It’s been a week since I deactivated my Facebook account. So far I haven’t really missed it at all. I was expecting to get some sort of withdrawal symptoms but none have emerged so far.

I also logged out from Twitter and Instagram but I didn’t deactivate the accounts. I haven’t yet decided whether I want to keep them or not.

Taking a break from social media is progressing as I permanently deactivated my Facebook account today. I know I’m not going to miss it, although I was in a couple of useful groups.

Facebook often gets criticised for the lack of privacy. “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product being sold”, and that is very much true. Facebook gets revenue from advertising. To be able to target ads, they need your data. Whatever you have in your Facebook profile, your friends, everything you have ever posted there or all the websites you ever visited that had a Facebook like button, they will all count. Even if you don’t have a Facebook profile, they will still probably keep a shadow profile of you, based on your phone number, email address or other identifiers they may get from you or people you interact with.