How to unsubscribe from facebook permanently or temporarily

Intro

The last two decades have been marked by revolutions in technology that have ended up changing the lives of many people around the world. One of these revolutions practically gave birth to the phenomenon of social networks on a global scale, and one of the first platforms to have a significant impact in the lives of hundreds of millions of people is Facebook. But there are not only positive experiences. This is why many users ask us how they can unsubscribe from Facebook. In this article we will help you and explain in detail everything you need to do to delete yourself temporarily or permanently from Facebook.

If instead you want to know how to delete an account on instagram you will find everything in our article: How to delete an account on instagram

The Facebook website was born at Harvard University in the United States through the contributions of Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. This social media created in February 2004 initially started as a free university service and was later expanded for commercial purposes.

The expansion of this platform has led to billions of people signing up to this site to connect with family, friends and other people from all over the world. The ability to share posts, stories, and get a glimpse into the daily lives of most of the world’s celebrities make it one of the most popular social networks among users. This social despite many people claiming otherwise, it is still used a great deal by young people, who take advantage of posts and stories as a tool for social interaction. Facebook however, is not only designed for individuals and their private lives but, has some dedicated services for businesses, such as Facebook for Business, making it a social marketing tool.

People use social media for hobbies, work and to meet new people or keep in touch with their friends and relatives. Social media seem to have become necessary for everyone a little bit, and also because of the recent steps taken by the states on the pandemic, a great many users are becoming more and more dependent on the Internet.

The use of social media is abused by many people, who use much of their time checking for new posts and periodically updating their profiles and scrolling through the news section. Clearly, the problem affects not only Facebook, but also Tik Tok, Instagram, Clubhouse, and many other social networks on the Internet. Between viral posts and videos, so many users spend a large part of their day behind screens every day, and many come to develop an addiction toward these types of platforms.

According to some 2019 statistics, social network users spend an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes per day on these applications. Looking at recent 2022 statistics for Facebook, we see that monthly active users on the platform are about 3 billion, while daily active users are just under 2 billion. Of the latter, the average daily use of this social network is about 50 minutes per day.

These data are frightening, and show how Facebook is still one of the most widely used platforms in the world. However, more and more users are making the decision to permanently delete Facebook and their account, or avoid using them for a set period, so as to reduce the hours spent in front of the screen to invest the time in other ways.

In this article, we will see what we need to do to get our Facebook account out of the way temporarily or permanently. If you are intent on performing either of these procedures, you will find everything you need in this guide so that you can operate according to your needs.

Some good reasons to unsubscribe from Facebook (and other social)

In this section we see some good reasons to consider deleting our social accounts permanently, or try doing it temporarily and see the actual changes on our lifestyle.

One of the things that should give us pause is that the influence of social media on our lives is constantly underestimated. Underlying this phenomenon we find certain aspects of operation of these applications that can influence our thinking to the point of changing our habitual behaviors.

The Facebook algorithm and other social, filter bubble and meaningful interaction

In general, the algorithms used by social networks are among the most powerful and developed in the realm of the Internet; to them we consciously or unconsciously hand over our data and preferences in the form of likes, shares, comments, and posts. These algorithms use information to understand what we want to see on our page and what interests us, so that they provide us with content that is very close to our expectations, ideas, and value system. This creates a kind of content bubble, usually called a filter bubble, which represents our reality from the eyes of social. In this place, everything seems to be made especially for us, reflecting our thoughts, our values, but all this is merely a well-conceived hallucination.

This kind of mechanism is triggered after we use social networks for a while, and having reached this point we virtually lose our free will. Once our bubble is ready, we are no longer faced with a set of different possibilities, but the system starts presenting us with posts, images, and stories made just for us, and at this point our behavior is bound to change and suffer all the negative effects of this situation.

Having reached a point where it becomes difficult to choose posts freely, the major consequence is to become worse people, more angry, conceited and prone to avoid any opinion and fact that clashes with our set of ideas and values.

Facebook also has an additional mechanism called meaningful interaction, which indicates the meaningful interactions considered by Facebook’s algorithm. These interactions are one of the most important elements that enables the platform to accurately understand and predict user behaviors and interests. This system makes it possible to grant greater visibility to content with high engagement rates, which are in most cases, news posts or topics capable of sparking furious discussions between different ideologies, often leading to insults and arguments. This usually happens due to the simple fact that negative content usually receives a lot of comments, interactions and related notifications that make it visible longer than positive content.

Facebook, like other social networks, has become over time a place increasingly populated by hoaxes, fake news, provocative comments, factional clashes and personal attacks. This kind of social use, in addition to taking time away from real interactions, wastes our time in avoidable and insulting discussions.

