After a very hurtful altercation with people in my very close circle, I realized what everybody already knew: social network is purely a cancer. It is not a debate, and I will never EVER change my mind about it again, that's not the point of this article.
The big question is, how do you deal with that information, and what kind of decision you can take. Of course, the answer is pretty specific to your social network usage and your habits, but hopefully, this complete article will help you by giving some perspective. Here, my goal was mainly to not be exposed to the massive garbage available there to avoid:
- Adding more garbage myself
- Reduce the distraction and low quality of time induced by mechanical habits and scroll
- Spend less time communicating with not meaningful people
Scope of the article
This post will cover the addition or the deletion of:
- Telegram/Signal
- Slack
Historical problem
I already had in the past the will to delete some of my social network accounts. I created my first Facebook account in 2008, deleted it completely in 2012, recreated one in 2013, and deactivated it 4 to 5 times before coming back to normal, and you probably know why if you are here: the problem is that the feature to keep you locked-in how very wide, and each can give you a valid reason to stay.
For the Facebook account example, some of the "good reasons" included:
- Easily follow local events to see my favorite DJ in my local nightclub (can I take the risk of missing Armin Van Buuren in Zürich just because I didn't get the news? Nah bro, impossible)
- A Facebook group for the residency I lived in to share neighbors info, food give away, second-hand sales, know and inform about throwing a party
- At some point contacting some old-generation family members - since I didn't have WhatsApp at that time
The good news is that I had never been a better time than nowadays to leave social media with minimal impact and pain and I will explain how, channel by channel, stick with me.
Facebook/Instagram
A fortunate thing about the recent arrival of GDPR in Europe is that it enforced big companies making your data available to you for export, but also for removal. The consequence is that in the account center, Facebook and Instagram will allow you to export all your data from the beginning, this way, you don't have to worry about this nice picture you only had on Facebook and won't retrieve because of deleting your data/account.
I advise you to transfer your data to Google Drive, this way it can be done asynchronously (because it might take a few hours). Take the highest quality. I would also advise you to make 2 exports (since it cost nothing but time):
- One HTML that will allow you to visualize easily your old data
- One JSON that will facilitate things in case in any future you develop your own private social media using your data to replace Facebook/Instagram.
Once your data is exported, safe and sound, you can simply proceed in order to reach this:
Indeed, my way of deleting a social network is a smart way. By removing all your followers and followings, your content, you can almost achieve the same result as if you fully deleted your social network because:
- Your data are not present anymore
- You keep only the top of the top people that matter*
- You still have access to your DM where there are those locations shared with your sister for your travel to Japan in a couple of years
- Even the people that you don't follow or are not following you anymore can still contact you with the old conversation opened
- You are not exposed (or at least way less exposed) to content that you do not choose to see
- You have less interest in visiting Instagram since the content is less varied
- You have way less interest in sharing a story that only 7 people could potentially see
- I also advise you to change your username in something people cannot type to easily find you
- You can still browse your local events if you want to, or keep following your favorite nightclub
- Your best friends can still forward you the stuff that you wouldn't want to miss
- If you regret and want to go back, it's easier since in reality, your account was never truly deleted, and your data were backed up
You are now officially a ghost (kinda), and achieved almost the same result as deleting your Facebook/Instagram account, but without losing the advantages of having those accounts. Amazing right?
*In case you wonder how to determine the top of the top people that matter, I came to the conclusion (but that's my opinion) that every person you didn't talk to within the last 6 months does not truly matter. Does not mean they don't matter at all, but simply not at the moment. People who truly matter will never make a fuss about you unfollowing them and following them back again.
I actually don't know why, but I was never a big fan of WhatsApp. I was kind of forced into it because that's where everyone is. I also consider it as a social network because of the "dropped into a group effect", the community feature, and the stories. But I consent this is purely subjective. Nevertheless, when quitting WhatsApp, try to not underestimate the willingness of people to install Telegram or Signal just to keep in touch with you, when you have strong bonds. Instead of making assumptions and choosing for people, simply try your way out!
The biggest point was: how to inform people that you will not be using WhatsApp anymore if you don't have WhatsApp?
WhatsApp Business to the rescue!
Indeed, WhatsApp has a Business version of their app anyone can install and configure a "business" (doesn't have to be real, there is no check). The advantage of using WhatsApp Business is that you can configure opening hours, but the best part is that you can configure an automated message to be sent outside the opening hours! Therefore, after deleting all my conversations and quitting all my groups, I configured the following automated response:
I will not be using WhatsApp for personal conversation anymore, please contact me on Telegram or Signal. Messages here will be checked only once per week.
That's it! With this simple trick, WhatsApp was out of my life. By removing all your your content and quitting all your groups, you can almost achieve the same result as if you fully deleted your WhatsApp because:
- Your data are not present anymore
- You still have access to old conversations you want to keep eventually
- You still have access to the community feature
- You are still reachable and passively inform people of your decision
- In case you have "this" professional call (you know which one I mean) with 3 people, and it's on WhatsApp, you are not the "pain in the ass who doesn't have WhatsApp", because you do!
- You can delete the regular WhatsApp app from your computer and phone
Telegram/Signal
Telegram and Signal are my favorite choice for communication, since they are quality apps and focus at least a bit on privacy. I now use only those two.
Slack
With time, we eventually get a ton of workspaces for different purposes. A simple way to evacuate the noise is to simply remove the less important workspace out of Slack desktop app, knowing that you don't have to worry about signing in again since those workspaces will stay signed in in the browser. This way you can create some balance without the hassle of sign out and in again.
Fortunately, I never got into the Twitter movement, and I intend to keep my account in order to publish automated AI summaries of my blog articles. This is part of a bigger side project about making an AI clone of myself. Although you can start checking the foundation here, I will talk about it in the future, stay tuned!
Conclusion
Sorry if it seems like I misled you because we finally didn't really remove our social network accounts. But I consider the goal of removing them reached since the effect of my methodology produced (at least for me) the same satisfaction as doing it, without having to compromise on the stuff that is hard to export or replace. And I would be glad if it could help anyone out there now or in the near future.
Cheers 🍻
