So, Facebook is gone. And now what?

It is about one week since my Facebook account has been deleted permanently. Funnily enough, I got no emails begging me to stay or to change my decision, which I sort of was expecting. If I was not suddenly logged out of an app I was using (which apparently used Facebook as its login) I would not have noticed anything.

In the last month or so,  there have been a few moments when I got a real strong urge to stop it all and log back in. I have been through a roller coaster ride of crises big and small lately, and then you really miss going online and ‘share your misfortunes’, if only to receive some consolation of the “There, there…” type. Those are the moments to watch out for, and it is important to recognize those for what they are: temptations and tests of your resolve.

So, Facebook is gone and now what? For starters, I have decided to reopen my Instagram account, to share the various photos I make from predominantly landscapes and nature. Feel free to follow that at https://www.instagram.com/ronrumleyvan/

Then, I am currently making an inventory of stuff that I do not have anymore after quitting Facebook, but which I would love to have available again. Biggest thing are the various communities I used to be a member of and which I miss since they mostly communicate through FB.  Some of these are quite important for some of my activities, for instance the various Gaelic study groups or our Warhammer community.

I am therefore toying with the idea of opening a special account just for those  things which are otherwise unavailable to me. The key thing there is not to engage in the activities and issues that made me leave FB in the first place. So, no opinion sites, no politically engaged discussions and,  I am sorry to say, no friends. This will strictly be a kind of ‘business account’ for a selected number of activities, making use of social media without the ‘social’, so to speak.

I am still mulling this over in my mind, but as the list of useful and exciting things I want to do grows, so does the feeling that I need to do this soon. Yet another temptation!

So, I will wait at least a few months before taking such action, if at all. Just wait and see…