When the first Facebook breach happened and everyone was freaking out about their information being given away without them knowing, I stopped and thought how did people not know that their information was being stolen? It’s almost like something I’ve grown up with, just giving my privacy away to social media so people can target me for advertisements and know my likes and dislikes.
There was another breach more recently that actually made me stop and think, why does Facebook need to know so much about me in the first place? I had my Facebook for 11 years – since I was 14 years old! I started looking back at posts from that time and cringed. We were so unaware and just blatantly put all of our photos, conversations, and information out on social media. We didn’t even try to hide it, it didn’t even need to be stolen.
Mass deleting on Facebook is basically impossible. And I couldn’t control any of the things I had written on other people’s walls when I was young. Like talking about getting “drunk” when I was 16 and asking people for answers to like every homework assignment ever. So I decided to delete it.
My Facebook had over 800 friends, it had thousands of photos. My phone number and birthday were attached to it. My high school, college, and every place I ever worked were listed. Why did I feel like I needed to divulge all of that information?
I didn’t delete it for good – I need Facebook for work and for this blog. But I made a new one with wayyyy less info. A misspelling of my name, a fudged birthday, no location information, no phone number. And now less than 200 friends.
I thought I would regret it, most of my life has revolved around social media. But I hadn’t realized it got to the point where I didn’t even know why I was sharing this info with 800 people – half of whom I probably don’t even know!
Any personal social media of mine – meaning not for my blog or work – is now as private as I can make it be. And I like it that way, I urge everyone to take a hard look at what they’ve put out on the internet. I’d like to think that we still have time to fix the mistakes we made.
Rosie Culture 
I try to keep my footprint on social media quite small. I don’t like the idea that some giant corporation has information on me. I’ve never had a FB page, and I’m positive that I haven’t missed much.
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You definitely haven’t missed anything haha
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I don’t know how long I’ve had mine but I still have it – I just use it much less than I did before. I always try to keep the mindset that once you put out information or pictures on the internet, it will always be there no matter what. So with that, I try to only post things that I feel 100% that I won’t regret in the future! Great post 😊
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That’s definitely how I use social media, back when I made all my accounts I was not so smart lol
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Every time that memory thing pops up on Facebook and shows me my past posts I just wanna hide under a rock lol they’re so cringey!
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omg they are the worstttt! What were we thinking?!
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We thought we were just so cool lol
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Great post. I am struggling with this as well. I want to delete my Facebook account but I have so many photos there. Also I love Insta and I post a lot of photos linked to my brand/blog which I am trying to grow.
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There is a capability to download your facebook albums! That made the transition a lot easier for me
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I didn’t get my Facebook until sophomore year of college, so I missed out on the whole high school-Facebook experience. So I have less than 250 friends, and they’re all people I know. I don’t really post much on Facebook (I’m more active on Twitter and Instagram) but I get the privacy issues and all of that stuff with Facebook. I never really shared much on there to begin with so I’m okay with having one.
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My new one is a lot more secure! I kind of envy the people who got a late start on it, I’m much more active on other social media but back when I was 14 everyone was all about facebook
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Gosh, this is so true x
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have definitely thought about deleting facebook, for sure my least favorite social media!
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I honestly don’t think it’s a big deal that our info is on the internet. Everyone else’s too… as long as I’m not doing anything illegal, I don’t see anything to worry about. Stalkers are a bit scary, yeah but, I make sure to never share my geolocation. That’s really all I worry about. 😛
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love this!! i barely use facebook at all, it’s certainly my least fave social media. they take way too much of you info too, no privacy at all!
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I too cringe on the posts from yesteryear. But now that I’m a mom, I only have people I actually know on facebook and Instagram. Twitter is public but I don’t show pictures of my kid face front… just like on here. Often I think about just deleting it anyway because there is just so much political drama on Facebook these days
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You are right..
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Facebook is losing it completely. We just had a freelance writer tell us about how their new policies are messing up his work and productivity, this might be of interest to you as a blogger as well. thethinkersright.com/2018/10/19/banned-part-two-a-freelance-writer-on-how-facebook-is-messing-with-the-industry-social-media-geoege-orwell-mark-zuckerberg-censorship/
Thanks for sharing!
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