Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

I share a lot of the commenters opinions: most of the toxicity (and intrusion) of social networks are due to... THE FEED. and they only affect us because we keep checking on them. Yes, they are engineered to "make" us go back over and over again to check for "news", but if we are aware of that, there are (arguably convoluted) ways to minimize that effect. The following is my experience on how I dealt with facebook, but I have since applied to linkedin and others.

Years ago I started "leaving" facebook by just: not visiting it. I didn't delete my account, I didn't explicitly posted anything announcing what I was going to do. I just stopped visiting it.

Now, it wasn't a trivial as that, because facebook will notify you, will email you, will send you messages reminding of everything I was missing out. So, along with the decision of "leaving" facebook I had to manually go and disable every way facebook could reach my attention. It took a while but it wasn't hard: I disabled email alerts (or just filtered them straight to trash) whenever I received one. For years I didn't have fb or messenger apps on my phone, or I would just disable them if I couldn't remove them. Now, with more granular control over notification I may install them but disable notifications entirely. In fact, I take a similar approach to email. While I do receive visual notifications of email, I don't get sound of vibration. In fact, my phone is in silent mode practically all day (I do have some rules that allow certain calls to breakthrough)

To me, gaining back control was about removing the ability of apps (and people) to digitally reach me whenever they felt like. And this is the core of my attitude with "leaving" social networks: it's about controlling when I want to actively use them (as little as needed). So, deleting account feels (to me) as I gave up having control (and extracting the little benefit of a network).

Also, it's not just about control how apps reach us.

It's also about establishing the social boundaries with friends, family and acquaintances: socials networks are NOT how you can get my attention. you may get my attention, but don't count on it. if you really need to find me you probably know how.

I still extract value from facebook/ig/linkedin on my own terms. But those companies probably get much less value out of me given their business models. I feel it's alright. In fact, I feel (maliciously?) better in this approach.

I still get linkedin job offers, and I do respond to them, probably after a few days when I feel like checking.

No company wants automation played against them, they want automation put to use by them, to benefit them. Hypocrite paradox. It wouldn't be the first one.

Linkedin is absolutely useless after a person retires when it could be used to connect people to volunteer projects and meaningful non-profit groups looking for experienced free help. I'd go so far as to say it's ageist because it sends the message that once you're retired, you're worthless.

Completely biased article.

“As everyone knows, LinkedIn is a glorified resume site. Nothing actually happens there (unless you are a recruiter or in enterprise sales?).”

This means op could not get any benefit out of an online tool, this does not mean nothing happens there. LinkedIn has been tremendously helpful to find my last 2 jobs. You have to know how to use it, specially the premium account. The market research aspect of it is amazing. I do not enjoy the social media aspect and the timeline approach. Stay away from that.

Both my current job and my previous job were initiated by recruiters who contacted me on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has been extremely valuable to me. The recruiters who contact me are usually from professional executive search firms and highly relevant, though I only get a few a year.

I think the level of relevance depends on the industry though. I'm in finance/banking and fairly senior.