Dries Buytaert

Earlier this month, I set a resolution to blog more and use social media less. While I still need to work on blogging more, I'm certainly spending less time on Facebook. I'm halfway there. So far, only my mom has complained about me spending less time on Facebook.

This morning when my alarm woke me up at 4:45am, I took it a step further. Most mornings, I spend ten minutes checking Facebook on my phone. Today, however, I deleted the Facebook application from my phone, rolled out of bed and started my workday. Great!

As an advocate for the open web, I've written a lot about the problems that Facebook and other walled gardens pose. While I have helped raise awareness and have contributed time and money to winning back the open web, I haven't fully embraced the philosophy on my own site. For over 12 years, I've blogged on my own domain and have used Open Source software instead of using a third party service like Blogger or Medium, but I can't say the same about sharing my photos or social media updates. This has bothered me for some time.

I felt even more motivated to make a change after watching David Letterman's new Netflix series. During a conversation with his first guest, President Obama, Letterman shared the fear that his son will one day ask, Wait a minute. You knew this was a problem, and you didn't do anything about it?. Letterman's sentiment mirrors Jeff Bezos' regret minimization framework; when you look back on your life, you want to minimize the number of regrets you have. It's a principle I like to live by.

We can't have a handful of large platform companies like Facebook control what people read on the web; their impact on democracy and society is concerning. Even Facebook doesn't like what it sees when it looks in the mirror.

Today is not only the day I uninstalled Facebook from my phone, but it's the day I fully embrace and extend my new year's resolution. Not only would I like to use social media less, I want to take back control over my social media, photos and more. I also want to contribute more to the open web in the process — it will be a worthwhile personal challenge for 2018.