Ryan Barrett (snarfed.org)I deleted all of my Facebook posts last week. I deleted my Google+ posts too. They were pretty much all here on my web site too, so nothing was truly lost, but I still feel a bit lighter, somehow.
I deleted my Google+, Tumblr, EyeEm, mastodon.social, and 500px accounts last year. I was not using these accounts at all so I didn't feel a loss. Google+ was shutting down anyway.
Like Ryan, Facebook is the only place I can catch-up family and friends. As Ryan stated, "Facebook is still basically a public utility." What I have done, however, is reduce my interactions on Facebook to about once or twice a month. I don't discuss politics or religion.
I kept my Instagram account. The local boutique brewery has no tap room and announces the releases on Instagram only. If I want to drink those ales, and they never release the same ale twice, I need an Instagram account.
I kept my Twitter account. I have not had any of the experiences others have had. My interactions on Twitter are no different than I have experience in real life (agreement, affinity, arguments, etc.). I’m sticking with it.
Discoverability for independent blogs is slightly worse than it is on micro.blog. Micro.blog has the advantage of having a built-in Twitter-style social messaging system. I expect that disconnecting from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram would lead to a drop in traffic to this blog. Last year I experimented with this. I stopped posting syndicating links to my content to Twitter and Facebook. Traffic did go down. Previous to that, Facebook and Twitter were my top source of traffic.
Ultimately the goal is that my friends and family know that they can come here to find out what I’m up to. I think I may create a post on Facebook letting everyone know that I will not be posting to Facebook. That they can find me on this website. It will be work for them to do so. They’ll have to remember to visit the blog or I’ll have to explain RSS feeds. Ok … maybe just send them an email, assuming I have their address, remind them to visit. That’s not the same as posting to a Facebook timeline and reading and responding in real time.
