I stopped posting to Facebook seven months ago — Here’s how my life has been transformed
On September 5, 2016, I made a drastic life decision: I would make one last post to Facebook, and then I would never make another post again. If you happen to be on Facebook yourself, you can see what that ultimate post was, but basically it was an announcement that I wouldn’t be posting to Facebook ever again, along with a link to my blog, where I explained the reasons for this decision.
I won’t bore you with the details of my reasons (that’s what my blog is for!), but in short, Facebook had become an addiction for me, and I decided it was best to quit cold turkey (well, almost. The true story is a bit more complicated). There were other non-personal reasons — societal reasons actually — why I felt compelled to make this move, but the most driving reason was a personal one (to make my life better).
I should perhaps add that I was an active member of the Facebook community since its primordial phase in Spring 2004, and I even had some contact with Facebook’s now famous founder, Mark Zuckerburg, back in those early days. For many years, I was posting photos and cheesy jokes on a daily basis or more.
In recent years, however, I became more and more weary about what Facebook was doing to my life and those around me. Not to mention, the world in general. The problem was, I was hooked! I felt at least that it would be incredibly difficult to pull away. I would lose contact with the world! (So I thought…)
My experience — seven months down the road — is that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I feel more connected to the world I live in, perhaps more so than I have felt in my entire life. Most importantly, I feel more connected to the people around me, who happen to be the people I care about most (e.g. my own family). I feel I’m even in better contact with my close family members (mother, father, brother, sister, etc.) who happen to live on another continent. Instead of assuming they know what’s going on in my life via Facebook, I engage in actual conversation with them to let them know what’s going on in my life. Amazing concept!
I also spend more time with friends. Granted, this is limited mainly to friends who happen to live in the same country as me, but I’ve noticed that actually, I have more friends nearby than I would have time to spend with them. And for those friends far away, email and phone calls work great, too!
Perhaps most importantly, I’ve managed to cure my addiction. Although I still have an account on Facebook, I no longer do I feel the urge in every idle moment to tap on the blue box and scroll through endless feed of so-called *news*. I certainly don’t feel the need to check and re-check how many people have liked my recent posts. There are no recent posts.
The only time recently I felt the urge to check Facebook was on my birthday. I was sure that many friends had sent their birthday wishes there, so I went to Facebook to make sure the mail was delivered. That experience, which I also wrote about on my blog, left me feeling more sure than ever that I had made the right decision to call it quits on Facebook.
One side effect of not being addicted to Facebook is I feel less tired, less stressed, and I generally have more time and energy to think. Sometimes I just spend time alone (preferably outdoors), and I think about stuff. I no longer think something and then immediately react, “I’ve gotta share this idea on Facebook!” I let ideas simmer. I talk about my ideas with friends, one-on-one, before blurting them out across the whole world. Sometimes I even let my friends convince me my idea is a bad one.
I believe the world is better off for this. I also believe the world would be a whole lot better off if more people took a similar course of action, whether it be about Facebook, Twitter, or whatever new-shiny-thing that comes along. Does the world really need a mega-megaphone? Could we try just turning it off for a little while? Maybe cooler heads would prevail a bit more often. It seems that even Zuckerburg himself has pondered these questions.
Facebook stated mission is to “give people the power to share” and “make the world more open and connected.” But in the 21st century, in my opinion, we have more than enough powers to share, especially in the developed world. And in 12+ years of having discussions on Facebook, many of them heated debates, I highly doubt any of them made the world more open or connected.
At least in my own case, I’m convinced life is much better off without Facebook. Critics might point out that I’m still on Twitter, but I use that mainly for professional purposes nowadays, and rarely outside of business hours. My main social media are media that have been around for ages: hugs, conversations, and smiles. I’m certainly not anti-tech though, so when direct contact isn’t possible, I get by with email, FaceTime, or my new favorite communication solution Wire (yeah, open source!).
Moral of the story: If you have yourself felt that Facebook has taken over your life, but you’re too afraid to pull back, then I hope my story will give you some courage. I have noticed nothing but positive effects in my life. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I feel like a new man. A more free one. There is nothing wrong with not trying to keep up with everything in everyone’s life, and there is no shame in being more private about your own.
