I'm Quitting Social Media

I know it sounds sort of ironic when I have an entire website and state I'm quitting social media, but I simply don't have the need for it all. I've already deleted Snapchat, Twitter, and many others that would otherwise just take up space on my phone.

Let me explain… I simply don't use it anymore. Back in the early days of Facebook when people would post pictures of their food, or their coffee each morning, things were almost OVER shared. Now, try to find anyone that still does this that isn't trying to celebritize themselves. I don't have any friends that still do this, nor would I care to see it. I didn't care then, either.

During the pandemic, I went from an office work environment to a home-working environment, and working in a secure building reduces access to a lot of contact methods. I was being contacted from Facebook Messenger, email, regular phone calls, WhatsApp, Teams, Slack, Signal, you name it!!! It was overwhelming how many methods people will try to get into contact as quickly as possible. So, I tried to find a standardized way to reach people that everyone had access to. Including around the world.

This proved to be rather difficult, actually. Phone numbers aren't free globally, email seems to be dead as far as conversations go, some people (now, me included) didn't want to use Facebook, and some apps weren't useful for professionals like Snapchat, or Instagram. Slack was hard to get people to sign up and use, but that was the most promising as far as use without being locked down into any one company.

With Slack, you can sign up with any email, and it works rather well for communication with calls and text, groups can be made with sub-groups to reduce annoying everyone at once, and it was simple to get going for new people. Problem is, nobody wants to go, "Hey, Mom! Check your Slack!" It just doesn't sound… "family-welcoming".

So, to no avail could I find a single contact method. I couldn't convince people to narrow down the choices. So, since you need a phone number to have a phone at all, SMS still remains king in my eyes. Email is a close second. And with that, I can get a VOIP service like Google Voice and have the ability to text around the world for free.

Otherwise, if you don't have my number or email, you have my website.

Websites aren't for everyone

I get it, not everyone goes out and makes their own website. It's costly, there's a learning curve, there's almost no need for it, and it sounds kind of pretentious to do.

But I did it so I can share what I want and know that it's MY information, not being sold for advertisements. I can share opinions, reviews, and just some travels that were cool. Is it necessary? No. Was it fun? Yeah!

I also have control over what type of content I share. Nobody can tell me anything! It's my own server, my own site, and my own content. Nobody can ban me from here!

It's also easy to remember how to get here. Bookmark it, remember my name, or find it linked somewhere. But you only ever find my site when you're actually looking for it. You don't get fed my posts from some algorithm that decided you needed to see my picture at that particular moment. You want to see how I'm doing? You do it when you are looking for it. That's your choice now.

I no longer have to sign up for any random sites. Hell, I could make my own forum site before I sign up for someone else's.

And now I have a marketable skill from it!

I can DELETE things

Having your own website means that when you want something removed, it gets removed from everything.

Sure, there are web archivers that save just about anything that was ever posted, but that's unavoidable. Just don't share things you don't want shared forever.

But at least it can be removed from the current public view.

Remember when I mentioned the people posting food pics on Facebook? How are those people holding up now? Have them try deleting those pictures. Facebook doesn't even allow the mass-deletion of photos or posts. It took me weeks to purge some useless posts I made when I was a teenager sharing useless quotes.

Try deleting your Instagram. Go ahead, try it! YOU CAN'T!!!

You can temporarily disable it. And that's after logging in to the PC website, and searching around for the option to do so.

That's just annoying to me. You make an account when you're 10 and now you are held prisoner at 30. Granted, there is nothing wrong with this, but it's still weird.

If you need me,

I will be hidden behind this website.

If you don't have my number, email, Slack, Teams, LinkedIn, etc. Then just remember my name. You will have a way to contact me if you have something connected to the internet. There's a contact form or links to the contact methods I still use.

Use it like a pager! Use the contact form to let me know to call you. Or whatever service you need me to use.

Otherwise, I'm out!

Thank you for reading this far.