Facebook login or sign out
The curse of Facebook login and why I can't bring myself to break up with Facebook
I feel like my relationship with Facebook has run its course — a sentiment that seems to be echoed by many others, if the "#DeleteFacebook" movement is anything to go by.
I rarely log onto the Facebook account that I created five years ago. Except for major life updates, like moving or new employment, there's not much else I have a strong desire to share with my family and circle of college friends. I usually use Instagram to find out what's new with them, anyway.
My feed consists of political nonsense, bad outdated memes, and random posts made by relatives and friends of an older generation, who seem to have consistently overrun the social media platform over the past few years. I somehow missed the exact turning point where Facebook became the technological equivalent of a dad joke.
I don't need my Facebook. I don't rely upon it for my livelihood, or for business networking like some do. And I've gotten to a point where I don't want it either.
Throw in the recent scandal involving data analytics company Cambridge Analytica and the privacy violations Facebook took part in, and now seemed like a good time to call it quits with my account.
The thing is: When I began my research on how to efficiently delete a Facebook account, I was guided to the settings section of Facebook. I soon discovered the 72 apps that are attached to my Facebook login. It slowly sank in how much of my life is tied to Facebook. And even worse was how completely unwilling I was to sever those ties and potentially lose access to information that so closely affects my day-to-day life.
Facebook is like your fingerprint — good luck explaining how it changed
The problem is that my access to each of those apps is based on my Facebook identity. But if I no longer have a Facebook identity, how will those apps know who I am?
In theory, resetting your login information for any particular app should not be very difficult, but I soon discovered that the reality is quite different: For many apps, Facebook is the equivalent of your fingerprint. And you're no more likely to convince some apps that you're still the same person— just with a different fingerprint — than you would to a person in the real world.Above: Graphical representation of my personal app hierarchy ranked by importance.Wikimedia Commons/Business Insider
In the app hierarchy of my phone, Spotify reigns supreme. So "how to keep your Spotify after deleting Facebook" is the first tutorial I searched for. To my horror, I found posts upon posts detailing how the participants were unable to log into their Spotify accounts after deleting Facebook.
I thought of all the playlists I'd curated over the course of the last five years: one for that time I was in Paris by myself, one for fall of 2013 during my first college semester, one random assortment of songs I just really liked, etc. Each served as its own little metaphoric time capsule that transferred me back to a different point in my life. I wasn't ready to let that go.
I followed suit with the rest of the apps, wondering what would happen to my online portfolio I built through Wix, all of my Pinterest boards, the reviews Airbnb-ers had given me over the years, my Instagram stream that dates back to 2013, and my access to the online network of my alma mater.
And on a less significant level, I'd lose access to Hinge, my favorite dating app to waste time on, since the platform populates matches with mutual Facebook friends.
I know why I'd used Facebook to log into all these things: It was quick, convenient and secure, or so I thought. But I didn't foresee the consequences of linking so many applications to one account.
With Facebook currently under a magnifying glass, I'm expecting, or hoping, that every developer creates a more seamless detachment process for users who delete the Facebook account but want to keep data and access to the apps that are connected to it.
Until then, my hands are tied. And I hate it.
The curse of Facebook login and why I can't bring myself to break up with Facebook
I feel like my relationship with Facebook has run its course — a sentiment that seems to be echoed by many others, if the "#DeleteFacebook" movement is anything to go by.
I rarely log onto the Facebook account that I created five years ago. Except for major life updates, like moving or new employment, there's not much else I have a strong desire to share with my family and circle of college friends. I usually use Instagram to find out what's new with them, anyway.
My feed consists of political nonsense, bad outdated memes, and random posts made by relatives and friends of an older generation, who seem to have consistently overrun the social media platform over the past few years. I somehow missed the exact turning point where Facebook became the technological equivalent of a dad joke.
I don't need my Facebook. I don't rely upon it for my livelihood, or for business networking like some do. And I've gotten to a point where I don't want it either.
Throw in the recent scandal involving data analytics company Cambridge Analytica and the privacy violations Facebook took part in, and now seemed like a good time to call it quits with my account.
The thing is: When I began my research on how to efficiently delete a Facebook account, I was guided to the settings section of Facebook. I soon discovered the 72 apps that are attached to my Facebook login. It slowly sank in how much of my life is tied to Facebook. And even worse was how completely unwilling I was to sever those ties and potentially lose access to information that so closely affects my day-to-day life.
Facebook is like your fingerprint — good luck explaining how it changed
The problem is that my access to each of those apps is based on my Facebook identity. But if I no longer have a Facebook identity, how will those apps know who I am?
In theory, resetting your login information for any particular app should not be very difficult, but I soon discovered that the reality is quite different: For many apps, Facebook is the equivalent of your fingerprint. And you're no more likely to convince some apps that you're still the same person— just with a different fingerprint — than you would to a person in the real world.Above: Graphical representation of my personal app hierarchy ranked by importance.Wikimedia Commons/Business Insider
In the app hierarchy of my phone, Spotify reigns supreme. So "how to keep your Spotify after deleting Facebook" is the first tutorial I searched for. To my horror, I found posts upon posts detailing how the participants were unable to log into their Spotify accounts after deleting Facebook.
I thought of all the playlists I'd curated over the course of the last five years: one for that time I was in Paris by myself, one for fall of 2013 during my first college semester, one random assortment of songs I just really liked, etc. Each served as its own little metaphoric time capsule that transferred me back to a different point in my life. I wasn't ready to let that go.
I followed suit with the rest of the apps, wondering what would happen to my online portfolio I built through Wix, all of my Pinterest boards, the reviews Airbnb-ers had given me over the years, my Instagram stream that dates back to 2013, and my access to the online network of my alma mater.
And on a less significant level, I'd lose access to Hinge, my favorite dating app to waste time on, since the platform populates matches with mutual Facebook friends.
I know why I'd used Facebook to log into all these things: It was quick, convenient and secure, or so I thought. But I didn't foresee the consequences of linking so many applications to one account.
With Facebook currently under a magnifying glass, I'm expecting, or hoping, that every developer creates a more seamless detachment process for users who delete the Facebook account but want to keep data and access to the apps that are connected to it.
Until then, my hands are tied. And I hate it.
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