One Facebook scandal away from moving to the woods? Considering applying to graduate school? You’re ready to delete social media. Or at least, some social media. But if it’s your time, here’s how to do it.
On Facebook, the process is nearly the same as deactivating your account, except after 30 days your data will permanently be expunged from the company’s servers (read the instructions here). You can also download your data ahead of time (photos, messages, etc) so you have access to it moving forward. If you’re one of those people who “has to have Facebook” because you “need to remember people’s birthdays,” there’s a tool for that. Once you sign up, it’ll download friend’s birthdays and email you on the right day (as a bonus, this service claims to be very privacy-centric). Obviously, Facebook now owns Instagram (and WhatsApp), so you’ll probably want to delete that too.
King notes that going dark isn’t possible for everyone. “In some ways, it becomes a privileged statement to say you don’t need to be online. A lot of states are providing public assistance online. If you want to apply for any job now, you don’t walk around filling out paper applications.”