Dunkirk, NY – I spent most of today attempting to consolidate my digital presence. It was not as onerous a task as I had expected. I was feeling way too scattered on the internet, and I no longer wanted to have to maintain so many different types and styles of site. As a result, I decided to bring as much as I possibly could into my original personal name domain, and make use of whatever tool I had available here to bring everything together.
What prompted me to do this is my ongoing concern to do as much as I possibly can not to have my personal information all over the internet. I just finished reading Jaron Lanier’s latest book, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, and I took his suggestions and information to heart. Even before reading his book, I had decided on my own to delete my Facebook account, all Twitter accounts, and my LinkedIn accounts. Reading his book, however, gave me an even better perspective on why it’s a good idea to delete all these accounts. The only accounts so far that I have not eliminated are ones tied to email addresses. By the end of 2018, however, I hope to have made as complete a migration away from the major internet companies and their services as I possibly can. The hardest will be Google, as I am pretty well hooked into their ecosystem of email and apps. I really don have as big a beef with Google as I do with Facebook, as information from Google, so far as I can tell, has never been sold or leaked or breached by hackers. Nonetheless, they know too much about me, and it would be good to minimize their ongoing collection of my data.
Another realization I had about my digital presence was that, now being retired, I really have no need for almost any of the digital tools I once used. I just don’t have any urgent need to stay in touch with most people other than to say “Hi” and pass the time. I don’t consider what I’m doing now (which is very little) to be of much interest to anyone either. Once you retire, your need to interact with people is lessened considerably, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. So, to go with this simpler existence, I decided to simplify my digital footprint.
For the record, here are the steps I have taken and intend to take to accomplish this goal:
- Deleted Facebook
- Deleted all Twitter accounts
- Deleted LinkedIn
- Eliminated my two blogs and consolidated the entries into this website. I’ve made a poor player a private access archive for myself, and North of Sixty will eventually be eliminated, its meager content having been migrated to this location.
- I will be eliminating my Yahoo and Hotmail accounts within the next few months. I have to go over them to see what sites I may have registered for that use those email addresses, and once I do, the addresses themselves will go.
- Created a Zoho account to eventually replace Google.
All this feels right. In a way, it’s a de-cluttering that’s as much a part of any physical de-cluttering I need to do. The transition from a working life to a retired life brings with it a need to let go of a number of things, and a reduction in my digital footprint is one of them. I’m hoping to become even more creative, on my own terms, as this process moves forward. -twl