Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez left Facebook. Exactly like me

by



[ad_1]

Ocasio-Cortez, 29, said Sunday at Skullduggery, a Yahoo News podcast, that she had dropped her personal account on the world's largest social network (the Democratic representative still has a professional presence, with a verified profile and many political ads posted on Facebook). She described social media as a "risk to public health" causing problems such as increased isolation, depression, addiction, escape and anxiety.

"I think this poses these problems to everyone," said the New York congressman.

She added that she was beginning to impose "small rules" in other areas of society, such as Twitter, that she was trying not to follow on weekends. She did not explain why, precisely, she left Facebook (FB) More precisely. But the website has become an embodiment of many social media ills.

I understood. Like Ocasio-Cortez, I too left Facebook. And I do not plan to go back there.

I plunged in mid-December, just after two of the many scandals that the social network has been facing. First, there was the announcement that Facebook was unauthorized exposing photos privately shared by millions of users. A few days later, a New York Times report revealed that Facebook shared more data from its users with companies such as Microsoft and Amazon than it had previously admitted.
Like many Facebook users, I was already tired after this year filled with scandal for the social media company. The latest news has shown well: I gave more site than what he gave me. I had to leave.
I've been on Facebook since 2004 – the same year, I wrote one of the first articles about it for Wired, at the time when the social network was still calling Thefacebook and n 'was available only for students and students from about twenty American colleges.

For more than ten years, this has allowed me to build relationships (and in some cases, renew contacts) with friends and family. After having my daughter in 2016, an active Facebook parent group in San Francisco has become a lifeline for me. I liked to ask questions and get as many answers from a supportive community, and to offer other nuggets of advice that I could muster in my sleep deprivation state.

I've given so much of myself to Facebook for so long. Photos, videos, countless messages, "likes", comments and even occasional clicks on ads that seemed to follow me on the Internet like digital ghosts. I was never naive enough to think that I was getting the best part of the deal; I understood from the start that the digital path that I had left, like a snail slur on Facebook, could be used in different ways – some of them appealed to me, of course. Others that I hated.

But at some point, I did not want to add to this mountain of data anymore. Throughout 2018, I felt more and more reluctant to give more of me to Facebook, knowing how often the service had been messed up.

And, as Ocasio-Cortez mentioned, during my regular use of Facebook, I felt a sense of dependence and anxiety: I felt compelled to check the application or the website several times a day , for no other reason than the worry of not being able to get in on something. When the dramas erupted in my favorite parent group, I obsessively focused on long embarrassing messages, choosing every detail. It was not addictive in itself, but it was unhealthy.

So, on December 19, I downloaded all my activities on Facebook and scheduled the deletion of my account (it really takes 30 days for an account to be actually closed). At the end of January, he was gone. Until now, I have not missed it. Thinking not to be on Facebook brings the mental equivalent of emoji to shrug it off.

I hope that the departure of Ocasio-Cortez from the social network was a little more calculated than mine, so that he did not end up with tons of people wondering where she had gone. I left no explanation on my Facebook profile to tell my friends and family that I was resigning and how to communicate with me to the best of social media; One day, I was not around anymore. This triggered at least one email from a childhood friend who was asking me what was going on when she noticed that she seemed stuck for viewing my photos. Oops. I had to apologize shyly.

I've also discovered how difficult it really is to deal with Facebook. I always use Instagram, which belongs to Facebook, to privately post photos on a relatively small network of families and friends. Ocasio-Cortez, too, continues to use a personal account on Instagram (she has a network a little bigger than mine, with 3.2 million followers).

I do not know of her, but my decision to continue using Instagram rests on the feeling that it has not hurt me like Facebook. Facebook was not the first social network, but it was the most consumer. It allowed me to connect with people who matter to me, but it took a lot more – not just my data, but my confidence – and I misused them.

Quit Facebook has not improved my life in a measurable way. I do not spend any free time found doing yoga, reading or even talking to other people. But that has given me the impression that I have a little more control over my digital destiny. Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez thinks so too.

[ad_2]

Source link