To stay or to go that is the question. A lot of people are either thinking about going or pulling the plug. A lot more are simply laying low and wondering if Facebook is as bad as the news stories make them out to be, particularly when it comes to flaunting the data to every Tom, Dick, & Harry that comes along. (No offense if that’s your name!)
Here are the options:
Stay, pretend nothing to see here
Pull the plug entirely, lock stock and barrel
Mess with them; put up a lot of misleading crap to render the data harvest a big mess
Simply be smarter and use it sparingly
There are two other factors to consider:
Are you addicted to FB?
Do you actually get some tangible business, social, or offline entertainment options from FB use?
No one can tell you what to do but I’ll tell you where I am at this point:
I’ve been sounding the horn a long time about FB issues but made the choice to stay. I’ve also said, stay on the lookout for alternative services, (if Zuck doesn’t buy them out first). People are rushing to Instagram. Sorry folks, not impressed with that either. They’ll be in the news next. I could rattle off some of the others that are mostly geared to teens and tweens, but those are not an option. It’s like you’re used to driving on a road and someone says you can take your bike on that paved trail over there and get to the same place with the same view. Just not the same thing. Bottom line is, unless you want to be a retro hermit (a valid option) and if you want to have a theoretical connection to the most people, today, you’re still stuck on the FB turnpike.
There are complications with FB scraping loads of data from your phone, not the least of which involves their listening to you – for real. This, according to the pink haired fellow that testified about Cambridge Analytica, but we already know this when you go somewhere, say something (not even typing it in your phone browser) and bam!, they throw an ad at you that you just talked about in the privacy of wherever. Should that not be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? It probably would be if not for the people up the street, Google and Apple. I don’t know too many people still running around with a flip phone. Your phone is probably powered by Google or you may have given it permission to run some of your apps. If so, you, your data and Google and Facebook are one. Everyone stores and uses your data differently and you may have cut some of those functions out, but rest assured, you cut them all out and you’re left with the equivalent of a pretty, very expensive flip phone.
So what’s the verdict? Live with the monster a little longer. Start deleting all the extra details from your profile. Use FB a lot less. Use it to get Community Association updates, flower and doggy pics, and to follow family occasions. Find and talk to your alumni buddies. Like something wacky occasionally to keep them off kilter. Join a UFO interest group. But keep your real self to yourself and by all means, stop posting your medical problems! No need to wear your heart on your sleeve! Zuckerberg has his hands full with other things now!