My 12-year fling with Facebook is over. It was a flawed relationship but breaking up is still a wrench

Ellen E Jones
Ellen E. Jones3 January 2019
WEST END FINAL

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Every year, around this time, the founder of Facebook writes a post in which he makes public his focus for the next 12 months. Mark Zuckerberg’s “personal challenge” — or “new year’s resolution”, for the traditionalists — has ranged from the pedestrian and relatable (2015, read more; 2011, eat less meat) to the kind of madcap mission only a tech billionaire could attempt (2016, build a robot butler for my 5,542sq ft San Francisco mansion). Which way will he go in 2019? It’s hard to say but we can at least predict that he won’t pledge to make this the year he deletes Facebook.

Everyone else with an account must have considered doing so at least once in 2018 (everyone who doesn’t get all their news via Facebook, that is). If the revelations about Russian bot influence in the US elections didn’t get to you, surely the Cambridge Analytica scandal did, or the role of Facebook-disseminated fake news in the slaughter of Rohingya Muslims. And even the most relaxed over-sharer will feel uncomfortable about Facebook’s free and easy way with users’ personal data. You’d be better off entrusting your sensitive information to a talkative town crier.

All these are good reasons to ditch Facebook, yet even though the time has come for me, it’s impossible to end any 12-year relationship without regrets. In some ways, being on Facebook made me a better person; the kind of open-hearted soul who never forgets a friend’s birthday and is always quick with a compliment or supportive word. When all that’s needed is a couple of heart-eyes emojis, you’d be a monster not to.

For all the talk of “filter bubbles”, Facebook has also come into its own during times of heightened political division. It’s never pleasant to discover that someone you used to go clubbing with is now a not-so-shy Tory/ one-note Remainiac/ baby-spammer/ poster of inspirational quotes (delete as appropriate) but I’ve appreciated the implicit reminder that it’s possible for two people to be profoundly at odds on one issue, while perfectly simpatico on many others. And that some of these people are your close, blood relatives.

Perhaps most of all, I’ll miss the comforting illusion that lost sparks of human connection can easily be rekindled. Those former flatmates you’ve lost touch with; that interesting person you met once at a house party five years ago; the funny ex-colleague you’d have loved to be out-of-work friends with; and all the old classmates for whom you hope everything turned out OK. In the past these people would be difficult, if not impossible, to track down. Now we’re all still “friends” on Facebook, if not, sadly, in any more meaningful way.

"I’ll miss the comforting illusion that lost sparks of human connection can easily be rekindled"

So it’s goodbye from me to Facebook — and goodbye to all of them. Although perhaps it’s foolish to put too much store in new year’s resolutions, however firmly resolved.

After all, Zuckerberg’s 2018 personal challenge was to “fix Facebook”, and look how that turned out.

Kelly knows where to find a slimline tonic

If you’re one of the many hoping to end 2019 in a less lardy state than you began it, you may be interested in the weight-loss tips of model and newly signed SlimFast spokesperson Kelly Brook.

Brook’s secret weapon in the battle of the bulge? A hyper-critical body fascist for a boyfriend. “He says ‘You had dessert last night — you don’t need it tonight’,” she told the Loose Women panellists before further expanding on his methods in The Sun: “My boyfriend said I looked like a little balloon. It wasn’t just trolls [who noted her weight gain], it was him as well.”

What’s the message here? That diet and exercise play a part, but if you really want to drop two dress sizes in two months you’ll also need a partner to make you feel terrible about yourself? That probably isn’t the “total lifestyle change” that nutrition experts have in mind.

Any friend worth the title will have pointed out that Brook could lose approximately 14 stone of dead weight instantly by ditching the man instead of the dessert. But I suspect Brook — a woman whose livelihood depends on her conforming to unrealistic beauty standards — knows exactly which side her Ryvita is low-fat spread on.

Only someone who hates themselves at least a little can pull off the self-denial required to stay in underwear model shape. The rest of us would do better to aim for a healthy balance — in both diet and romance.

*Her dad is Phil Collins, so it seems reasonable to assume Les Misérables star Lily Collins can hold a tune. However, viewers of BBC One’s Les Misérables will have to trawl much further through YouTube for a definitive answer.

A decent singing voice was considered an asset for any up-and-coming starlet but this new song-free adaptation signals an abrupt backlash to the recent revival of the musical genre. The new trend is to remake famous musicals as dour dramas. Next up, Sulkin’ in the Rain, featuring Paddy Considine, and definitely no tap-dancing.

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