Update, December 11th, 2020: Me, my wife and daughter have enjoyed 2 years off Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. I feel more connected than ever to the people I care about without the distractions of their business. I’d love you to join us in defunding them by deleting your accounts. Here’s a graphic from Professor Scott Galloway that might understand how badly Facebook is misleading people who use their properties.
Update, August 9th, 2019: It’s been more than 8 months since I left Facebook and I feel more strongly than ever that it was the correct decision. Please watch the April 2019 Ted talk by Carole Cadwalladr about Facebook’s role in Brexit and the 2016 US elections.
I’ve deleted my Facebook account. You won’t find Tom Resing on Facebook anymore. I still want to connect with you.
Where to find Tom now
If you want to connect to me, I make myself available. I value personal relationships. And nothing beats face-to-face, in-the-living-flesh discussions. Some relationships I’ve built online, have paid off with in-person connections. I’m driven to make a better world – starting with me, my family and my close friends. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you think our goals are connected and we can make life better for each other and the rest of the world.
TomResing.com and Resing.net provide contact info and I’ll keep them up to date. Both sites have provided a way to contact me for close to 20 years now.
Get in touch with me through a contact form, my email address, my LinkedIn profile and my twitter account.
Why I deleted my Facebook account
Security, privacy and productivity are all good reasons to question if giving your time and information to Facebook are good for you and the rest of the world. Many thoughtful writers I respect are leaving the platform. Darrell Webster wrote a great post about his reasoning and how he suggests you cleanly make the break, when you choose to. I was surprised and provoked by Dux Raymond Sy’s New Year’s Day tweet of an animated GIF showing the deletion of his account. So much so, in fact, that I made a very similar tweet.
My separation from Facebook began in December after an NAACP call to log out of Facebook. After logging out for 2+ plus months I realized the platform doesn’t line up with my goals for my life. I removed more than a gigabyte of data that I had shared on Facebook. However, I still want to share and connect. Keep reading and replying! 🙂
Tom, I like how you said “the platform doesn’t line up with my goals for my life.” Facebook has become misaligned for me too. For some, it still fits their needs and they are happy to read whatever the algorithms deliver to their feed. Or they are willing to put up with the misalignment in their feed because they still manage to maintain a connection with their FB friends and relatives, their followers.
I’m glad so read of your decision and look forward to talking more about it with you soon.
Darrell,
Thanks for your example and your support! Connection is the key. Talk to you soon.
Tom
I came to the same conclusion about 12 years ago shortly after facebooked launched and everyone was talking about it. I had about 6 months of adding people I’d not spoken to for years who reciprocated my friend request and then we never communicated. Leading to a collecting frenzy of non existent pseudo friends. I then realised what a pointless and vaccuous waste of time FaceBook had become and subsequently removed it from my life altogether. Life has been so much better ever since then.
I deleted my Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp accounts around a year ago and I really want to get rid of my LinkedIn account, but just can’t, yet. I’ll possibly be able to in the next few years, but as of right now, it’s too valuable a resource that barely outweighs the awfulness of the people inhabiting it.
Thanks for sharing your experience. For what it’s worth, I believe LinkedIn has potential for more good.