Category: Direction

What seems like absolute eons ago now, I deactivated my Facebook account, in case I ever wanted to return but with the intention of never returning to the …erm, be nice. That was back in 2011, and I wrote about it here.

I’ve never looked back.

Never missed it, and never gave it a thought apart from reading and hearing about all of the shenanigans that they and their associates have been getting up to.

I was at a loose end (I know… me! Can you believe it!?) so I did one of the most stupid things anyone can ever do when at a loose end. I Googled myself. Imagine my horror when I saw an early photo of me staring back at me, full name in lights from my ‘inactive’ Facebook account.

Right! I thought, and set about trying to log into my account, using the details that I thought I could remember, but obviously couldn’t. My associated email addresses had been deleted years ago, so I had no way of getting a new password sent to me.

No problem, said Facebook. Just keep trying to log in.

Sigh.

I remembered I had an old computer still set up in another room, so off I went, switched it on (and the beautiful thing powered up first time – not connected to the internet, but I didn’t need that!). I opened the internet browser, which screamed at me saying “NO INTERNET CONNECTION!”  (which I already knew about!) but I went to the saved passwords section. All of my old usernames and passwords were there, for which I am eternally grateful for not throwing the old computer away in the first place! Being a hoarder comes in handy at times!

I trotted back to my current computer, and entered the details. I had remembered them correctly, I’d just had the bloomin’ caps lock on, as you always seem to do in times of desperate need.

I logged into my Facebook account, and reminisced for a few seconds when I saw all of the folk who I used to be ‘friends’ with. Reminiscing over, I promptly ‘unfriended’ everyone, and then downloaded a nifty package which, according to Facebook, held all of the information they had on me. Not that I don’t trust them, but I don’t trust them. That file is now waiting to be read.

My next job was to delete my account completely. Could I find the ‘delete my account’ option? Not at first.

I found an area where I could have my account deleted if someone else informed them that I’d popped my clogs after I’d popped my clogs, but I didn’t want that. I wanted my account gone now. Eventually, I found the option, buried in the ‘deactivate my account’ section, with messages such as ‘if you go, you can never come back’ kind of thing. If I wanted to go back, I’d just set up a new account, not that I will, so it didn’t matter anyway.

I now have to wait 14 days for the account to be deleted from the site, and if I want to stop the deactivation I merely need to log back onto my account to request it. I haven’t been there for seven years, so I can’t see me doing that within the next 14 days.

I Googled myself once more and that image of me has miraculously disappeared. How unusual for it to be so quick. Who’d have thunk?

I also stopped using Twitter around the same time in 2011, so decided to delete that account as well. I only had celebrities following me there, and was quite surprised to see how many were still following me, considering I hadn’t sent a tweet since what seems like the mid 1970s. I also had a share option for my posts on this blog for Twitter, but I’ve removed that… I don’t think it was used by anyone anyway.

So, blogging is now my only form of social media interaction. I don’t class blogging as social media, so it doesn’t have any of the negative connotations that come with that umbrella heading.

I shall end this post with a screenshot of the message I got from Twitter, after years of no use:

I’m not sure whether that’s nice or not, but never mind. I’ve moved on.