I find these reasons by Jesse Squires really compelling, enough to re-activate my Facebook and Instagram accounts sometime soon:

Regardless of whether or not I choose to continue using these platforms in the future, I prefer to retain the accounts for historical reasons and leave them vacant — at least for now… This preserves (at least the shell of) my online “identity” and prevents someone else from taking the usernames that I used for so many years. I would rather someone find my old, vacant accounts with a message to contact me by other means, instead of finding some Internet rando and wondering what happened — or worse, mistaking that other person for me.

[…]

On Instagram, after deleting everything years ago, I now keep a small handful of posts — 9 to be exact. When I post something new, I delete the oldest one. If ever decide to leave the account vacant, it will be quick and easy to do. This is how I use these accounts in ways that keep me in control.

At the end of last year, I downloaded all my data from Facebook and Instagram, so deleting all my content and keeping my accounts open there (though unused) seems like a good middle ground. I deleted Twitter years and years ago, so someone else has already taken up my old username there (which is okay, but still kinda sad—a feeling I can’t quite wrap my heard around yet).

On a side note, over the past week I’ve been getting emails from Facebook with a security code to login. I think someone out there is trying to get into my Facebook account and possibly claim my username as their own. I think this act alone is shaping my thinking on this.

I got my 2nd and final shot of the Pfizer vaccine today!

More chalk art. I love this one.

Consistency.

Canceled my New York Times subscription and resubscribed to The New Yorker. I found I didn’t really read the Times and I really missed spending an hour or so a day going through the meatier New Yorker articles. This one in particular convinced me to return.

I’m on my final two weeks of my Apple Fitness+ trial, and here’s my upcoming schedule:

I’m using 25lbs dumbbells for the strength workouts, which for some workouts has been at the limit of my strength. I keep a pair of 20s close by, just in case. I haven’t done a HIIT in a couple of weeks because I’ve been focusing on Strength, so returning to it should be interesting.

So far, I really like Apple Fitness+. My conundrum is that I have a year’s subscription to Beachbody On Demand that doesn’t expire until October. I do like it, and I know the next one or two workouts I want to do in BOD once my Fitness+ trial is over, but that won’t take me into October. I want to subscribe to Fitness+ but my “responsible” self is telling me to wait. So for now, I’ll wait.

Charlie Warzel in the New York Times:

In 2016, Mr. Caulfield met Mr. Wineburg, who suggested modeling the process after the way professional fact checkers assess information. Mr. Caulfield refined the practice into four simple principles:

1. Stop.
2. Investigate the source.
3. Find better coverage.
4. Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context.

Otherwise known as SIFT.

I had an argument/discussion with a really good friend yesterday about whether or not flu cases went down during the last year. I told her they went down because of our collective COVID precautions—wearing masks, social distancing, washing our hands—but she said it’s not true because they weren’t testing for influenza, so there’s no way of knowing for sure. She’s been against all the COVID precautions since the beginning, so I could understand where she was coming from. I still didn’t believe she was right, so I went online, found around ten sources for my claim that flu cases actually went down, and she said,

We don’t “believe” the same articles. We can both find ones that show what we agree with 🤣

I’m not sure if this SIFT method would’ve worked with her, but I find it useful for myself anyway. I also don’t know how to converse with my friends who don’t share the same definition of “truth” as me. Am I wrong? Is she wrong? Is there a balance? I have no idea.

But we’re still friends, and I’m fiercely loyal to my friends, even when we disagree.

I’m not really sure what’s going on here…

…but I like it! 😵

Molly Wood in the latest episode of Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly:

Facebook is cigarettes… It’s Big Tobacco… They know its product causes harm and they keep minimizing the harm to keep selling product. #FacebookisCigarettes

Agree 100%. And over 2 billion people are addicted.