Why I Left Social Media

I cancelled all my social media accounts due to privacy concerns, and have never been happier.

What I Wanted From Social Media

I originally got on MySpace (yeah, I know), and then Facebook just to keep up with friends and family. Then I got on Twitter and Instagram for fun. I even got on Tumblr for the pics. It was great.

Then I started seeing them as ways to advertise my writing. I had pages for my various websites, Instagram accounts, the works. I was using tools to manage my online posts, tracking engagement, etc.

Still, over time I stopped being active on Facebook and Twitter, and even on Instagram and Tumblr. This really hit during the 2016 election, and I never really went back. When Threads came out, I got on there and actually was pretty active. It was a good way to connect with people who had the same general mindset, culturally and politically.

Why I Left

Last year, I started reading more about what all the tech giants were doing with the data they were collecting on all of us—especially Meta and Google. You know the saying… “when a product is free, YOU are the product…” Well, you better believe it. These people are making billions of dollars from everything we post, from emails to social media comments to our stored contacts.

And they are doing this without our real permission. Yes, they include some misleading comments in their Privacy Policy and Terms, but when was the last time you really read and understand those? These corporations count on that—and take advantage of it.

On top of the gross hypocrisy of the tech giants, there is the fact that social media had just become a cesspool pool of hatred and misinformation. There has been a great deal written about that fact, and how it is tearing this country apart, so I really don’t need to go through it here. I just decided that I didn’t need that toxicity in my life anymore.

And now that Trump 2.0 has taken office, you see the tech giants bending the knee to him to the point where Meta has said outright that they were disbanding their fact-checking group and forcing users to see **more** political content. (Never mind that since Elon Musk bought Twitter, he has turned it into a haven for right wing extremism and hatred).

It is just not worth it.

What Next?

I dunno. As much as I want to be lured back in to draw people to my writing, I have to stick to my decision that if I was going to start writing again, it would don’t be to make money or stress about how many people read what I write.

I do miss updates from family and friends, but if I was being honest… I was not really reading that much about them on social media anyway. I’m really trying to stay with my goal of simply contacting people directly. Even if that means texting, I want to stay in touch with the people I care about the old fashioned way—not through something where Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk or Alphabet, Inc make billions off of me.

So I have cancelled the social media accounts that I could. My next step is to get rid of my Google accounts. I have cancelled the few that I had, with the exception of one main one. That is taking much more effort, but I will get there eventually. I’ve just had it, and am doing my very small part to give these assholes the finger.

Marc