If you shared any of these things on Facebook in 2017, it's time to delete your account

Have you thought about your New Year's resolutions yet?

January has always been a time for wiping the slate clean and starting anew.

While a lot of people might focus this year on working towards a healthier body or a healthier mind, we have a much more beneficial and achievable idea instead.

A healthier Facebook account.

Fake news, spoilers, terrible memes, even worse opinions... If you posted any of these this year, you might want to consider deleting your account.

Spoilers.

So you set your alarm for 2am and watched Game of Thrones live as it aired in America? That don't impress us much.

What would impress us though, and everyone else for that matter, is if you managed to express your opinion of the episode without giving away any crucial plot points.

Or better yet, just don't say anything at all.

Seriously, what are you actually going to get from typing a major spoiler into your status bar for all your friends and family to wake up to?

If this sounds like something you've done in the past, commit this phrase to memory to be used for all future social media output about your favourite shows:

Hello, I have watched the new episode of [insert TV show here]. Would anyone like to share ideas and opinions in a civilised manner in private?

See also: RuPaul's Drag Race, Stranger Things, Star Trek Discovery and literally anything else that's popular and watchable.

Fake news.

If we never heard the phrase "fake news" again, we'd be happy.

But the unfortunate truth is that the phrase has seeped its way into the public lexicon thanks to, well, you know who.

Our least-favourite former reality TV star kind of has a point, though.

A YouGov poll this year found that while more than half of people (54 per cent) used social media as a source of news, only a quarter (24 per cent) thought that social media had the ability to separate real and fake news well.

In short, be careful what you're sharing, because fake news is a thing now.

Does it sound too crazy to be true? Is it from a news or media site you've never heard of?

If you've answered yes to any of these then it's most likely – altogether now – fake news.

Only share from the verified news and media outlets you trust.

Picture: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Unverified quotes.

Filed in a subcategory of 'fake news' we have 'unverified quotes'. They're typically a graphic or picture of a celebrity with some nonsense words floating around his or her head, attributed to an arbitrary date and a possibly-real publication.

Like with fake news, if you're going to share something, only do so if you know it to be absolute fact.

Exhibit A:

Picture: Snopes

Harambe.

Nope, still dead. Let him rest in peace.

Picture: JK Rowling/Pottermore

Transphobia.

If there's one thing we need to make sure we leave in 2017, it's the flaming trash that is transphobia.

What we've seen in the past few weeks and months is a campaign against trans rights and trans people in the media and online.

It's not too dissimilar to what we saw in the 80s and 90s when the tabloids relentlessly attacked gay people.

Whether it's from religious groups, trans-exclusionary feminists or people who can't seem to understand that sometimes people can be born in the wrong body, there's a moral panic happening at the moment when it comes to trans rights.

If you see anyone sharing transphobia on Facebook, don't just sit back in silence – be an ally and call them out.

Trans women are women, trans men are men, and they need our help now more than ever.

Picture: Getty Images

Complaints about Brexit.

We're willing to wager that the portmanteau 'Brexit' will go down as the single most divisive word in the English language.

That being said, it doesn't look like there's anything we can do to stop it now.

Arguing with your elderly uncle Ian about why he wants to 'take back control' of the fishing waters off the coast of Scotland is literally doing no one any favours.

For better or worse, we're all in this together, now.

Anything to do with Rick and Morty's Szechuan sauce.

It caused chaos and revealed the very ugly side of obsessive fandoms.

We've seen the videos of the angry mobs outside McDonald's trying to get their hands on the Mulan dipping sauce.

But Rick and Morty is still a great show and this sauce saga has cast something of a dark mark on it.

So please, can we just forget about this one? Be nice to your fast food servers.

Picture: Adult Swim

Literally any article about millennials buying houses.

Or not being able to, as the case may be.

It seems that every month or so, an estate agent tries to go viral by bunging out some duff research as to why young people can't get their foot on the property ladder.

Look, it's not because they're spending too much money on avocados. They're not spending too much money on takeaways.

And given how bad everything is all the time, they probably need to jump on a budget airline for a long weekend away to Magaluf once or twice a year.

House prices have rocketed at a faster rate than the average annual income, with millennials now expected to spend three times as much on housing as their grandparents, according to the Resolution Foundation.

So maybe we should look at that first before we start worrying about how many lattes they're buying.

Engagement pictures.

An oldie but a goodie. Just no.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attend an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens

Ultrasounds.

Another oldie, another goodie. Again, just no.

Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto

That meme where the guy is walking down the street with his girlfriend and gets caught checking out another woman.

They were the stock photo love triangle that took the world – or the internet, at least – by storm.

It spawned an infinite number of memes, as if created on an infinite plane by an infinite number of monkeys using an infinite number of typewriters. Or Photoshop.

If we're being honest, it was funny for about a week – but let's leave it where it belongs, shall we?

In the burning ashes of their very fictional but very over relationship.

Picture: iStockphoto/Getty Images

So as the slimy tentacles of 2017 finally loosen their grip and we step boldly into the light of 2018, hands raised to our brow to shield our retinas from the blistering hope and optimism the next 12 months will hopefully bring, remember that it's the responsibility of all of us to make social media great again.

And if ever in doubt about your social media policy, just remember the words of the great Michelle Obama.

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