Why I Deleted My Facebook, and Why You Should, Too
My head has so much more space now
On May 29th, I decided I was sick of Facebook. I was tired of my family members criticizing me for sharing pro-LGBTQ+ and liberal memes. I was tired of getting ads every five seconds for items or services that would have no use to me. But mostly I was done with what Facebook was doing for my brain.
Some people can handle having multiple social media accounts and filtering through all of the negativity for a glance at something good. Well, I’m not one of those people. I used to have an account on everything. Facebook, Reddit, Instagram (multiples on there), Twitter, YouTube; you name it, I had an account on it.
About a year ago I had to disable my Reddit account because I was feeling overwhelmed by the negativity in some of the subreddits I followed. There was one post I read in particular which was shitting all over fat people, saying things we’ve all heard before: “Just lose weight,” “Starve yourself,” or “Fat people want to be fat, that’s why they’re fat.” Which is all crap.
So I responded — which in hindsight I absolutely should not have done — and stated that it’s not that simple for a lot of people. I myself have Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), binge eating disorder, and hereditary attributes. I have a lot working against me and that’s why my BMI says I’m obese (even though I’ve lost quite a bit of weight recently). I simply will never be 110 lbs because my body just isn’t made that way. I have a DD chest that has never gone away, I have wide hips, and I carry most of my weight in my butt.
When I say I got attacked by these Reddit trolls hiding behind their phones, I mean I got torn to pieces. The comment that stands out the most in my memory is “What a sad fucking way to live your life. Making up excuses when you’re just a fat piece of shit.” I wish I were exaggerating.
I was alone at home with my dog and in the midst of a severe depressive episode when I read that. I cried for a while, and deleted my Reddit app from my phone. And I haven’t gone back since. And I’m much better off for it. I would spend hours upon hours scrolling through Reddit, reading people’s sob stories and stoner tales rather than doing homework or writing. I instantly felt more productive.
But this article isn’t about Reddit. It’s about Facebook. The devil to end all devils.
I first made a Facebook when I was in seventh grade. I had just turned thirteen and I was the last person in my class to make one. I had never hopped onto the MySpace train, but Facebook seemed pretty cool. I could keep up with my friends outside of school (this was before the majority of us had cell phones) and post pictures of our slumber parties. Seemed fun.
That means I had been on Facebook for the better part of eleven years. That’s a long time to be on a website. I spent countless hours each day reading, scrolling, and sharing posts on that site. I complained when the Facebook app would update to something stupid. It was the first thing I did when I woke up and it was the last thing I did before I fell asleep. I lived my life around refreshing Facebook. Hell, I got most of my news from Facebook.
But ever since lock-down, I was spending seriously all day on on my phone. I’ve been working from home teaching but in between classes or while students are doing group work, there I was on my phone flipping through Facebook videos and trying to navigate the ads.
I’m still not quite sure what the turning point for me was. Maybe I was tired of seeing all of my racist high school classmates praise Trump constantly. Maybe I was sick of seeing people share hateful memes about trans-lives. Maybe I just needed a break. Whatever the reason, I initially did just that; I took a break. I logged off for a few days to see how it felt. I didn’t find myself reaching for Facebook or trying to log back in. Eventually, I just deactivated the account altogether.
This isn’t new news. There are hundreds of studies that have been executed to determine why or how social media is bad for people; Studies that show social media consumption being linked to dopamine kicks in your brain. There’s even some proof that Facebook is generally unhealthy for a person’s well being. I wasn’t getting the dopamine anymore. I was just doing it to kill time; it became a part of my daily, hourly even, routine.
There’s a lot of good that social media can do. The stigmas surrounding mental illness, miscarriage, and sexuality have all become a little more normal especially in recent years through sharing and, well, people just talking about it. As well, we can keep in touch with people all over the world without moving a muscle. I’m not saying everything about social media is bad. I’m saying it’s bad for me, and it might be bad for you too. All I can say is that if you’re feeling a little more overwhelmed than usual, try giving social media a break. You might find you’re better off in the long run for it.
I’m not going to sit here and lie to you: I still have and use Instagram and occasionally I use my Twitter. But I use them far less often than I have in the past. I used to go back and forth between Facebook and Instagram but now I go on Instagram for maybe thirty minutes a day (at least according to my phone’s app usage data) and even less on Twitter.
I still spend a lot of time on my phone, playing Solitaire or scrolling through Indeed to find a new job, but all in all my phone usage is a fraction of what it was a few months ago. It’s been better for my mental health and my physical health.
