Dealing with Facebook (Premium)

My approach to Facebook and other social networks is consistent with my general approach to technology: All things in moderation. I wrote about that topic about a month ago, noting that anyone with a brain in their head would ignore social media for news and seek out high-quality news sources instead. More generally, I wrote that limiting your exposure to social media is probably a healthy approach.

But Facebook. Facebook is a problem. Its the largest and most successful social network on earth, and they didn't get that way by just giving away the service. What they're really doing, of course, is allowing advertisers to access your personal data. Yes, you must OK each of these incursions, and as Mehedi pointed out, we must take personal responsibility for this behavior.

Whether Facebook needs to be regulated or not is, frankly, uninteresting to me. The problem with Facebook is the same as the problem with smartphones or any other addictive technology: We simply have an immature relationship with this new thing, and we are allowing ourselves to become consumed by the unimportant. Breaking this habit has more to do with psychology than it does with technology. Or regulations, for that matter.

But whatever. In keeping with my philosophy about digital moderation, I long ago tailored my social networking activities to be less time-consuming and obsessing. Specifically, I use the following social networks:

Facebook. This is where my friends and family---people I know in real life---live, and I will not close my account because that would break the one major link I have with most of them. I am, however, dramatically limiting my exposure to this service, and I very rarely post directly to Facebook.

Instagram. Because travel, food, and photography are all passions of mine, Instagram hits at the perfect nexus for each, and this is my primary personal interaction with the world. I only post to Instagram when something actually happens, unlike some, and I will post more when traveling or out in the world, of course. I push much of what I post to Instagram to Facebook as well, which keeps a heartbeat over there. And Instagram is open to the world, so anyone can look.

Twitter. I use Twitter only to discuss work/technology-related topics and to joke with people I mostly don't know personally. I try to stay off Twitter in the mornings so I can get work done without distractions. And I am almost never on Twitter at night. But it is, of course, open to all.

As for Facebook, I decided to take a look at the data the service has collected about me over the years. You can download this data by opening Facebook in your web browser and navigating to Quick Help > Settings > General Account Settings. You will see a "Download a copy of your Facebook data" link there.

So what did I find?

991 MB.

That's the size of the ZIP file containing the contents of my life, as understood by Facebook. Unexpanded, it's almost exactly the sam...

Gain unlimited access to Premium articles.

With technology shaping our everyday lives, how could we not dig deeper?

Thurrott Premium delivers an honest and thorough perspective about the technologies we use and rely on everyday. Discover deeper content as a Premium member.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC