{"id":1463,"date":"2021-11-25T08:23:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T07:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/25\/leaving-facebook-easier-said-than-done-the-washington-post\/"},"modified":"2021-11-25T08:23:24","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T07:23:24","slug":"leaving-facebook-easier-said-than-done-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/25\/leaving-facebook-easier-said-than-done-the-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving Facebook? Easier said than done &#8211; The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>Beth Wanamaker was done with Facebook for good after the 2016 election. Sure, it was fun in college, when it was all party pictures and cheeky posts on her friends\u2019 walls. But once it began its evolution into a killer of time, then relationships (\u201cI would honestly rather not know some of my relatives\u2019 opinions on politics\u201d), and then even democracy itself, she left the platform, certain she would never return.<br \/>But the 36-year-old communications professional in Ann Arbor, Mich., realized some of her photos were only stored on Facebook, so she periodically \u201cwould reactivate to like, find a funny picture of a friend on their birthday or something like that, and then I would immediately deactivate my account,\u201d she says. \u201cI did not want to get sucked back in.\u201d<br \/>She got sucked back in.<br \/>It happened in 2019, when Wanamaker had a baby, and was up, alone, for late-night feedings.<br \/>\u201cI was so bored. I felt like I had reached the end of the Internet,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d read all the books I wanted to read. I would watch, oh my God, I watched <i>so <\/i>many shows on HGTV.\u201d<br \/>And when there was nothing left to watch, the siren call of former classmates and past co-workers and so-and-so from that one conference five years ago proved too irresistible to ignore.<br \/>\u201cI\u2019m just going to look around for a couple hours to see what\u2019s going on, and see what\u2019s on this dystopian hellscape,\u201d is what she told herself. <i>Sure, Beth.<\/i> A couple hours turned into days, which turned into joining a Facebook group for local moms, and then an active Buy Nothing group, which turned into still being here, 2\u00bd years later, even though she disapproves of pretty much everything the company has done recently.<br \/>Which is a long list. Here\u2019s a quick summary from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/25\/what-are-the-facebook-papers\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">Facebook Papers<\/a>, a trove of leaked documents: The platform <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/22\/jan-6-capitol-riot-facebook\/?itid=co_facebookunderfire_2&#038;itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">fomented the storming of the Capitol<\/a> on Jan. 6, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/28\/facebook-covid-misinformation\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">fueled covid misinformation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/26\/facebook-angry-emoji-algorithm\/?itid=co_facebookunderfire_5&#038;itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">prioritized \u201cangry\u201d emoji reactions<\/a> to circulate provocative and violent content in users\u2019 feeds, fueled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/24\/india-facebook-misinformation-hate-speech\/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_30&#038;itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">hate speech and violence in India<\/a>, and chose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/25\/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-whistleblower\/?itid=co_facebookunderfire_4&#038;itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">growth over safety<\/a>. Internal research found that its sister platform, Instagram, makes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2021\/09\/17\/instagram-teens-parent-advice\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">body image<b> <\/b>issues worse<b> <\/b>for 1 in 3 teen girls<\/a>. And then there was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/politics\/wp\/2018\/03\/19\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-cambridge-analytica-facebook-debacle\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">Cambridge Analytica scandal<\/a> from the 2016 election, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2020\/12\/09\/facebook-antitrust-lawsuit\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">antitrust lawsuit last