My Social Media Drawdown

This is an update about my social media whereabouts in '25. If we're friends on Facebook you might've noticed my profile is devoid of posts: just photos and memory events remain...and this blog post pinned to the top of my profile.

The tl;dr of it is: I'm stepping back from day-to-day Facebook use, and closing accounts on other Meta products. Read on for the deets...

What's getting the boot?

• Facebook & Instagram: Still there but I'm going mostly inactive on those, keeping my accounts enabled to check-in with close friends and family from time-to-time. I deleted the apps from my phone.

• Threads & WhatsApp: Both are deleted and accounts deactivated. I find little value in them compared to other options like Signal and Bluesky.

• Staying Reachable: Don’t worry, I’m not disappearing! I remain active on Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, and Bluesky. You can always find my latest whereabouts from the "About" menu on this site julianwest.me.

Of course I'm still stopping-by Facebook from time-to-time, keeping tabs when I get downtime. And my wife and closest friends/fam will keep me in the loop. I won't be missing any big news, don't worry.😊

What's behind the change?

Over the past two decades I was an early adopter of just about every social media there is. They didn't even call it "social media" back when I jumped on Twitter in 2007, or Facebook in 2008 (and, yes, I used MySpace and Friendster 😂). In those early days it was fun connecting to friends and family. That whole "Web 2.0" era was wild and fun, but over time the Corey Doctrow formula took hold of social media-and most of it started to really suck. Social media isn't a place for connecting people anymore, not really: it morphed into an information system that destroyed traditional media, news-gathering, and public discourse. In the past five+ years it's hard to ignore how dysfunctional social media is, and how it's abused for influence. As each site struggled to balance moderation with free speech-they all went through manic changes, edicts, or buyouts. Now social media either mostly divides people into their preferred tribal camps, or it puts harmful misinformation out on blast.

I get it if you don't share the above take, but at any rate I began a quiet pullback the last couple years. I deleted Twitter(X) from my phone in 2023 and set my account to private. Threads and Bluesky became compelling replacement in '24, so I deleted my 17 year-old Twitter(X) account altogether. And in record time, Threads itself went through the Corey Doctrow process of Ensh*tiffication. So I deleted Threads as well.

Not that it should matter, but here's a recap of why I have cooled on Zuck's Meta sites:

1. Time Hogs
   Facebook can be a huge time sink. More-so with Threads etc in the mix. I started scaling back my usage last year, so this feels like a natural thing to do.
   
2. Meta Products Are Slow & Bloated
   Between invasive-tracking and Ad software layers, everything loads at a snail’s pace on Meta properties. It's like that everywhere, but really bad on Facebook. WhatsApp in particular felt clunky, even though it’s marketed as “lightweight.”
   
3. Security Concerns Meta has such a poor track record of data breaches, and while WhatsApp claims to be secure* you can’t help but question it—especially when you see how it never replaced Facebook Messenger. If seems like Signal, by contrast, does everything Whatsapp's original roadmap said it would do, before Zuck bought it and nerfed it.
4. “Free” Means You’re the Product (always has, always will...)
   With a company so focused on collecting our data, there’s always the feeling they’re monetizing every click. It’s not just selling Ads with Zuck; it’s selling us. Meta gets around directly selling your data via heavy-monitoring of your interactions/searches/activity, to target personalized Ads at you (officially, anyway). But they have to really get up in there and "know you" in order to provide advertisers with reports on how their Ads doing. And Meta has never offered any kind of paid-tier, to give us a choice about those things. The age-old rule applies: when it's free, you're the product!
   
5. Moderation Rollback
   Zuck's recent move to significantly dial back fact-checking feels like we're going back to the old 2014-2020 Facebook, with wild misinformation and conflict in our newsfeed again—yeah that's a 'nope' for me.
   

My Whereabouts Here On Out...

If you’re wondering where I’ll be posting my usual weird thoughts or (sometimes) witty takes—you're on it right now. I'll be carrying-on right here and on Bluesky. Just click on the "Tags" area in the top menu to find topics of interest, or click here for other shortcuts around this blog. Though I mostly talk about tech stuff, it's not all tech and there's always Bluesky. Chances are if I was gonna say it on Facebook, I'll be saying it on one of those places instead.

And yes, I’m still on LinkedIn for professional connections and the usual work stuff. And Facebook Messenger remains active of course. I just don’t plan to actively use Facebook a lot.

To my friends and family on Facebook etc... (love ya!)

...I wanna stress this is just my own personal choice and I am super supportive of my friends and family who still use Facebook / Insta / etc. You do you! I will still stop by now and then to keep-up with the folks I care about. But, for me anyway, it's about preserving my focus and attention these days. I also plan invest more time and energy in real-life interactions.

Wrapping Up

So that's how it is with me in '25, on the social media stuff. My Facebook is mostly just a "Contact" page for family/friends to track me, now. While I won't be posting anything new over there you might occasionally "see me" from my Likes-or the odd comment-reply now and then. You can still reach me through Messenger, too. As for whatever I'm "posting" these days -- well, it's always here on julianwest.me or over on Bluesky (or LinkedIn for work stuff).

Cheers and best wishes for an awesome 2025! --Julian