i deleted my facebook account.
and it felt great.
TL;DR:
I have been on Facebook (Meta?) since…2014, I think.
During my years on the site, I made friends, lost friends, found love, broke up, went viral, got trolled, and (so much) more. My experience was, in a word, eventful.
But while, at one point, I was on the app for several hours daily, it was time to let go.
Here’s why:
I felt like too many people had access to my life
I no longer felt comfortable sharing details about my life with others. ‘Others’ were not necessarily strangers. Mostly acquaintances, friends, family. But I did not want even them to have a front seat to what’s going on in my life. It felt like surveillance (and I am not talking about the kind where Zuck sold all my personal info). And if I’ve paid even a tiny bit of attention in my sociology classes, I know that surveillance = power. So, nope. I did not want anyone to have that sorta power over me. I did not want anyone to have/express opinions about how I (choose to) live my life.
Pulling the (digital) plug eliminated those possibilities, and I was more at peace.
After all, if everyone knew everything about my life…where’s the fun in that? How does it help me maintain my cool, enigmatic persona? You’re right; it does not. Ugh.
I couldn’t block all triggering content
Despite having a well-curated and filtered friendlist (although I did not use the recent profanity filters), it was almost impossible for me to block all triggering content. It was also impossible for my inner critique to shut up every time I saw a problematic post on my feed. However, over time, I got tired of arguing with people online.
My mental health took a hit, and I had to swallow the bitter pill - no matter what I said or did, I probably cannot change people’s minds in a Facebook comments section. I decided the wise(st) thing for me to do was to distance myself.
I started with deactivating the app for a few weeks at a stretch. Once I was okay with not checking it every hour, I let it be. All this year, my account was active but I checked it rarely (once in 2-3 months, perhaps). This helped me make Facebook a not-necessary part of my life, which gave me the push to actually delete my profile.
Well, does this stop people on my ex-friendlist from posting offensive memes? No. But this stops me from seeing - and more importantly, engaging with - them.
I wanted to be more present
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I wanted to spend more time in the present.
Although I had always wanted to do this, I considered really working on it only after I started dating someone who is not on social media. I asked him repeatedly, with genuine curiosity, “What do you use your phone for?” We also had a riveting discussion about how does he kill the time while taking a dump.
Seeing my partner go about his days without documenting things on/for the grid, blissfully oblivious about the recent (for the lack of a better term) e-lafda, was a reality check. I was so knee (neck?) deep in my social media scrolls that it didn’t occur to me that a social media-free life is a perfectly alright life. Smartphones have other uses and the same applies to my time (I know, I know, its common sense). My mind was blown!
Although I initially could not imagine going a day without checking Facebook, I have done that for almost a year now. Everything’s fine. I survived, and you can, too.
Come over to the dark side, folks. We’ve got cookies (the ones you can actually eat)!
If you are trying (/thinking of how) to spend less time on social media, or on your phone in general, I suggest checking out this newsletter:
A couple of books that might help:
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee
Or, you can start by simply visiting this website. :)
[full disclosure: i am still active on instagram, but (a) it is a lot more impersonal and (b) only one app a year, please!]
Until next time,
Ekata