Social network “suicide” is a strange kind of experience when you are doing it, not as a reactionary thing, but as a fully thought-out process with a staged approach.
I’ve killed Facebook and Twitter personalities in the past, right before I went sober the last time. I’d burned some bridges at both (and a few other sites as well) in the “wisdom” I found at the bottom of my bottle. Back then, I rage-quit everything (including earlier incarnations of WordPress sites). Delete. Delete. Delete. And then went full-on hermit to learn how to cope with being an alcoholic trying to dry up.
About nine years later, I finally reemerged on the social network scene. Reestablished contact with a few people I had not irrevocably pissed off with my drunken belligerence, didn’t bother with a few I had raged at, said a few mea culpas, and tried to fit in with a world that had changed dramatically since I left (and changed myself).
It didn’t stick and that’s fine.
About two years ago, I got tired of all of the angst that I was getting streamed into my eyeballs, so I resolved to visit only once every few weeks. That turned into every few months. Now I hardly go at all.
I recently decided it was time to close the accounts. I had started before the explicit decision by deciding that X was a cesspool after it had changed its name from Twitter and had already quit that platform. Then a few others followed suit. And all that remains now is the big one, Facebook/Instagram/Meta.
That’s the platform where I know the most people from my past. So I gave them additional warnings: Hey folks, if you want to keep in touch, share your contact info with me by the end of the year. I’m heading out of here. If not, sayonara. With my love.
I’m not surprised there has been little response. Social networks are designed to keep you leashed to the platform, so you can bet the AI algorithm has put my post on the furthest back burner imaginable so it doesn’t show up in anyone’s streams.
Because, if one person leaves — what are the chances that the others might act like human lemmings and leave as well?
And that’s not to say that I was ever very popular after my past history.
There are times I have considered adding WordPress to the list of platforms to leave. I probably won’t, mostly because I don’t consider it to be a typical social network (although it has network elements). But there are times that I ask myself if it shouldn’t be added to the chopping block and then I can largely quit the current internet entirely aside from conducting my personal research projects (which do not require me to be socially active).
What do you think? Are social networks on the way out in favor of more “immediate” platforms (such as Tik Tok)? Or is there something else you see on the horizon?
Have you considered closing your social networking accounts, committing “social media suicide”? If so, how did you do it — measured and thought out, or instantaneous and in a rage? Do you ever consider doing it now? What are your reasons?
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