How to delete Facebook and Instagram from your life forever
Facebook has been in a lot of hot water lately, including a data breach, reported in September, in which 30 million users’ information was compromised. This and similar incidents has led some people to decide to leave the social network. But “leaving” isn’t as simple as deleting your account. Brian X. Chen writes a detailed description in The New York Times of the process he took to delete his own Facebook account. Precautions he advises include ensuring you know which of your other social media and app accounts are linked to your Facebook account; downloading all your data (this includes your posts, and it’s a relatively simple step); and, once you’ve pressed “delete,” ensuring the 30-day grace period doesn’t tempt you to walk back your decision.
Does your phone need a smaller companion phone?
“The only thing that can protect you from your gadgets is more gadgets,” reads the subhead on an October article in Vox. Writer Kaitlyn Tiffany describes several new products meant to put a barrier between ourselves and the screens that consume us. These products include:
- “IRL Glasses,” which can block light from LED and LCD screens, “and therefore put the wearer in a world free of (digital) billboards and (some) TVs,” Tiffany writes. Designer Ivan Cash told Wired that the glasses are based on the sunglasses from the 1988 John Carpenter sci-fi cult classic “They Live.”
- A tiny Palm phone from Verizon. This device, which at press time was scheduled for a November release, is a small phone – you could wear it on a necklace – and it must be linked to another regular phone. The idea is that this very small screen will make apps and other features less fun to use, and therefore less tempting.
- If the tiny Palm isn’t an option (it costs $349.99), another option might be to monitor your app use on Apple’s Screen Time, which the company released with iOS 12 in September.
Why Arianna Huffington literally tucks her phone into bed every night – and why you should too
And if you really need to disconnect from your phone at night, you can use one of Thrive Global’s phone beds, which founder Arianna Huffington introduced in 2017.
Motorola is partnering with iFixit to sell official DIY phone repair kits
Phone manufacturers often make it very difficult for customers to replace broken parts on their smartphones. But now, Motorola is partnering with the tech company iFixit to offer users official phone repair kits. iFixit is known for tearing apart popular new devices within hours of their release so that users can see how they work on the inside, Greg Kumparak writes for TechCrunch. The company also sells replacement parts for items like iPods, but the Motorola partnership is the first time iFixit is using parts sourced straight from the original manufacturer. At press time, iFixit sells battery replacement kits (about $40) and screen replacement kits ($100-$200) for eight Motorola phones. As Kumparak notes, other manufacturers haven’t joined Motorola yet, but if the trend catches on, this could be an appealing option for smartphone users.
The 8 most unbreakable, indestructive smartphone cases
Until Apple does jump onboard with iFixit, Alexander George at Popular Mechanics offers his pick of “The 8 most unbreakable, indestructive smartphone cases,” specifically for the iPhone XS. “We deliberately dropped each [case] from waist height onto hardwood floors and asphalt several times,” he writes. “All finalist cases protected the phone from a cracked screen.”