year<\/a>, a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2021\/04\/06\/cybersecurity-202-massive-facebook-breach-underscores-limits-current-data-breach-notification-laws\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\"> 2019 data breach<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2020\/05\/12\/facebook-content-moderator-ptsd\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">PTSD its content moderators developed<\/a> after reviewing horrific images every day. Now the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/28\/facebook-meta-name-change\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13\" title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\">company has changed its name to Meta, <b><\/b><\/a> keeping the original name for the website, moving on with its plans for what sounds a lot like total brain domination.<br \/>The takeaway from all of this? Facebook is bad! Nevertheless, more than 2 billion of us are still there \u2014 some reluctantly, some enthusiastically. Because even though the platform is a cesspool of toxicity, there are reasons to stay. Maybe it\u2019s the only way you keep in touch with your aunt. Or find out what\u2019s happening in your hometown. Or catch up with gossip from your high school friends. That\u2019s Facebook\u2019s trap: The emotional connections are inextricable from the algorithm that keeps us clicking against our own best interests.<br \/><span class=\"font--article-body font-copy hide-for-print ma-0 pb-md db italic interstitial\"><a data-qa=\"interstitial-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/10\/12\/leave-facebook-alternatives\/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_17\">You\u2019ve decided to quit Facebook. Here\u2019s how to migrate your online life elsewhere.<\/a><\/span><br \/>\u201cI kind of hate Facebook, but also can\u2019t cut ties,\u201d says Abbie Grotke, 54, of Silver Spring, Md. She\u2019s still here because it\u2019s the easiest way to keep in touch with family living abroad, and certain friends.<br \/>\u201cWe don\u2019t talk all that regularly. So like, cousins and things like that, some photos and then lighthearted news,\u201d she says.  \u201cI would probably just email them. But it\u2019s also \u2014  they\u2019re all there.\u201d<br \/>We\u2019re <i>all <\/i>there, which is why it\u2019s hard to leave.<br \/>Kathy Delgado, 55, is a Los Angeles importer of French antiques. Though she describes Facebook as \u201ca very toxic place,\u201d many customers buy things through her Facebook and Instagram business pages.<br \/>\u201cI made three sales this morning,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you don\u2019t respond in a timely fashion, people spend their money elsewhere.\u201d<br \/>Tori Matejovsky, 40, of Wolf Point, Mont., says Facebook is \u201cnot even fun anymore,\u201d but she\u2019s trapped, because \u201cThat\u2019s where everything is,\u201d including critical information about her children\u2019s schools, like weather closings. \u201cThey might send out a text, but they put it on Facebook first.\u201d<br \/>Those are practical concerns. But what about the emotional ones? The love\/hate for Facebook runs deep among millennials of a certain age, who joined the platform in the  mid-aughts and have chronicled their lives there ever since. They can\u2019t quite bear to part with an archive of their burgeoning adult years: from keggers to graduation to first job announcements to big \u201crelationship status\u201d updates. It\u2019s like a digital scrapbook \u2014 one that now happens to be mixed up with people\u2019s furious political rants and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/why-are-moms-obsessed-with-minions-2015-6\" title=\"www.businessinsider.com\"> cringey \u201cMinions\u201d memes<\/a>.<br \/>\u201cI just wanted the college [email], the dot edu, so I could have a Facebook,\u201d says Laura Lape, 33, of Fort Worth, Tex. \u201cI remember getting my acceptance letter while I was a senior in high school and then going to the computer lab at my high school to set up an account.\u201d She friended upperclassmen at random. She updated her status when Facebook still prompted people to do so in the third person. She never thought that 15 years later, she\u2019d find the site \u201csketchy.\u201d<br \/>Aside from the Facebook Papers\u2019 findings, studies have found that spending time on Facebook \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0747563214001241?via%3Dihub\" title=\"www.sciencedirect.com\">negatively correlates with mood<\/a>,\u201d and that it causes \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0747563214007018\" title=\"www.sciencedirect.com\">constant social comparison <\/a>to other network members, which triggered jealousy, anxiety, and other negative emotions.