A couple of years ago, I set myself a New Year’s Resolution to quit Facebook. On 1 January 2019, I deleted my Facebook account and I haven’t looked back.
I did that because the costs of using Facebook outweighed the benefits; for me, at least.
Facebook isn’t just one app though. The Facebook we all know is one of several services owned and operated by Facebook. So whilst I had quit Facebook the app, I didn’t quit Facebook the company. The two other services that I used that were operated by Facebook were Instagram and WhatsApp; both of which the company acquired in the early-to-mid 2010s.
On 31 December 2020, I resolved to quit Instagram. On 1 January 2021, that’s exactly what I did.
Instagram is turning into Facebook
Instagram was designed as a photography service. It was arguably the first successful photo sharing service of the modern social internet era. But Instagram isn’t really that any more.
The main reason I’ve deleted Instagram is because it is slowly – through a series of intentional product decisions – morphing into the Facebook app.
Bolt ons to the core service like Stories (cloned from Snapchat) and Reels (cloned from TikTok) mean that Instagram is now less about intentional photography and design, and more about social networking. It is a Facebook feed with an emphasis on photos and stylised, text-based posts. Honestly, it all started going downhill when they added the algorithmic feed and it’s just kept rolling down from there.
If I’d wanted a running commentary on every news item, screenshots of tweets, and ranting political posts, I’d have kept my Facebook account.
How it’s going…
So my account is permanently deleted. The data will be erased from the service in a couple of days time, and expunged from the backups it keeps in another couple of months.
Just because I’ve quit Instagram though, doesn’t mean I don’t still want to be able to share photos I like. I’ve built a new photo blog as part of this website that I’ll be updating over time. Take a look and let me know what you think!