The Day I Deleted Facebook

Hello there dear bloggers, how are you all? It's Horace here on this chillsome November day, in fact, so chilly that I'm sporting my lovely autumn knit. Do you like it? I bought it from an ebear seller. She knits the loveliest jumpers, cardi's and hats. I'm quite addicted to her selling page and fast running out of 'paw'ket money as i just can't stop ordering.


Note the poppy in the photo above, I've still got in on now, although I shall be exchanging it for a Children in Need headband shortly, ready for Friday's charity day.

Anyway, what have the bears been up to? Well, not an awful lot at all. I've been feeling a little pawly, so have resorted to trawling Internet sites, as that requires little energy. One site I seemed to waste a lot of time on was Facebook, far too much time in fact. I found myself constantly clicking on the website numerous times a day, scrolling through my news feed, only to reach the end and scroll back up to start again. It had become a mindless, and slightly depressing, habit. No longer was it any fun, it held little useful information, and I found myself feeling rather negative about the whole experience, BUT, habit meant I still clicked, scrolled, read, scrolled, and scrolled again, with absolutely no purpose and gaining nothing in the process.

When I found myself clicking on the Facebook tab for the umpteenth time in my convalescence, I suddenly stopped, paw raised in mid air, what on earth was I doing, and why was I doing it? I was learning nothing, the amusement and entertainment factor was practically nil, and reading that X was 'fed up' of her life, Y had just 'eaten a burger - feeling stuffed', Z was '**** 'with her '****husband' was just depressing and slightly weird. Why do we need to know these things about each other? Before Facebook, would we ring each other and announce 'just had a burger', ' watching X Factor on TV, boring'? Would we stand in the street and announce ' fed up with my hubby' 'kids driving me mad, roll on autumn term'?

Without knowing it, I had let Facebook take over my life. I'd take photos of restaurant dinners, coffee with friends, cakes I had made, and post them to social network, because it was the 'done thing'. I'd write inane updates and constantly check to see who had 'liked' my posts. I'd scroll through Facebook pages of people I hardly remembered from my past, adding 'friends' just because I had once shared a classroom with them, or they were friends of friends. At a recent family wedding I caught myself telling my nephew I would share the photos 'on Facebook'. Whatever happened to getting together to view the photos, to writing, emailing, visiting, talking to people individually?Why had we all resorted to the lazy way of keeping in touch by mass sharing?

I decided enough was enough. I was ready to reclaim my private life, Facebook was about to be culled, I'd find the delete button and be done with it, easy peasy, or so I thought. First, to log into Facebook and select my privacy options, scroll, click, scroll, scroll and click some more........there is NO delete button, Facebook have no such thing; instead you have the option to 'deactivate my account'. Facebook are sure you will miss them and want to come back. So sure, that it seems this is the only option if you wish to leave. I duly selected the 'deactivate' option, but this really annoyed me. Why couldn't I leave if I wanted? Why did Facebook retain all my information, why was my page held ready for when I was certain to return?

A Google search led to details of how to find the hidden 'delete' button, I needed to click 'help', then 'manage my account', then another click to 'deactivating, memorialising, or deleting' my account. Hoorah! Now I was faced with two paragraphs of text. I scrolled up, down, down up, once more - no 'delete' button, so I reread the paragraphs. Aha, Facebook had been cunning; instead of 'delete', the words 'let us know' were subtlety underlined. I clicked quickly on the link, fearing Facebook might swiftly delete the option.

At last, I now had to confirm I would like to delete my account ( thank you Facebook, for presuming I don't know my own mind enough to not waver at this point). Was that it? Well no, now I had to confirm my password, in case I was an evil hacker trying to delete Facebook accounts maybe? Was that it? No, now I needed to prove I was not a robot by typing in almost illegible text in a box. Surely my account was now duly deleted? Not quite, Facebook informed me my account was 'deactivated' and would be deleted in 14 days, if I didn't try to sign into my account in the meantime that is!!!

What a 'paw'laver!! Social media is obviously so sure of its popularity that it assumes, if you decide to leave, it won't be long until you're back. Well, not me. The people I want to keep in touch with know my personal information, those who don't have it were probably not 'real' friends in the first place. Have I missed having a Facebear account since deleting my account, not one bit. I know social media has its uses, but I don't believe it holds any pertinent information that can't be found through other means. Since deleting my account I've read more books and rediscovered my love of word puzzles. Of course, as soon as I'm feeling better, I'll get back to more art and crafty pawsuits too.

Goodbye Facebook, I'd like to say it's been fun, but I cannot lie!!!