Should you delete your Facebook account? Why experts say “yes”

What happened to our old friend Facebook? When Zuck’s site dropped, Facebook dunked on MySpace, sending the latter from the centerpoint of users’ worlds to the realm of punchlines & nostalgia posts. Now, Facebook has met MySpace’s same fate. With Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter dominating the stage of social media, Facebook just couldn’t seem to pick up the pace.

Now, some are arguing to delete your Facebook account altogether. Mark Zuckerberg’s dirty deeds seem to come up every other month, with Facebook posts acting as precursors to violent acts, and rumors of data stealing abound. Some experts say it’s for the best to simply delete your Facebook account.

Viral deletion

Well, not experts exactly. Buzzfeed caused, well, a buzz today with an article arguing for you to delete your Facebook account, along with the rest of your socials. 

We don’t think Buzzfeed really has a leg to stand on in with this argument; the outlet’s comment section is connected and was historically exclusive to Facebook users (although the exclusivity appears to have changed), and nearly every other article is a response to an Instagram or Twitter post.

The article outlines the benefits of deleting your socials, and millennials who came of age as these apps were developing won’t widen their eyes to Buzzfeed’s points. 

We know

Anyone who remembers when these apps came out were always skeptical of their behavior, and these doubts were justified with every news report of the giant money-making corporations’ nefarious behavior, with every morsel of data they’ve pillaged and cent they’ve earned with our faces.

Anyone who has used social media knows nearly all the apps detrimental to mental health. Comparing your life & accomplishments with others is one thing, but the neverending mindless scrolling of doomsday paranoia, advertisements, and the so-called “good life” is not only sickening, it’s exhausting. We don’t need an article telling us to delete our Facebook account – we know we should.

Fake news

Buzzfeed points out in its report, citing thirty-five-year-old Ashley F. in Connecticut, that social media rampantly spreads misinformation. 

Since the creation of the concept of “fake news” in the last five years, everything & anything can be news, and everything & anything can be legitimized or debunked with a simple phrase. Social media gives everyone a voice, and sometimes liars & loudmouths have the biggest audiences.

You might be able to get away with deleting your Facebook account, but Instagram & Twitter is another story. Most people connect with their friends & family through Instagram these days, and many get their news solely from Twitter, which is arguably the fastest way to get the latest news coming down the pipe. 

However, Facebook owns Instagram, so if you delete your Facebook account to get away from lord Zuck, you’re not putting much distance between the tech lizard and all your personal info. Furthermore, many social media critics place Twitter as perhaps the most toxic, where nearly any opinion shared is an opening for an onslaught of insults & arguments. 

Social distance

However, despite so many people’s attachment to social media, many have cut down their usage as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, presumably as an extension of growing adoption to a life with less people. 

Others cling on to social media as a way to keep an eye on their far away friends & family. As vaccination rates continue to increase over many parts of the world, we can only imagine users will lean one way or the other toward their accounts, and delve into or delete their Facebook account, along with the rest of the socials. 

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Will you ever delete your Facebook account, or are you doubling down on our social media overlords? Sound off in the comments below!