A letter to Facebook,
You’ve been there since day one – that one time I accidentally posted on my crushes personal profile “do you like Anna Strawn?” instead of messaging him privately. I remember when you brought me the worst photos of myself by way of tagging and you’ve helped me recall past photos that I don’t necessarily want to remember. And you’ve definitely given me good memories, like the first album I created for people to see and giving me photos of friends that I don’t see often. Honestly Facebook, you aren’t everyone’s friend but unfortunately, you know it and I know it – we can’t live with you, but we can’t live without you.
Love, Anna
But on a real note, my Facebook experience has been minimal – I wasn’t allowed to have one until 8th grade! I used it to post about my feelings, inspirational quotes, Bible verses, and photos of fun times with my family and friends – and quite honestly, my personal profile didn’t start to flourish until high school when I finally figured out how to create photo albums, post only CUTE pictures, AND delete old ones that no one needs to see.
And I hate to say it, but I’m close to the end of my time with Facebook and I’m sure other millennials feel the same way and that’s hard for us to admit. I feel like we just don’t connect and use it to its full advantage like we did 5 years ago, and we are deeming it to not be “as cool” as it once was.
After taking into consideration the decision of deleting my Facebook page, I found this article. It talks about having a personal profile and why Millennials, like me, aren’t using it anymore. BUT what I love about it was the fact that it helps you rethink your use of this personal profile and honestly, I am taking their advice to declutter instead of deleting – here are a couple pieces of advice:
- Turn others’ birthdays into a gift to yourself.
I have found that my feed is cluttered, and I am ready to delete friends that I don’t necessarily want to keep up with anymore and that’s a major reason why I no longer want my page. So here is the solution: if you comment on someone’s page for their birthday, keep them as a friend and if they comment on yours, keep them too because it has been made clear through that interaction that you both care about each other and their pages.
- Delete your personal profile and start over.
If you don’t have the time to delete hundreds of friends… delete your account and make a new one and add friends that you really want! BUT if you know you’re going to struggle with losing likes and status’ that most people would want to run away from – this suggestion isn’t for you.
- Evaluate the purpose of your Facebook account.
I found that the only reason I use it is because of an organization I was a part of and during this time, we used a page to stay connected. But to be honest, I am no longer a part of the organization and my reasoning for having the page is no longer valid, YET I still keep it… but why?
Well… I am here to explain my top 3 reasons why I will most likely keep my page:
- Facebook stalking is an invaluable tool.
Stalking. Whether it’s finding out someone’s birthday, where they went to high school, or who they are dating #facebookofficial – we have that information at the click of a button.
- Facebook has become a scrapbook and journal of our lives.
I find myself going back to high school prom, the mission trip I went on, and that time I hiked mountains in Switzerland – anything we have posted to our personal profiles, we can see, share, and reminisce on.
- It just seems weird if you don’t have a Facebook.
I know you’ve said it – “he doesn’t even have a Facebook page!!” It’s weird to not have a personal profile, and honestly, I’m only judging because you have done me a disservice of giving me the ability to stalk you AND of course, this takes me back to number 1… stalking.
We’ve all wanted to delete our personal profile at some point, but Facebook has this tie on us that we can’t seem to break and that’s nothing to be ashamed of – we just don’t know how to say goodbye to something we’ve had since middle school. And I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m over the notifications that’s my aunt checked in at another location, the political posts by those from my hometown, and the photos that will haunt us for decades. But before you say goodbye, remember my tips before you run away so quickly like I almost did.
Anna Strawn 