A little less social media

One of my goals for 2019 was dedicating more time to my LinkedIn account. While I haven’t revisited LinkedIn like I wanted to, I did promise I’d discuss deleting my Facebook account in further detail. I left Facebook for good on the 5^th of this month and I haven’t regretted my decision for a moment. One big factor in my leaving was the constant barrage of scandals facing the social media network. The problems ranged from data privacy issues to disrupting populations of entire countries. (A good summary can be read here and Frontline aired a two-part series.) Another factor was my relative lack of enjoyment on Facebook. I disliked the constant emails and mobile notifications that I received every single day, even if no one directly mentioned me or tagged me. (Not all of these can be turned off.) I also disliked the algorithms that favored personal status updates over news (which made my job as a writer sharing her work slightly more difficult).

Before the constant barrage of scandal revelations in 2018, I had contemplated deleting my Facebook account several times. I didn’t check into the network very often—at best once a week, at worse every few months. I questioned the value it brought me, as most posts left me dissatisfied or frustrated about occasionally meaningless drama. Worse, I learned you don’t always want to know what view points on life old friends or friends you’re loosely connected to hold. My fiancé convinced that all I needed to do was train my newsfeed algorithm until I was satisfied. So I unfollowed people with posts that frustrated me, joined more groups, and selected my “Top Friends.” For a while this helped greatly, but the notifications were still an annoyance, and the data breaches began to bother me.

In mid-December I made the decision to delete my account. I gave everyone a few weeks to read my goodbye post and to connect with me elsewhere. I made a few connections on Twitter and Telegram, and I exchanged phone numbers with one person.  After that I felt leaving would be uneventful, except I was contacted by a reporter for WHYY. I ended up being interviewed for a story about deleting my account and the value Facebook personally held. Sadly, the story was killed, but it was a notable twist to me declaring I was leaving the world’s largest social network.

I know that the data Facebook has on me can never be returned after leaving. I also know that it’s not an easy choice for others on the network, as they have much more of their lives invested than I did. That said, I’m happy with my decision.

Have you ever considered deleting your Facebook account?

A screenshot of the moment I deleted my account

Bringing in 2019

Happy New Year, dear readers! It has been a while since we’ve updated Unveil Your Brilliance. The last few weeks were something of a break, but it’s back to business. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that your 2019 is off to a good start.

A new year often brings new resolutions and goals. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t take the time to set any goals for myself. As we get further into January, I find myself regretting the decision. Even if New Year’s resolutions are often broken, I still believe there is a benefit to writing them such as taking goals and desires out of your head and putting them onto paper. Fortunately, there’s no rule stating your goals for a new year has to be done on the first day of the year. So consider this list a New Year’s resolution of sorts.

• One of my biggest goals is to make more time to write in general. Ideally, I want to write at least once a week for Damage Control, and not miss my turn to update for this blog. I’d also like to reach a point of comfort where I can consider taking on articles beyond DC and UYB.

• This has been a goal for over a decade, but I want to finish more video games per year. I’ve never given myself a minimum goal in the past, but I will start this year with finishing a minimum of five games. Considering I knocked four games off my backlog after completing a new game in 2018, this goal is definitely within reach.

• I need to make the best use of my remaining social media platforms. I recently deleted my Facebook account (I’ll get into that in another article), and my Google+ account is going away in April. That leaves me with Twitter and LinkedIn as dedicated social media platforms. While my Twitter account is updated every day, I need to brush the dust off of LinkedIn.

• Keep a stricter schedule to manage my time each day outside of work by time blocking. This includes hectic weekends.

My goals for the New Year are quite modest, but if I work hard and stay focused, I know I will achieve most, if not all of them. What goals do you have planned for 2019?

Dallas NYE Fireworks by David Swinney of Flickr