Left Facebook 2014
Leaving Facebook
For the past few months I have been mulling over leaving Facebook.
My main reason was because they kept messing around with the interface; meaning you would have to spend more time figuring out where they moved buttons rather than on whats on your newsfeed.
Along with that there were these factors too:
- Facebook App and Messenger were a major drain on my phone's battery life
- The distraction factor in my day to day life, either on the computer or phone.
- The Facebook Emotion experiment
However the straw that broke the camel's back for me was the plethora of Ice Bucket Challenge posts that were bombarding my newsfeed day in day out. These narcissistic posts showed me the negative effect Social media is potentially having on society. Where everyone is doing something to garner virtual approval in the form of "Likes" or "Retweets".
So a few weeks ago I decided now was the time to make my departure. I started looking into the options for leaving Facebook, which are:
- Account deletion; your account is immediately closed and all your content is removed after 6 months.
- Account suspension; your account is deactivated and your page is hidden from users until you come back.
Neither of these were suitable to me as I had other sites that used my Facebook login e.g. (Meetup.com, Tripline.net) which would cease to function if I left.
After doing some research online I came accross another alternative. Which lets you clear out your Facebook account, leaving an empty profile.
This would be ideal for me as it would still let my Facebook page act as a pointer to my own site and other contact information if anyone wants to know where I am.
The solution was created by Nick Briz, using jQuery code that goes through your Activity log deleting all items you wish to delete.
It works by mimicking mouseclicks on all the delete buttons and then confirming this deletion. It is advised if you have posted alot to tackle these posts by category (likes, photos, comments, posts).
The script took some time to delete everything over the space of six years.
At the end of it you are left with a nice empty Facebook profile in which I left one profile picture and a banner with URLs to my site.
It has been great leaving Facebook; I now find myself with more time to devote to more productive activities and my phone battery life has on average an extra day on standby mode.
So what are you waiting for, go and leave Facebook now!