Recently, I have been deleting and removing just about every social media account I created in the past. Now, this is for a multitude of reasons. Many of these accounts I just simply neglect, I don’t have the time or the energy to maintain them all.
As well, many of these accounts were created simply for reasons to advertise my website or other reasons other than just what those platforms were meant to be used for. Meaning, that the motive behind some, but not all, social media platforms was simply to try and drive traffic to where I wanted it to go.
That is really a bad motive to create something that is a “social platform”, it contradicts the intentions of the creators of those platforms. It is selfish to do this, you wouldn’t want someone to create an account on a website you built just to convince others to visit something you did on a different website.
As well, the reason I deleted many of these accounts is that I wanted to make my online profile as streamlined as possible. If someone wanted to find me, then they can do so here, on my own website. There is no reason to go to other websites such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora, and so on.
Having multiple accounts all over the internet increased the chances of my username/password being breached in a data breach. While I strive to make sure each password, I use is different on each website the usernames may overlap. The more data I put out there for someone to find the more likely they may be able to guess a password of mine.
You are not obligated to create accounts on all these social websites. The fact that each website is free simply means you are the product. Why chose to participate in something like that? You aren’t being paid to share such information, and the people who are enriching themselves off your data aren’t exactly doing so for charity or to make the world a better place. Many of these upper executives have very bad motives for the profits that they derive from the data you freely share.
Choosing to not participate in something is empowering. Not being a part of an endless cycle of spreading hate and misinformation means you can live truly free.
I believe as a society we must get back to being more private about our lives. We don’t need to share every aspect of what is going on.
Now, I may still use some of these platforms, but to spread education. I want to spread positivity, not hatred. We need to design platforms that discourage hatred but encourage positivity. Currently, these platforms base everything upon engagement and not the intent of the message. That needs to change.
Choosing to delete your social media profiles may be difficult to some, but I believe the rewards far exceed any potential drawbacks.