So long, and thanks for all the clicks

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/03/2018 (3136 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Welcome to Jen Tries, a semi-regular feature in which Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti will try something new and report back. In this instalment, Jen Tries… quitting Facebook.

I’m one of the estimated two billion active Facebook users. I joined in April 2007, which means I’ve been on Facebook for roughly one-third of my life. I’ve tried “getting rid of Facebook” many times over the past 11 years. And still, the blue banner beckons.

The urge to delete Facebook has never been stronger than it has this week. Last weekend, news broke that Cambridge Analytica, a data company that was hired by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, had harvested personal information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users, making it the largest data leak in the social network’s history. In the wake of this story, a renewed focus has been placed on privacy, security and the information we share on third-party apps — you know, the ones that show you what you look like as an old person, or a movie star or a person of the opposite sex.

A whole host of tutorials has been published in the past several days, showing users how to tighten up the security of their pages — but also, maybe everyone should stop doing sketchy quizzes. Lest I get too smug, I did a bit of spring cleaning on my own page. The number of third-party apps I didn’t recognize that had access to my page was surprising. What kind of information these apps had access to was even more so.

App developers can ask for a lot more data than just your name and location. Some apps ask for other info your have shared on your page, including relationship status, political and religious beliefs, education history and more.

Friends who can see your info can also bring it with them when they use apps, unless you manually change your settings.

The events of the past week serve as a reminder that Facebook is indeed a social network, and our personal behaviour on the site affects our entire friends list.

(If you want to tune up your own page, click on the drop-down menu in the left-hand corner, click on settings, then click on Apps.)

The data scandal isn’t the only disturbing story about Facebook that went live this week.

Buzzfeed News investigated the ways in which Facebook groups are used by spammers and hackers to spread misinformation and radicalize people.

And that makes sense: although they are touted as places where likeminded folks can engage in a meaningful way, Facebook groups are also ready-made bubbles of people who share the same viewpoints and opinions, making them easy to exploit.

So, if Facebook has become a cesspool of misinformation, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, hate speech, data mining, advertising and ever-changing algorithms that make posts from people you actually care about impossible to find, why are so many of us even on it?

Perhaps because many of us can’t imagine life without it. It’s too ingrained.

To not be on Facebook is to miss out — on big, life-changing announcements from friends and family, on opportunities, on breaking news, on concerts and parties, on heartfelt birthday wishes from people you’ve met once. It’s also incredibly addictive, by design — from the dopamine hits delivered by every like and comment to the instant gratification of bottomless content. Researchers have explored the ways in which social media addiction resembles drug addiction: it lights up your brain the same way.

My reasons for wanting to get off Facebook don’t have anything to do with security. I harbour no illusions that privacy truly exists online, especially in this era of “surveillance capitalism.” Besides, I have left breadcrumbs all over the internet. I shop online. I bank online. I have a Gmail account. I’m still on Twitter for some reason. I love Instagram, even though it’s also owned by Facebook and is now overrun by brands and “influencers” trying to sell me a hegemonic esthetic.

I want to get off Facebook because it isn’t fun any more. The pros no longer outweigh the cons. And there are so many cons. Facebook makes people feel bad about themselves; many studies have shown that Facebook makes people depressed. The newsfeed can be a relentless highlight reel, capturing only the best moments from people’s lives. It can also be a jarring mix of baby photos, bad opinions, pyramid schemes, ads and inspirational quotes falsely attributed to Albert Einstein. The constant barrage of information delivered by social media is gasoline for anxiety.

And yet, I scroll. And I scroll. And I scroll some more. I’ve checked Facebook three times while writing this column. My phone is the first thing I look at when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I look at when I fall asleep. I often think of experiences in terms of content. I’m distracted and unfocused. My rock-bottom came just the other week, when I was scrolling on two different feeds at the same time — one on my phone, one on my laptop.

Thing is, though, I really do love the internet. Memes, reaction GIFs, blogs — I’m here for all of it. I love falling down rabbit holes and learning everything I can about an obscure subject. There was even a time in which I legitimately loved being on Twitter during a significant cultural moment, whether it was an election or an award show or during the Olympics, trading jokes and insights in real time. There are many smart and hilarious people out there with whom I would never have connected if not for social media. I would not have discovered some of my favourite writers, bands and comedians. Social media helps me find essays and recipes.

But now, I just want to throw my phone into the sea. I’m no longer convinced that being hyper-connected is a good thing, or even what I want.

Since social media is no longer “sparking joy” for me, it’s time for me to KonMari my social-media usage. So, I am embarking on an experiment: I’m quitting Facebook — and scaling back Twitter and Instagram — for two weeks and will report back.

Join me, won’t you?

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @JenZoratti