It hit me on Saturday afternoon, apparently out of the blue:
The internet knows too much.
It might have been to do with hearing news that social media sites now contain so much information about people’s whereabouts, they are being used by burglers as a form of online shopping.
It may have been connected to recent research I read which showed Twitter is 40% ‘pointless babble’ and 37% ‘mindless chatter’.
Or it could have been down to the rumours that some scientists are speculating the internet could, one day, become so vast and complex that it spontaneously develops consciousness.
I resolved to do what little I could to limit my contribution to this tangled mass of information. I decided to commit social media suicide.
Goodbye, sweet virtual world
It started well. Twitter let me go without a fuss. I had invested very little of myself into the account, after all: no photos, fewer ‘friends’, no groups joined, and I knew I could still find any information I wanted using Twitter Search. Click. Done. Free.
Next: Facebook. I thought about everything Facebook had given me over the last three years: messages from long-forgotten school friends, strange new games involving vampires and zombies, an unauthorised version of Scrabble which was eventually removed due to copyright issues.
I clicked on ‘deactivate’ and was completely thrown by what I saw. For its deserters, Facebook has developed a type of emotional blackmail so potent that I lost my will to leave altogether. This is what it said:
'Are you sure you want to deactivate your account? Your friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you. Ben will miss you. Nadia will miss you. Sarah-Louise will miss you. Jon will miss you. Annabel will miss you' (each epitaph with a specially sourced photo featuring both me and the friend in question).
I’ll be giving it another go soon. I have temporarily re-activated my Twitter account, though - I just needed to check something.
How to leave Twitter:
Click on ‘settings’ (top of page), then click on ‘delete my account’ (bottom of page)
How to leave Facebook:
Click on ‘settings’ (top of page), then click on ‘deactivate’ (bottom of page). You'll need a steady hand and a firm conviction.
