Resisting Facebook

After reading How To Do Nothing, I decided that I should do a regular spring clean of my Facebook account. I’d like to close my account altogether, but it’s the only way I have of keeping in touch with some people.

What I’ve done so far:

• Installed a privacy thingy on my desktop computer (I already had an ad blocker)
• Unfollowed and unliked all the brands I was following
• Unfollowed news sources (except for The Chaser)
• Hid the trending topics
• Unfollowed a bunch of people I only slightly know (nothing personal if that was you!)
• Checked all my profile settings on phone and tablet
• Put a reminder in my calendar for a year from now to do a spring clean

I’m assuming that since I’m not perfect, I’ll end up following a few more brands and will need to clean them out every so often. And Zuckerberg loves to change the settings, including overriding your preferences, so I’ll need to keep an eye on them.

What I’ll be trying to do from now on:

• Post jokes, or updates on what I’m up to, or cool things I’ve found outside of FB. No hot takes on politics or celebrities!
• Avoid engaging with clickbait that other people share
• Only checking once a day

This will not bring about the downfall of Facebook.But I reckon it’ll help reduce the time I spend there, and make it a bit more pleasant.