I was working at Oxford City when I joined Facebook. It must have been about 2006, so I was an early adopter. For several years I hardly used it, and then about a decade ago I began posting quite regularly. I had a rule that I only accepted friends who had either had a meal with us at our house, or we had eaten with them. I made an exception for my two wonderful French teachers. It kept the group deliberately small. I also experimented with Instagram, but hardly used it, and couldn’t really get on with Threads.
So after almost 20 years I deleted both accounts, and a couple of old, seldom used google accounts. Both providers made it as hard as possible to actually delete the accounts, but after a few minutes it was done. The Facebook accounts have a one month cooling off period, so they won’t permanently disappear quite yet.
It’s not something I’ve done lightly. But I’ve been wanting to simplify my digital presence for a while, and I’m increasingly uncomfortable about the business model that underpins “free” services. So they have gone.
I still have a Twitter/X and a LinkedIn account. I’ve simplified the X account and taken the X app off my phone. I will review that in another month.
markluntley 