With the impending threat of TikTok dissolving and Facebook and Insta morphing into questionable-content-spewing nightmares, many users are rightfully downloading their social media data in an attempt to prevent losing years-worth of work and history. But what next?
We were in the same boat. For over fifteen years, we used Facebook to keep family and friends up to speed on our family adventures. It was an amazing way to keep connected when distance kept us apart. The sum total of all those posts, all those pictures, all those captions were truly the best record we had of our family history. All we wanted was all of that history back but in a way we could enjoy it easily and share it with our kids. We just wanted a book but we didn’t want to spend the time recreating everything.
It may seem like printing a book is step backwards in technology but books are important. A book doesn’t change its terms of service. It doesn’t surreptitiously sell your user history to advertisers. Books don’t get hacked. Books are permanent. They’re available whenever you want them. And they can be handed on for generations.
When we transform our social media history to print, we claim ownership and ensure what we chose to share within our social universe lives on under our own terms of service.
Reclaiming your data from Facebook and Instagram is simple and free. Everyone should do it right now. Need help? Here’s a written tutorial to download your social media data. Requesting it is easy but you’ll need to know your password to download it. Files are usually ready in a few hours but can take up to 24 hours depending on your platform use.
Don’t let your files just gather dust in your computer though. Ownership is important but if your social media posts mattered to you in the moment, transform them into something that will live on. Social media already helped you curate all your best stuff. Turn them into something to share for generations.
Let’s go get your social media data and start your Recap.