So back in May of 2021 my Facebook account was hacked and the hacker enabled 2FA. I explain it in detail here. Basically, if this happens to your Facebook account its extremely unlikely you will be able to recover your account or data. Incredible to me that a billion-dollar company would not have more caution for users’ data in this instance. So, I decided that I would not be getting a new Facebook account and even used google plus as an interim (RIP google plus). I just could not get over that Facebook would not be able to recover me my account despite multiple attempts at verifying my identity. I honestly wish for the day Facebook goes the way of myspace, why did we ever turn our back on my space? Tom, customizable websites, HTML and CSS, top friends, music on your page, way better than Facebook profiles even today granted Facebook did have some major improvements but still myspace was a good website with a lot of nice custom features and we still traded it for Facebook. In a way I felt a personal grudge against Mark Zuckerberg but continued to support him thru WhatsApp and Instagram. Up until May 2023 I had Instagram and WhatsApp. After some careful thinking I decided that I would delete those accounts too. It was something that I thought about for a while as it is a pretty big decision, but I ultimately decided this was a net positive for me. In the two months since I can say I have no regrets deleting these social media accounts. I still have twitter, TikTok and snapchat but I spend far less time on those accounts than I ever did on Facebook or Instagram, even since deleting my time spent on those apps have not changed and overall, my screen time is down to 30% less than what it was when I had Instagram and Facebook. I am considering a full social media purge but have yet to go thru with that. I will say that there are out of the nearly 1000 accounts of combined followers and following accounts there are only a few dozen people who I genuinely miss seeing there updates and ease of contact, some people who i may sadly never see or speak to again, but otherwise it has made no difference in my social life. In general the people who I don’t see often seem more happy to see me since my digital replica isn’t accessible anymore and the same goes for the people I see often. I also think that some people think I blocked them or something else and took it personal, not realizing I deleted my account for my own personal reasons that did not include any particular individual. Deleting your social media account is a big decision that you have to make for yourself, I would recommend downloading any available data before doing so. I’d also recommend reaching out to a few people personally you’d like to keep in touch with or to write a farewell post (I did the former) before closing a huge avenue of social interaction. There are still some people who I did lose contact with but that’s life, it goes on. Ultimately for me I think it has been a good decision and is another thing to add to the list of changes I’ve made during my journey of personal development. I’ve had no regrets my screen time has gone down giving me time to do other things instead and I feel more present overall in my day-to-day life.