Skip to main content

No secret experiment here: ‘99 Days of Freedom’ asks users to quit Facebook, see how they feel

Facebook homepage
Image used with permission by copyright holder
The organized backlash to Facebook’s controversial psychological experiment to study and tinker with users’ emotions is here. An initiative dubbed “99 Days of Freedom” is calling Facebook users to quit the social network for 99 days to see how life without Facebook affects their happiness.

The nonprofit initiative (sparked by Just, a creative agency based in the Netherlands) is a response to Facebook’s mood experiment. Participants are asked to follow a three-step process: 1) change their profile photo with one that simply says “99 Days of Freedom”; 2) create and share a link to a personal countdown; and 3) don’t use Facebook for 99 days.

The initiative also sends participants anonymous “happiness surveys” at the 33-, 66- and 99-day checkpoints. Results of these surveys will be shared on the 99 Days of Freedom website. A message board will also be set up to give users a place to share their personal stories about their break from Facebook.

While this might sound like a “raise your pitchforks” kind of movement, it actually started out as an office joke, according to Merijn Straathof, art director at Just. “As we discussed it internally, we noted an interesting tendency: To a person, everyone had at least a ‘complicated’ relationship with Facebook,” he said. “Whether it was being tagged in unflattering photos, getting into arguments with other users or simply regretting time lost through excessive use, there was a surprising degree of negative sentiment.”

After someone wondered aloud how users would feel when they don’t use Facebook, the idea for 99 Days of Freedom was born.

The initiative’s press release notes that based on Facebook’s stats, quitting the social network for about three months would free up 28 hours of time, which “could be devoted to more emotionally fulfilling activities – learning a new skill, performing volunteer work or spending time (offline) with friends and family.”

As someone who independently decided to deactivate his Facebook account a few months ago without regrets (save for the few times when I was a few weeks late congratulating a newly engaged couple), I echo the question posed by the 99 Days of Freedom website: “Do you ever wonder what life is like without Facebook?”

If you’re curious and want to join this experiment (no morally questionable opt-in this time), head to the 99 Days of Freedom site and unite with more than 13,600 participants who have already signed up.

For Facebook addicts in need of more severe measures, you can always resort to self-electrocution – that is, unless you have a dad willing to pay you to stop using the social network.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jason Hahn
Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…
How Boogaloo groups persist and proliferate on Facebook, despite crackdown
facebook hacked

A new report by the watchdog organization the Tech Transparency Project alleges that Facebook has failed in a promised crackdown on the so-called “Boogaloo Movement” due to a slow and ineffective response.

The Boogaloo Movement is a loose network of white power-affiliated social media groups that call for a second civil war, or are very sure that one is about to happen. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the term Boogaloo today is “regularly deployed by white nationalists and neo-Nazis who want to see society descend into chaos so that they can come to power and build a new fascist state.” The term "boogaloo" has been co-opted from the infamously named 1984 movie "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo."

Read more
How to go live on Facebook
Facebook LIve

Facebook Live lets you livestream video directly from your Android or iOS device. Creating and streaming live content might sound like a challenge, but setting up a livestream within Facebook's mobile app is a fairly straightforward process. Here's how to go live.
Getting started
Step 1: The first step to setting up a livestream is to launch the Facebook app as you would normally. From the News Feed tab, locate the Live button just below the What's on Your Mind? section at the top of your display. (Note: The screenshots below are from the iOS version, but the steps also apply to Android.)

Step 2: Next, tap either the Live button or the What's on Your Mind? field at the top, the latter of which will bring up a host of additional options, including a Live Video button.

Read more
Don’t be like Pierre Delecto. Here’s how to keep your Twitter account a secret
Mitt Romney

On October 20, the Atlantic published a profile on Mitt Romney, in which the Utah Senator admitted to having a secret Twitter account. Slate’s Ashley Feinberg, who had previously unmasked James Comey’s anonymous Twitter, quickly went to work and identified Romney as tweeter Pierre Delecto.

Far be it from me to make Feinberg’s sleuthing more difficult, but the two had some commonalities that helped her track down their accounts. If you’re in the public eye but want to keep some social media private, here are some tips to keep it secret.
Don’t follow your relatives 
This was Romney’s biggest mistake. It was by investigating his granddaughter’s nearly 500 followers that Feinberg was able to find Pierre Delecto, and from there, the evidence only piled up. “The Pierre Delecto account’s very first follow was eldest Romney scion Tagg,” according to Feinberg. She traced James Comey through similar means. Trail of breadcrumbs, thy name is the family follow.
Do follow a mix of people 
Delecto did follow a number of late night hosts (no Stephen Colbert, though) but mostly stuck to politicians, pundits, and reporters. But this is your secret identity! Maybe take the opportunity to learn about a new field. Cheese Twitter, historian Twitter, teacher Twitter, branch out and learn something new. Also, part of why Feinberg was able to discover Comey’s identity is he followed the College of William &  Mary, his alma mater. Maybe if he’d followed a few more colleges, it would’ve muddied the water a bit.

Read more