A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about ways I’d leave the social internet. This remains a distinct possibility.
As a radical stopgap measure, I decided to Marie Kondo my newsfeed. In case you are somehow unaware of this 2019 phenomenon…actually, I’ll spare you the mansplaination. As I’ve asked “does it bring me joy?” I’ve found myself unfollowing many people I agree with.
In the process, I’ve unfollowed so many pages and people that I’ve kind of broken my facebook. It’s wonderful! And all of the unfollowing made the algorithm angry, as seen by a slew of seemingly unrelated ads one day (women’s shapewear, men’s hormone supplements, panties, and finally the ability to pay money to take out the profane words from shows; To be clear, I am not needing any of these items).
I used to take pride in having a diversity of brash friends on the social internet, but now it just stresses me out, which has more to do with me than anything else. Really, I’ve just heeded the advice of Melanie and Clare who said, in response to my first post, “Just use it differently.”
We’ll see if I stick around. For now, there’s not much there!
–Day 21 of the 31 Day Writing Challenge sponsored by….twowritingteachers.org —
Tim's Teaching Thoughts 
Oh, I love the idea of curating your news feed. My issue is more with my emails. I subscribe to too many. One of these days I’ll get after it. Thanks for the inspiration.
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I knew exactly what your post was going to be about by your title! I think purpose is really important when it comes to social media. I am very clear on my purpose so I think I avoid quite a bit. You can also join other, private social media platforms – like Book Love Community on Mighty Networks. We decided to leave FB because too many people couldn’t access us because they do not want to be on FB. Maybe they more we all migrate the better it will be!
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I understand this sentiment! I cleaned up my feeds several months ago. The email was the worst. It took me weeks to unsubscribe. I felt overwhelmed by all the input with everything going on in the world. My Twitter had gotten hacked along the way and they deleted all my follows so that has been interesting to see who I follow back now! Good luck! I hope it brings you some peace.
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Just knowing I should “clean” my emails and Facebook, stresses me out. I love that you’ve made some changes. Your post gave me a chuckle…”mansplanation”& “made the algorithm angry” were clever and funny.
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I deleted people on Instagram a few months ago but I haven’t done my Facebook – I think it’s a good idea! There are so many “friends” who I haven’t spoken to in so long and I don’t have a strong connection to see what they have been doing. I might purge too much as well haha
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I love this post! I deleted all my social apps for four months last year because it was becoming too much. Then I reinstalled Instagram and Facebook but deleted the latter again in a month. Before deleting it though I’d unfollowed so many pages and left almost all the groups I had joined – and with each “Unfollow” and “Leave Group” button clicked I felt lighter.
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I’m going to have to borrow this idea and write about it at some point this month because I now have a second Twitter account whose sole purpose is to spark joy, and it’s really been delightful. I really enjoyed reading this (and going back to your previous post about leaving social media).
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Thanks! It is interesting to think about; When I got on twitter, I made it mostly singularly focused. My edu-twitter is a place of inspiration and encouragement.
Facebook has had 3-5 versions of ME, let alone all the people I gathered on there! I gathered people from neighborhoods, jobs, and community groups. And now there’s a new version of THEM that only posts cat memes praising Putin and I wonder why I am looking at this!? I’d love to hear what you have to say on the topic! Thanks for reading.
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