Overcoming social addiction and the fear of being cut off will improve our lives

Fear of being cut off or fear of disconnection, in English called FoMO, short for Fear of Missing Out, is the fear of missing out on something important and unique. This syndrome makes us constantly think about what is going on in social, and convinces us that we must always be informed about everything that is happening. This mechanism can give rise to an addiction in us toward social media and the need to constantly peek into other people’s lives makes us feel doubt and envy toward other people whose careers, vacations, relationships and lives always seem better and happier than our own.

This psychological mechanism creates a false perception, often amplified by the connections and algorithms that are established in these types of programs. This type of relationship with social creates a vicious cycle based on envy, which leads many people to ostentatiously display their everydayness. We can therefore see many users amplify and inflate their experiences by making them seem like unique, unrepeatable moments outside the boring banality of other ordinary people.

In addition to this negative vicious cycle, FoMO is fueled by the huge continuous stream of news we find, belonging to different categories according to user preferences, such as soccer, politics, gossip, concerts, and current affairs. This stream of content ends up merging with the posts published by our friends, where we often see large events such as parties, weddings and conceptions. This tends to create a huge repertoire of information, very often of little value, that overwhelms us every day and affects our mood. This is one of the main causes of the social networking addiction that is affecting more and more people. Another science-based cause is the release of endorphins and dopamine caused by notifications, friend requests, likes to our posts and stories.

Those who experience FoMO and use social media assiduously may overuse their smartphones to the point that they interfere with their social interactions and develop anxiety-related issues. Being aware of what motivates us to check social notifications and homepages allows us to realize what factors negatively affect our mood. To improve our well-being, learning how to properly use social media or eliminate it from our lives allows us to increase our levels of satisfaction with our lives and helps us improve our social interactions .

How to improve the operation and use of our Facebook

If we are not convinced that it is a good idea to delete our Facebook profile, or we need to use it for work or as a showcase for one of our businesses, it can be a really good idea to take some steps to improve the experience we have with our profile. Let us look in particular at three very simple methods.

One of the first things to do is definitely the more classic “contact cleansing,” which consists of the activity of unfriending profiles that frequently post fake news, biased news , and love to make bullying and provocative posts and comments. These kinds of users often trigger heated discussions and arguments that only unnecessarily increase our stress level. In addition to getting these users out of the way, we must not forget to stop following pages that frequently post content that does not interest or annoy us. This activity can be time-consuming to do, but it will greatly improve our bulletin board, making it a more peaceful, interesting and relaxing place.

Another very effective strategy is to pay attention to the posts that are suggested to us, particularly those where we find the words “Sponsored” and “Suggested content for you.” These often sponsored posts are provided to us by the algorithm because we fall into a particular category of people, that is, based on the posts and profiles we like. When we get these posts and they don’t interest us or bother us, there are some options to intervene.

In sponsored posts, if we click on the three dots in the upper right-hand part of the post, we can select “Hide Ad,” so that we no longer see that particular post and give a signal to the algorithm that we don’t like that particular thing. We can also decide to report the post by leading the Facebook team to an evaluation of the content and asking for its removal, which also allows us to give a strong signal to the platform’s algorithm.

As for suggested posts, we can do much the same thing by clicking on the “x” at the top right of the post, and ask Facebook to stop suggesting that type of post, alternatively we can also hide the post or report the content.

The third method is also very simple and is really about the likes we put during the actual use of this platform. Basically, we must always pay attention to each post we decide to like, since each of these preferences will lead the algorithm to always offer us posts that are similar to what we like. Clearly, reactions also fall into this category, so even a reaction with laughter or an angry smiley face to any kind of post will be counted as a like. A good idea if we want to get a home full of varied, dynamic and different content is to put likes on very different posts and not be too sectoral in our demonstrations of approval.

5 things to know and do before deleting a Facebook account

Deleting our social network account temporarily or permanently is always a good idea to consider. This allows us to have mood benefits and to organize our days optimally, investing time in what interests us most.

Before actually deleting the account, however, we need to know a few things to avoid regretting our decision later. Facebook has been around for many years now, so one needs to be well acquainted with its functionality before proceeding to temporary or permanent deletion. Therefore, let’s look at 5 things to do before deleting our account.

Download the information contained in our profile

When we decide to delete our account from a social network, in this case Facebook, our photos, videos, stories and posts will also be permanently deleted. If we value our files and memories, a great idea is to back up data and save our information and files on our PC.

