Don’t Quit Hateful Social Media. Bend Them at Will
We understand: nobody likes Facebook. Twitter is full of trolls. Social media can be frustrating, but it is also a great way to keep in touch with friends and connect with new people. However, every few weeks we hear from someone who just wants to “leave” Facebook. This is why this is a stupid idea and what you can do instead that will make you just as happy.
Why “leaving” social media is (for the most part) a bad idea
Make no mistake, there are many reasons to be disappointed with most social media platforms. From Facebook’s obsessive privacy concerns and other concerns, to Twitter’s inability to deal with spam, abuse, and harassment, it’s tempting to just ditch them. However, there are benefits to maintaining a presence on these networks that go well beyond reading the news and keeping in touch with friends and family.
First, remember that potential employers and just about everyone else will Google to find out more about you before meeting you – be it for a job interview or whatever. Even if you don’t give a damn about Facebook or Twitter, it’s important to make sure they find exactly what you want them to see, and having profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and others is a great way to do this. Plus, if you want to be an active part of your professional community (or your group of friends) with minimal effort, there are great tools (which we’ll come back to shortly) to get your cake and eat it.
There are usually two important factors that cause most people to “leave” social media. Either they feel like it’s a waste of time, full of bad information and poorly informed friends, or they have objections to the company behind the network. Both objections are easily resolved. You can control what your presence on these networks says about you (and even how you choose to use them) without being distracted or annoyed by their associated disadvantages. Best of all, you never have to deal with the raised eyebrows that come from the words “oh, I’m not on Facebook” or “I don’t use Twitter,” which often come from friends or coworkers who want to contact you.
Option one: keep an account, just clean up and leave
When people ask, “I just want to log out of Facebook, but my family and friends are using it, what should I do?” My first reaction is usually, “Well, just stop using Facebook.” It’s a little lightheaded, but this is also my personal approach to Facebook. There is a big difference between being on a social network and being active. Often just being present – for example, your friends can find you or write you a message to contact you – is enough. You don’t need to spend time on this, other than to make sure your public profile looks good to outsiders . You can then flag when the mood hits, or set up email notifications when you receive messages or event invitations. Respond to these requests and messages, tell your friends that you don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter or Facebook, give them better ways to connect with you, and then come back to not using them.
I do this with my personal Facebook account. From time to time I make a public post (usually when there is an article that I want to share, something that I want friends to see, or I am a guest on a podcast like Supercharged ), but I rarely have time to look at my news feed, let alone sit back and flip through old posts. Maybe I’m late congratulating a friend on his birthday or participating in a friend’s baby, but, as always, the thought and the message matter more than the first comment on a Facebook post.
As long as your profiles say what you want them to say about you , feel free to walk away and just leave the network to its own devices. Much of this has to do with keeping your privacy settings locked, and the only public information is what you want to be public, even if it’s nothing. There are still some risks, such as when friends share information about you publicly that you do not want to disclose, but if you check it whenever you want, you can still control how widely that information is disseminated. (In fact, if you weren’t online initially, you probably wouldn’t know if your friends wrote something about you without your permission – another reason to stay.)
Option two: put your posts on autopilot and register whenever you want
If you want to be more involved with your social media (or at least look like you), your next step is to set your accounts on autopilot. Some people like it, others don’t like it, but ultimately these are your accounts, so it’s up to you to decide. Services like Buffer and Hootsuite allow you to schedule posts for days, sometimes months , so you can put together a bunch of articles, links, or other cool things you want to say and queue them all up for your Facebooks. Twitter, Google+. or whatever account you have (if supported) and then let the tool do its job. Buffer or Hootsuite will send messages for you, and you can check in to see how many friends have commented, liked, retweeted or replied to you.
And, as with the walk away method, you can still practice in your spare time whenever you want. The big difference is that this approach gives you the bare minimum to look like you are active on Facebook or Twitter without having to be active. You can come and go as you see fit, rather than dedicating time to your social presence. However, this has its drawbacks. You are not really building a strong network with a set and forget approach. On Twitter, some people don’t want to follow users who are just broadcasting links. On Facebook, too many articles in a row without any personal updates can seem pretty fake to friends and family. However, the content of your posts is entirely up to you. These are just tools – it’s up to you how to use them the way you like.
If this sounds like a lazy way to be present in society, it is. However, this does not make it any less valuable. As we mentioned above, if your goal is to have a presence that updates with some regularity, showcases your work or something that interests you, and looks good to people who might be looking for you, then that does the job. Best of all, he will do his job while you leave and spend your time doing things that really matter to you.
Option three: eliminate the annoyance of Facebook and Twitter yourself
If you actively dislike something online, you can also fix it. Maybe it’s hard to keep up with everything. You might be tired of Facebook’s quirky and frustrating news feed, or what your friends and family are posting. Maybe this is a philosophical question and you have no desire to let Facebook or Twitter track you online or use you as a product for your own profit. In all of these cases, leaving will solve the problem, but you have more control over how you use these services than you think. The key is to act on your own terms and use the tools these services offer, even if they are limited, to make sure you only see what you want to see.
Use lists, clients and blacklists to get Twitter back
For example, on Twitter, if you don’t want to follow a group of people whose updates you don’t want to read, make heavy use of Twitter lists to organize people into separate threads that you can read and interact with when you choose. j. That way, you don’t need to follow all these news organizations if you like Twitter for news – you can simply add them to the list and then browse the list when you want to know what’s going on in the world. You can make lists for anything. Your favorite musicians, blogs, personalities or celebrities, whatever category you can think of is up to you. Best of all, most Twitter desktop and mobile clients allow you to view your lists at any time, so you don’t have to jump through hoops to keep up with your friends, then read the list and then come back.
If your problem on Twitter is trolls and serial stalkers, you can always mute or block people . If the problem is more serious, shared blacklisting services such as BlockTogether and The Block Bot allow you to control your mentions with filters and other options. Likewise, many Twitter clients like TweetDeck , Falcon Pro (our favorite for Android ) and Tweetbot (our favorite for iOS ) let you filter your feeds based on hashtag, user, specific terms or language, etc.
Clean up the clutter of your newsfeed and protect your privacy to make Facebook more useful
Things are a little more complicated on Facebook, but we have a complete guide on how to control your feed . It helps to liberally use the Hide and I don’t want to see this menus, not to mention the downright disliked pages you don’t read and remove people you don’t want to follow from your friends. Plus, don’t be afraid to use Facebook’s Organize tool to reduce the noise from your chatty friends , and Facebook’s new Groups feature gives you a great place to stay in touch with the people you really care about.
If you’re worried about your overall Facebook experience, Social Fixer can help with that. This tool gives you complete control over how Facebook looks and behaves on your desktop. In combination with protecting the privacy of browser extensions such as Disconnect and uBlock or AdBlock Plus is , you can get the desired experience without irritation or philosophical objections.
Be ruthless with your time and attention
After all, Twitter and Facebook are just tools. You can of course quit smoking, but it’s worth considering the benefits of consistency. Appearance matters, as does the ability to control what people find when they search for you on the Internet. It’s better to be able to stay in touch with friends and family than just not to, and having to give a lengthy explanation of why you are not “on” Facebook or Twitter when asked when you can just give them a username, let them do that whatever they want, and then organize them. Even having accounts that can only be used to log into web services is a very valuable benefit.
However, maintaining these benefits does not mean spending time and energy on these networks. If you wish, you can give up the job entirely and let your profiles act like portfolios that speak for you. Alternatively, you can participate as much as you have the time or desire. Whichever way you approach it, do it on your own terms and armed with the right tools, and you can make these networks obey your will instead of accepting them as they are.