My wife and I deleted our accounts the day before Facebook went public. We just didn’t think they would care for our privacy once the stock market was involved. Boy are we thankful. We missed this entire era of fake news and hatred. When we talk about deleting our accounts to people (we don’t evangelize, but of course it comes up and we say, we aren’t on FB which yields sideways glances) they always say what the author here noted: oh I wish I could but I can’t. That is by definition an addicted person’s rationale for continuing the addiction. Just do it people! Get clean. Your real friends will still know how to reach you and you will still share in intimate moments with them. The fake friends will fade away to the same place they were before FB.

One other interesting result of leaving FB was that there were 3 results from other “friends” of ours on FB. 1) most commonly, they didn’t even notice our absence, which is telling in its own right 2) they noticed and asked where we went and 3) most tellingly, some assumed that we had blocked them and made us enemies immediately, taking solipsism to another level. I can’t tell you the hilariously awkward run-ins with people in that category out in the world where they’d confront me with, 'I see you blocked me on FB.’ At first I would disillusion them. Then I’d just say nothing. Let them remain in their egocentric worldview. It’s where they are most comfortable after all. Facebook: a world of navel gazing.