There are many users who want to suppress their work on Facebook but want an account or Backup of everything they have done on the site. For this reason, Facebook has developed an easy way to download such information, we need to open our account settings, click on “General” in the left column, then on “Download a copy of your Facebook data,” and finally clicking on “Create my archive.” Depending on the amount of content present, it could take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to create our archive.

We will be able to find the information in this archive by downloading it and opening a file called index.html which will take us to a web page where we can access a lot of information. Much of our information also on “Downloaded Information,” this section of Facebook includes timeline information such as shared posts, messages, photos, and a history of Facebook chat conversations, a list of your friends, and more.

We also find more information on the Activity Log, which contains a complete history of all your activity on the account, from posts and stories you have commented on or liked, to apps you have used, to searches you have done.

For more details on the information, we can take a look at the Facebook charts in the help center section. From here we can see the information available for download, and we can be sure to save it in case we might be interested in it later.

Check and change logins of apps and platforms linked to the account

One of the first things to know is that there are many apps and websites that require you to log in using your Facebook username and password, and users often use this option because it is very convenient and quick. When we go to delete our Facebook account we will also lose access to these platforms. We can check the apps and sites we have connected by clicking on Account Settings, and then Apps.

Popular apps that use Facebook access include Instagram, Pinterest, Pandora, Foursquare, and Spotify. If we want to keep and continue to use some of these platforms, we need to visit their sites and change the login method so that we can log in even after Facebook is deleted. Many of these apps will allow us to easily change login credentials using an e-mail address or credentials from Google, Twitter, or other social media. But there are some sites that will not easily allow us to remove Facebook from their app and will give us some problems, this is the case for example with Spotify.

If we still want to use Spotify and it is connected to our account, it is best not to delete the Facebook account. If we want to delete the account while keeping the Spotify profile, we can remove all friends from the profile, change the e-mail address associated with the Facebook account to one we do not use often, turn off all e-mail notifications for all apps, including Spotify, and finally remove all data from Facebook. This approach is very troublesome to execute but it is the only method that allows you to keep all the playlists you create on Spotify and songs sent by friends, rather than creating a Spotify account from scratch.

Remembering the birthdays and contact information of our friends

One of the most useful functions of Facebook is the birthday calendar, this calendar allows us to remember all the birthdays of friends, if we delete our account we can then forget the birthdays of our loved ones. We have two ways to remember birthdays following account deletion, the first is to visit the friends’ diary and mark the dates of our close friends’ birthdays. The second option is to use the Facebook Birthday application and ask our friends to share the birthday date with us and then to save them all together and remember them at the right time.

As for the contact information, it should be in the archive we downloaded in the paragraph preceding this one. If we are interested in having some people’s contact information, we can take a look at the downloaded information and enter other information by hand that is not downloaded but visible in the friends’ journal. Since not all of our friends’ information is in the archive, taking a look at their profiles before deleting our account is always a good idea.

Store Facebook information on the cloud

There are some sites that allow us to save our account information on a cloud storage platform, which is a virtual repository where we can put the files and information we are interested in.

One of the sites used for this purpose is Backupify, which has allows consumer web application data to be stored on the cloud. It offers both paid and free services; the free service gives us 1 GB of storage space, while the paid service goes up to 25 GB. Backups are performed automatically and the files on this site are stored in Amazon Web Services (AWS), subject to maximum security and with very close to 100% uptime.

Manage and delete pages we have created on Facebook

While on Facebook, many users decide to create pages so that they can become content creators and share their thoughts, memes, and passions with other people. However, when we decide that our time on Facebook is coming to an end, many people wonder what to do with their pages. And we are intent on shutting down our account, we have two options for our pages: pass their management to another person or delete them.

Whenever we create a new page, we automatically become administrators of it, and at any time we can change our role and add roles to other people. To open the section where we can set roles to other people, we have to enter the homepage our page and scroll down the menu we find on the left side of the screen until we find the settings item. Let’s click on this item and then open the “Page Roles” item, at which point you can assign various roles in the “Assign New Page Role” section. To do this, we will only have to write the name of the person we want to assign the task to and then choose which role to give him/her.

Among the roles to be assigned there are 5: administrator, editor, advertiser, moderator and analyst. The role we will need to provide to the person we want to assign the page to is administrator. The admin can manage the page in toto, can do many like, such as organize all aspects of the page, publish posts, send Messenger messages as a page, reply to comments, publish Instagram posts on Facebook, create intention and also add other roles to other people.

Now that we have seen how to pass page management to another person, let’s see how to delete a page. This task is very simple, the first thing to do is to log in to our profile that manages the page we want to delete. On the main screen, via the sidebar located on the left, we need to select the Pages item; this item is sometimes hidden in the “Other” section. Once open, we click on the name of the page we want to remove and once on the home page, we open the Settings item located in the left sidebar. From these options, we will need to click on the “Delete Your Page” item located at the bottom of the screen. Facebook at this point, will ask us for a confirmation of our choice. By pressing Delete permanently and confirming the operation with the Delete button, we will proceed to permanently delete the page in question.

