Annnnnddd now it’s gone

It started with just deleting the app off my iPhone. Then I got the chrome extension to block my newsfeed and deleted my bookmark. And when all that didn’t work I just deleted my account.

The deletion of my account was about 4 months ago, and I have to say, I really haven’t missed Facebook at all.

The reason was simple: Facebook had become to much of a time-suck in my life. I would get on there for absolutely no reason at all, just to kill time. That would at least be acceptable if I didn’t have other things to do, wouldn’t it? NO! So much of my life was wasted on that stupid site that I can never get back. And it wasn’t even spent connecting with my friends like the site originally intended. I got sucked into the posts that my friends shared, following links down rabbit holes that never ended about things that I don’t even care about. I would spend countless minutes watching music videos of artists that I didn’t even like or getting mad for causes that, when I actually stopped and thought about it, didn’t even support or care about.

Facebook had turned into a cess pool of everyones social diarrhea. The site would get me to waste time on things I would never even look at or think about without the internet. Which would be good if I was expanding my mind with intelligent thought other than mindless buzzfeed videos. None of my friends really used Facebook for what attracted me to it in the first place, to connect with people that I don’t normally get to see or connect with in person. Instead we would all participate in the social network act of the silent scroll: scrolling through your entire newsfeed everyday without ever commenting or contributing anything other than the occasional “like”.

You can see if you’re one of these silent scrollers by preforming a simple checkup on your profile page. Simply navigate to your profile and scroll down to the last post you made that wasn’t a share of an article or video. That’s right, just a plan old, text-only status update. If it’s been more than 1 month you, a.) have done absolutely nothing of note worth sharing with the world or b.) are a silent scroller, silently stalking the pages of your friends creepily accidentally liking photos from when they were in high school or like me just watching their shared posts of stupid videos.

Enough with the rant. Basically I had had enough. I deleted my account (Facebook doesn’t make this very easy by the way, I’m still not sure I actually deleted it) and honestly immediately forgot that Facebook was ever in my life, other than the few birthdays my wife had to remind me about. It passed out of my life so easily, almost startlingly so considering how much I used to check it.

I realize as I write this that it sounds like I had some crazy addiction to Facebook. I really didn’t. I maybe spent about 20 minutes at the most a day. The problem was more that it was a habit to check it constantly for no reason. This would throw off the progress of anything else I was doing causing a ripple effect on the productiveness of my life.

Anyway, I encourage you, if you were like me silent scrolling, to at least deactivate your Facebook for awhile, maybe just a week. See if you miss it. If you do, why? Fill your newfound time with something else. (For me that something else is reading) I promise you won’t regret it!