What If Everyone Deleted Facebook?

Written by Abi Gregson & John Storton

#DeleteFacebook

As mentioned in our previous #deletefacebook blog, Facebook has over 2.4 billion users and won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, but what if it did? What if everyone actually deleted their Facebook accounts? What effect would this have on our personal lives and for business? Would other social networks take the mantle?

Why should I delete Facebook?

Social Media is often cited as the main reason for anxiety and stress in a person’s life. It’s hard work comparing yourself to all those perfect Instagram models, right? It’s no surprise that some have decided to reduce Facebook use, or delete the app altogether. (You still have to delete your account properly though, deleting the app only reduces the likelihood of logging in during an ad break.) But let’s not be too anti-Facebook here. After all, Yellow Spider Media uses it daily to advertise and promote business from all over the UK – so we don’t want it to disappear! Let’s look at the practical uses it has and what would happen if you no longer used Facebook.

Facebook is a Practical Communication Tool

Many people rely on Facebook as their main social network. It’s been around longer than most. Older generations have grown used to the platform and rely on it to keep in contact with long-distance relatives. Messenger might also be the only messaging app that a person uses. Migration to other social networks like Twitter or Instagram might be an unwelcome prospect for some. Is reverting back to emails a valid choice? Probably not.

Facebook as Photo Storage

Facebook is a great photo gallery. For many it will have replaced the traditional photo album, and even folders of images on a computer. After all, the images are stored on someone else’s servers, not clogging up our hard drives. But that’s another issue. What would happen if those servers needed to have a clear-out and your holiday snaps were lost? I can tell you, it could well happen and there’s not a lot that you, or anyone else could realistically do about it… now where’s that back up hard drive?!

Life Without Facebook

There is a growing tide of people that have had enough though and deleted their Facebook account.  And it isn’t all bad. Brian X. Chen at the New York Times reports that since deleting his own Facebook he saw a change in his spending habits, “

I found that I did not feel less connected and that my social life didn’t suffer. Instagram might have started thinking I was female, but my wallet thanked me. I realized I was spending considerably less money on my usual guilty pleasure of buying clothing and cooking gadgets online because I was no longer seeing the relevant Facebook ads that egged me on to splurge. Over the past five months, my online shopping purchases dropped about 43 percent.”

Overall, it’s difficult to imagine a future without Facebook with 1.62billion users logging in daily and five new profiles created every second, all we can do is speculate on how this would affect our day to day lives.

Have you reduced or got rid of some social media? Let us know at info@yellowspidermedia.com