We can also do this from smartphones and tablets; to do this, we need to search for our page or select the Pages item, and get to the homepage of the page we want to delete. To proceed with the removal, we need to click on the gear icon and select the General item, at this point in the menu we will find the item “Delete permanently,” from which we can delete the page from Facebook. This process is irreversible, so think carefully before deleting a page we care about.

How to delete your Facebook profile temporarily

If we are interested in a way to get our Facebook account out of the way for a while without permanently deleting it and see if we are actually better off without this social, this is the section for us.

We should first know that deactivating our Facebook account temporarily will cause our photos, comments, likes, and account to be hidden and inaccessible to other users until we decide to restore it. This is therefore a time-limited measure, which is usually followed by the permanent deletion of the profile or the complete and total restoration of our content. Clearly unlike this situation, the permanent deletion of the account, also involves the deletion of data and content altogether.

If we have made this decision and are sure for a while to do without this social, we need to know a few things. First, we have to use the social network’s Internet site, so we will have to use a browser and access the Facebook site. We can do this either from a PC with any browser we use or from a smartphone or tablet using the desktop version of the Instagram site. For those with iPhones or devices with the iOS operating system, the procedure can also be performed directly on the mobile device. We can only perform this procedure once a week at most.

Let us now see what are the simple instructions to follow to disable our profile for a while:

1. The first move is to go to the Facebook home page and log in to our account if we are not logged in.
2. Now we need to click on the down arrow icon located in the upper right part of the social network bar, and then select the “Settings and Privacy” item from the menu.
3. At this point, on the new Settings item page, we need to select the “Your Facebook information” item in the list on the left and then choose “Disable and delete.”
4. At this point, we apply a checkmark to “Disable Account,” and click “Continue to disable account.” A new screen will open where we will have to enter our password to confirm our intentions, after which we click on “Continue to proceed with deactivation.”
5. All that remains for us to do is to fill out the Facebook form, being careful in choosing the reason for deactivating the profile. Once the form is filled out, one must click on the “Deactivate” button and confirm the decision by selecting “Deactivate Now.” Usually we will also be asked to choose some time options in which the account will be hidden.

How to restore a temporarily disabled account

If we have temporarily disabled a Facebook profile and want to regain its use, the procedure is really very simple. This obviously changes in the case of permanent deletion, in which case, no more than 30 days must have passed since the actual deletion of the profile, but we will see this later.

First we need to access the Facebook site from a browser or directly on the app from a smartphone or tablet, at which point we need to log in to our temporarily disabled profile. All we will need to do is enter the e-mail or phone number and password associated with our account.

At this point our profile will become active again as it was before deactivation, and we will be on the Facebook home page with all feeds and posts as if we had always remained on the social network and had never deactivated it. This procedure can be done either from the Facebook site on PC or from the app for smartphones and tablets.

How to delete your Facebook profile permanently

If we are interested in a way to get rid of our Facebook profile forever, eliminating it permanently, this is the section for us.

Remember that it is always highly recommended to back up or download the photos, videos and information in our profile before following this procedure and deleting the profile.

An account that is deleted forever deletes photos, posts, comments, likes, stories, and all applications connected to our profile. Remember that pages controlled only by our profile will also be deleted. If we do not want our pages to be deleted, we can cede complete control of them to someone else by setting them up as the Page Administrator, so we can delete our account without deleting the page.

To perform the final deletion procedure, we need to use the social network’s website, so we will need to use a browser and access the Instagram site. For those with iPhones or devices with the iOS operating system, the procedure is virtually the same. We can do this either from a PC with any browser or from a smartphone or tablet using the desktop version of the Instagram site.

Let us now look at the simple procedure for deleting a profile:

1. First, we need to connect to Facebook’s official website using a browser and log in to the account we want to permanently delete. If we are from a smartphone we have to select to view the desktop mode of the site from the browser settings. If we are on an iOS device, we can perform this procedure directly with the Facebook app.
2. Now that we are logged in, we click on our main profile picture to enter our main account page.
3. Once we are on the main page of our account, we need to click on the down-arrow icon, which is located in the upper right and allows us to open the menu.
4. Now that we are in the menu, we click on “Settings and Privacy” and then on “Settings” to find a menu with many setting options.
5. On the newly opened page, we need to select “Your Facebook information” found in the left sidebar, then click on “Privacy” and then select “Your Facebook information” again.
6. At this point we will find an item called “Deactivation and Deletion” . Choosing “Delete Account” will open a window, and on the screen displayed, we will need to place a check mark next to the “Permanently delete account” option.
7. Now we click on the “Continue to delete account” button, and choose the “Deactivateaccount” option of the “To keep Messenger, deactivate it” item if we are interested in continuing to use Messenger after deleting the Facebook profile. If we want, we can also press “Download your information,” to download the account data if we have not already done so.
8. Finally, by pressing on the “Delete Account” button, we will need to enter the password to confirm our intentions and click on the “Continue” and “Delete Account” buttons to schedule the deletion of the profile.