\u201d People who reported being concerned about time they wasted on Facebook \u201cwere more likely to be<a href=\"https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/2016-47442-006\" title=\"psycnet.apa.org\"> extroverted, neurotic, and anxiously attached<\/a>.\u201d<br \/>Hence, the recent spate of \u201cI quit\u201d announcements that have been flitting across people\u2019s news feeds. (\u201cThis is not an airport, you don\u2019t have to announce departures,\u201d is inevitably someone\u2019s reply.)<br \/>Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/ruppersberger.house.gov\/newsroom\/press-releases\/congressman-dutch-ruppersberger-to-deactivate-facebook-and-instagram\" title=\"ruppersberger.house.gov\">news release<\/a> last week that he will \u201cdeactivate his Facebook and Instagram accounts until both its parent company and Congress make substantial reforms that protect our children, health and democratic values.\u201d (The release notes that constituents can reach out to him via Twitter, phone, email, snail mail and, helpfully, fax.)<br \/>Jaden Perkins, 21, of Omaha, posted on Aug. 13 that he was leaving Facebook, where he had been active since the eighth grade.<br \/>\u201cI am making the conscious decision to permanently delete my Facebook account as I see very little benefit of using this platform any longer,\u201d he wrote. Two months later, he was back, with a post that began \u201cLIFE UPDATE!!!!!\u201d He was starting a political podcast.<br \/>\u201cEven though I\u2019ve been trying to grow that audience on other platforms, Facebook is my largest audience,\u201d he told The Post.<br \/>Or you could post that you\u2019re leaving, and give everyone multiple ways to contact you, and hear .\u2009.\u2009. crickets.<br \/>\u201cI made a post on Facebook saying, \u2018I\u2019m done,\u2019\u2009\u201d says Shadrach Stanleigh, 55, of New York, who gave friends a grace period, and alternate contact info. \u201cNo one has reached out to me through any other means.\u201d<br \/>He\u2019s not asking for pity. Rather, Stanleigh thinks it\u2019s an example of how Facebook has made us all lazy communicators: \u201cMaybe people just get so conditioned to it when they can just send a direct message in lieu of a phone call or an email,\u201d he says.<br \/><b>That&rsquo;s also why<\/b> the tech accountability group Kairos is easing people into its <a href=\"https:\/\/thefacebooklogout.com\/\" title=\"thefacebooklogout.com\">Facebook Logout campaign<\/a>, which encourages users to log out Nov. 10-13. The goal isn&rsquo;t to get people to leave Facebook permanently, says Mariana Ruiz Firmat, executive director at Kairos and a Facebook user. It&rsquo;s \u00ab\u00a0to get Facebook to change its policies and practices so that it is protecting users&rsquo; privacy.\u00a0\u00bb<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019s not a light ask to ask people to log out or even think about logging out because we have a lot on these platforms,\u201d says Jelani Drew-Davi, Kairos\u2019s campaigns director. The campaign has helped people prepare practically \u2014 by showing them the steps to log out, something many people have never actually done before \u2014 and emotionally.<br \/>\u201cIs it someone\u2019s birthday during that time? Do you want to send them a card instead of writing on their wall? Or do you have something that you need to pick up from your no-buy swap group? Like, maybe do that before the log out,\u201d says Drew-Davi.<br \/>Or you could just quit and overcome the FOMO. Jamie Mangrum, 35, of Largo, Md., used to be a self-described \u201cavid user.\u201d Her relationship with the platform became unhealthy, she says, when she found herself \u201cseeing that what other people were doing was kind of like, a commodity for me,\u201d and comparing herself to her peers constantly. So she quit. Ten years ago. And hasn\u2019t looked back.<br \/><span class=\"font--article-body font-copy hide-for-print ma-0 pb-md db italic interstitial\"><a data-qa=\"interstitial-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/2021\/10\/05\/whistleblower-came-advocate-humans-over-algorithms\/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_51\">Robin Givhan: The whistleblower came to advocate for humans over algorithms<\/a><\/span><br \/>Yes, she\u2019s missed more than a few invitations to parties that were organized on Facebook. And it made her sad, she says, to think about people she might never see or hear of again. People she might forget, and who might forget her. The little updates on loved ones\u2019 lives she would miss.<br \/>\u201cI had to be okay with that for my own peace of mind,\u201d says Mangrum. \u201cI knew that if I was intended to know that information, if I was intended to understand it, it would have come to me.