It’s been about a week and a half since I deleted my Twitter account and logged out of Facebook. Twitter/X gives you a full 30 days before the account disappears completely, just in case you want to reverse your decision. Only once or twice have I felt the urge to check a few lists I used to keep there. And the urge passed pretty quickly when I remembered how frustrating—and infuriating—those check-ins could be.
Oddly enough, though, Facebook has been more of a challenge to step away from. I’m not sitting here constantly itching to log on, but I've noticed that whenever I sit down to work, my first instinct when I'm tempted to procrastinate, is to check Facebook. Which is strange—I’ve always fucking hated Facebook. I was much more of a Twitter guy. Maybe it's because Twitter is gone now. In a few weeks, it’ll be deleted entirely, and there’s no going back. Plus it helps that Musk turned it into a dumpster fire of fascist incel ragebait.
But it’s like my fingers still want to type ‘Facebook’ into the search bar whenever I'm looking for a quick distraction. I wonder how long that reflex will stick.
The only reason I keep my Facebook account is that it’s my one reliable way to stay in touch with a few family members and friends scattered around the world—people who don’t share my obsession with getting out of toxic information systems. I don’t even use it for ads since I got banned from advertising a couple of years ago.
I’d love to delete it along with the dead bird site, but I don’t feel that I can. At least I don’t think about it much. The urge to check in comes over me only when I’m trying to avoid work. The rest of the time, I don’t think about it much.
But man, I’d love to know when the itch will go.