Once we click on the button that deletes the account, our profile details will be deleted after 30 days. Until the selected date arrives, the profile will be invisible on Facebook, somewhat like in cases of temporary deactivation. During this time, if we change our mind, we can log in before the deletion day and also decide to avoid account deletion by logging in and clicking on “Undo Deletion.”

After 30 days, the profile and all information will be permanently deleted and it will be virtually impossible to retrieve it. Deletion of all published content could take a long time, up to 90 days from the start of the deletion procedure.

How to recover a deleted account

Sometimes it happens that you delete an account and later regret this decision, fortunately we have some good news for you, it seems that there are some cases in which it is possible to recover a previously deleted account.

Previously, we said that when a profile is deleted, the content is lost permanently. However, things are not really like that, or rather, they are like that only for the user, this is because some data are saved in social network databases and it is therefore possible for the user to have them returned, even in the form of an account.

There are basically two different situations in cases where a user wants to recover a deleted account, the first is when less than 30 days have passed since the account was deleted and the second is when 30 or more days have passed since the account was removed.

If we have decided to delete our profile and it has been less than 30 days since the decision was made, getting our account back is a very easy process, since it is kind of like being disabled for a while. To regain the profile, we need to access the Facebook site from a browser or directly on the app from a smartphone or tablet, and log in to our previously deleted profile. All we will need to do is enter the e-mail or phone number and password associated with our account.

At this point our profile will become active again as it was before the removal, and we will be on the Facebook home page with all feeds and posts as if we had always remained on the social network. This procedure can be done either from the Facebook site on PC or from the app for smartphones and tablets.

In the case where, on the other hand, our profile has been deleted and at least 30 days have therefore passed, it is virtually certain that we will not be able to regain our account. Let’s not give up hope, however, as there is still a very small chance to try to get your profile back.

In this case, the only way to get our account back is to get to notify members of Facebook’s help center and hope they can fix the problem for us. Succeeding in this feat will by no means be easy, but it is much more likely to succeed in the case where a user ran a page of his own company or had resorted to sponsorships on Facebook.

So let’s see what we need to do in order to regain our previously deleted profile through these simple steps:

1. First, we need to connect to Meta’s official website, also called Facebook Business using a browser. (If we are from a smartphone we have to select to view the desktop mode of the site from the browser settings)
2. We will have to look for an item at the bottom of the site that says “Service Center,” and we will have to click on it.
3. At this point, a new page will open, and we will have to scroll down again to find the item in the bottom right-hand corner that says “Assistance”
4. At this point, two things can happen on the new page. If we do not have a Business Manager/Advertising account or have never done sponsorships, the page may remain static and we will not be given assistance. If, on the other hand, we have a Facebook Business account and have made some sponsorships, a form will appear that we can fill out for assistance.
5. At this point, we fill out the first “Select a Resource” form, choosing our account that has been deleted.
6. In the second form, we identify our problem, we may even choose one that is not really our case, but once selected, “Contact Support” will appear at the bottom and we will have to click it.
7. The format of support changes often, but by this time we should be able to get in touch with a Meta help center operator, and we can try to get our account back. Usually we will be asked to answer some questions and requests to verify that we are the legitimate owners of the account. In most cases, we will be asked to send a photo holding a piece of paper on which we will write the name of the account and the verification code provided to us by the social workers.
8. If our account contains at least one photo of us, it will be easier to retrieve it. Otherwise, the chances of recovering a deleted profile usually are very low. In any case, we are in the hands of the operators’ decisions, which will determine the success of the operation.

Alternatively, we can try calling one of the Facebook phone numbers. The number for the Italian office in Milan is +39 02-00694800, while the contact number for Facebook’s main office located in the United States is +1 6505434800. Since they are not toll-free numbers, calls to these numbers may be more or less expensive.

When it comes to recovering an account, a lot depends on the service center operators, some times it can take a long time to recover it, while in some cases we will be prevented from regaining it and will have to create a new one if we want to use this social again.