It has been more than a year since I last posted on my blog (wondering if people still use blogs). The rate at which technology is changing, it doesn’t take long for something to new to become obsolete within a few years (in some case even a few weeks/ months). Considering how our lives have intertwined with technology in the last few years, and the amount of data that we are sharing, an incident like Cambridge Analytica was bound to happen. Even before the incident, I was thinking how much information about oneself    should even be on social media. I had linked my Facebook account with other websites, would constantly post pictures on Facebook and had even linked my website to Facebook. The Cambridge Analytica incident was the last straw for me in my relationship with Facebook. At the same time, personally, Facebook was becoming addiction for me. The first thing I would check after waking up in the morning would be Facebook, keep checking it frequently during day time and the cycle would continue during evenings, well into the night.

Once I heard about the incident, I actually decided to delete my Facebook account once and for all. It was just like that. I downloaded all my messages, posts, pictures and any other data which I had posted on Facebook over the years and simply deleted the account. Initially, I did crave for those notifications/ updates and it feel like something was missing. However, I am glad to see that phase didn’t really last long for me. It has been more than a year since I have deleted my account from Facebook and to be honest, it has been one of the better decisions that I have made. Does it mean I am not on social media? No – I still have my LinkedIn account, my instagram account and my rarely used twitter account. But the time spent on those websites is limited compared to the time I was spending on Facebook.

As anyone would know, any information shared on social media is going to remain on the Internet forever (which is why more and more employers are conducting social media checks during their pre-hiring process). Social media is here to stay and is also essential for many businesses. My $0.02 – post only necessary information and beware that anything that you post on the web, can be found, and used by anyone for/ against you.