Bluesky. Fragmentation of community, indeed.