Deactivating Facebook
For me it’s very easy to spend a lot of time on Facebook. It’s like an interactive window or door to the outside world. It’s a difficult habit to moderate. So difficult for me that I decided to deactivate my account while I work on this book/blog.
But don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy. It took me some time to find out how to deactivate it and quite a bit time going through the process. Facebook does not make it easy.
The reason is pretty clear. Facebook is a business that relies on advertising. When I first signed up for an account there was no advertising on my feed. That’s when Facebook was truly “social media.” Once the advertising became the source of its income stream then it became just another member of “the media,” like a magazine, newspaper, radio station or television station, etc.
As anyone who has worked in the media or in advertising will tell you, what a medium like Facebook can charge its advertisers (aka customers) depends entirely on traffic volume (aka bums on seats, the punters, viewers, readers and … subscribers). What makes Facebook an even more effective means of advertising for FB customers is the fact that Facebook can actually tell the advertisers what we’ve bought from FB advertisers, what we like to eat and wear. Where we live. How we live. What we do in our spare time. What kind of friends and family we have. Where we work. What we drive. What we read. Where we shop. What makes us happy or what pisses us off. How often we use FB and for how long. Where we’ve been on vacation. Where we’re planning to go next. What songs we like. What movies and television we’ve watched or plan to watch. What pets we have or don’t have. Right up to how much firewood we use, etc. It is a gold mine of personal information any advertiser would pay extra for to know and apply to their advertising, its placement and its marketing message. And we supply this information willingly and for free!
Then it doesn’t take a genius like me to figure out why Facebook makes it so difficult to deactivate or cancel an account.
In my case the instructions I found on Facebook and from independent sources was confusing. And I’ve been using computers since the late-70s. What they tell you to do is perfectly clear, but once you start the process you find that there are subtle differences in terminology and directions that lead you on a journey that goes round and round.
Then BINGO! I discover the payload at the very bottom of the page I’ve been trying to find and that’s the beginning of yet another runaround.
Long/short. I reach the deactivation button, click on it and … more choices. Many choices, starting with the default choice of deactivating my account temporarily for 7 days, after which our friends at FB with automatically reactivate my account without even having to ask me. How convenient …
Having already been through this kind of runaround before and knowing their little tricks I scroll right down to the bottom and find there is no choice listed for giving them the reason I want to deactivate my account for an unspecified period. Instead it offers me the ubiquitous “Other” that allows me to explain my effrontery in a few words. That’s right, they demand that I justify myself for having the audacity to deactivate my account.
Finally, after all the runarounds, little boxes to click, choices that don’t apply to me and there’s nothing else since I’m now at the very bottom of the page I click on the final deactivate my account button and … yet another little message pops up asking me if I’m sure. Sort of like Windows asking me if I really, really, really want to delete whatever it is I wanted to delete in the first place.
Facebook has been useful to me. At times it’s been a lot of fun. It has kept me in touch with family and old friends from around the world. It has introduced me to new friends and different points of view that has widened my understanding. It has helped connect me with information and assisted me in my journey to discover my biological family. And it’s given me a platform to rant and rage.
Over the past year or two I’ve worn out myself by getting involved with issues I have absolutely no chance of influencing. I see the Western World going down the same path that anyone can read about in Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” If the similarities between the moral decline of Rome and today’s world aren’t enough then think about the popularity of today’s gladiator combats on television and the celebration of violence and depravity in the entertainment industry. The small and big screens have become today’s Colosseum.
So I’ve taken a break from FB with mixed feelings and a sense of relief. Sad that I won’t be greeted by the latest posts (and advertising) and happy I won’t be tempted to make snarky comments about a snarky comment or correct some clueless kook in one of the surfing groups. And since I usually open FB on my mobile phone while sitting on the loo engaged in the most urgent and enjoyable of my morning ablutions it will be an added relief to be focusing on the day ahead while relieving myself of yesterday’s crap. Goodbye Facebook. I’ll be seeing you again …
Facebook Rant © Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All Rights Reserved
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 