\u201d<br \/>That\u2019s Lape\u2019s logoff fear: being forgotten. The Texas mom\u2019s posts on Facebook are basic family updates.<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019s just kind of a reminder,\u201d she says. \u201cHi, it\u2019s us, we\u2019re alive. We have kids. They\u2019re doing great. Don\u2019t forget about us.\u201d<br \/>If a Facebook news feed is a collection of all of the people in our lives, there\u2019s a certain comfort in knowing how those people are doing. How else will you know when your high school chem lab partner has a third kid? Or that your former hairdresser has become an \u201cenergy healer?\u201d Or that your neighbor just took a lovely trip to Greece? Having a Facebook-only relationship doesn\u2019t preclude you from getting a fuzzy feeling when you see that someone\u2019s kid learned how to walk, or sparing a thought for them when you see that their grandpa died. Even if all you did was click that huggy-heart reaction button.<br \/>Yes, we lived many decades without knowing quite so many things about so many people, and that was <i>fine<\/i>, and we were fine. And some people would be happy to return to the blissful days of not having to waste any brainspace on the relationship status of your sophomore roommate\u2019s friend who came to your Halloween party once. But for others \u2014 maybe the more sentimental among us \u2014 going back to that ignorance feels like a loss.<br \/>\u201cMaybe that\u2019s a little bit of what ties me to it, is just a bit of my own personal history, and all the people I\u2019ve met along the way that I may not remember their names or have much direct contact with them,\u201d says Lynda Laughlin, 44, of D.C. They remind her of who she used to be, and how far she\u2019s come.<br \/>It makes real-life interactions easier, too. When Delgado\u2019s father died, she posted about it on Facebook as an efficient way to not have the same sad conversation several dozen times.<br \/>\u201cWhen someone says, \u2018What\u2019s going on? You don\u2019t want to jolt someone on the spot by saying, \u2018Oh, my dad just died,\u2019 you know?\u201d Acquaintances who saw it online offered their in-person condolences. \u201cI found it all extremely comforting,\u201d she says, and not just when she was grieving. \u201cEven with the birthdays, to have people all reach out.\u201d<br \/>Is one day of birthday wishes worth 364 other days of bad takes and antivax posts and political disinformation? A few hours after she spoke with a reporter, Wanamaker wrote back with a status update: \u201cSo I just deactivated my Facebook again.\u201d<br \/>Godspeed, Beth. Maintain your resolve. See you again, in a few months, or years.<\/p>\n<p><i> <b>Read more: <\/b> <\/i><br \/><i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/anti-vaccine-deaths-no-sympathy\/2021\/10\/06\/779488e6-20ad-11ec-8200-5e3fd4c49f5e_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_68\">What do all these stories of vaccine denial deaths do to our sense of empathy?<\/a> <\/i><br \/><i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/home-depot-12-foot-skeleton-inferno\/2021\/10\/24\/dff4fb76-32ac-11ec-a1e5-07223c50280a_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_69\">Huge skeletons are just part of how we live now<\/a> <\/i><br \/><i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/texas-relocation-newcomers-politics\/2021\/09\/14\/bf759c40-0c21-11ec-aea1-42a8138f132a_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_70\">They came to Texas for the big houses and barbecue. They also got new laws on abortion, guns and voting.<\/a> <\/i><br \/>The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.<br \/>By signing up you agree to our<!-- --> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/terms-of-service\/2011\/11\/18\/gIQAldiYiN_story.html\" class=\"gray-dark font--meta-text font-xxxxs mt-xxs pb-lgmod\" tabindex=\"-1\">Terms of Use<\/a> <!-- -->and<!-- --> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/privacy-policy\/2011\/11\/18\/gIQASIiaiN_story.html\" class=\"gray-dark underline hover-inherit\" tabindex=\"-1\">Privacy\u00a0Policy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/leaving-facebook-is-hard\/2021\/11\/10\/90172232-40bc-11ec-a3aa-0255edc02eb7_story.html\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beth Wanamaker was done with Facebook for good after the 2016 election. Sure, it was fun in college, when it was all party pictures and cheeky posts on her friends\u2019 walls. But once it began its evolution into a killer of time, then relationships (\u201cI would honestly rather not know some of my relatives\u2019 opinions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}