How I Completely Quit Facebook in 2 Weeks — Step by Step

Time for some #MondayMotivation, folks! But a quick anecdote first.

So a couple years back, I was sitting with my friends and we were discussing privacy on the social media. I was explaining to them why I thought Facebook might be reading our messages, because I had been noticing some weird things Facebook did. One of these things that I found kinda concerning was them suggesting me whom to send a heart ❤️ and whom to send a like 👍🏻. (It wasn’t perfect, but that’s not the point.)

My friends didn’t take me seriously back then. They laughed it off and told me stop watching Mr. Robot, told me I was being paranoid. Guess I should’ve seen that coming.

>>>Fast forwarding to present day>>>

The cat’s out of the bag now. Everybody knows what Facebook has been up to. And despite that, so many people are still not concerned about their privacy or data leaks. But this isn’t about just you and me, it’s about something much bigger. Data leaks and manipulative business practices don’t just affect individuals, they can be terrible for your country and it’s whole socio-economic structure! That’s part of the reason why China has no Facebook or Google.

Let’s take a step back, however. For a minute, let’s not talk about privacy. Let’s talk about some other negative impacts of Facebook. I read an article recently that talked about a research. You can read it here. According to this research,

Taking a Facebook break for just 5 days reduced a person’s level of the stress hormone cortisol.

Add to this the fact that Facebook was meant to make relationships stronger but ironically, it does exactly the opposite. Excessive use of Facebook is actually ruining our relationships, and there have been countless studies done on this. But if you don’t believe me, you can read about one such study here.

I can tell you thousands of reasons to quit it, but I don’t think I need to. You’re already here, aren’t you? So let me tell you about how I quit Facebook in 2 weeks and how you can learn to do the same. These days, I barely check my Facebook account 2–3 times a month. I used the techniques people use to quit drugs, cigarettes and other harmful addictions, and then made this easy step-by-step guide for you. Let’s get right into it.🏃🏻‍♂️

Step 1: Remove the triggers 📲

Delete the App. Yes, you heard it right. Don’t freak out, you can always go back to your computer to check if you want. As long as the thing that you wish to quit is out of your immediate reach, you can beat the addiction. Follow the Secondary Phone Technique I talked about in my last article too in case you don’t wanna open it on your computer or you don’t have one.

If you chit-chat with your friends on Facebook a lot, keep just the Messenger app in your phone, though I don’t recommend it. But it’s alright if you think that’s too hardcore and you want to take baby steps. Don’t do something you think you can’t handle because in this case, that’s a recipe for failure. You don’t have to quit it all at once, just step by step. Remember to disable the notifications for Messenger so you remove triggers and have total control over when you want to check it.

Step 2: Beat The Scrolling Addiction 💉

Most people are addicted to the infinite scrolling mechanism of modern social media. Facebook is not the only culprit here; Twitter does it, Instagram does it, and so many others do it as well. When ever we are bored or have some free time, we don’t know what to do and start scrolling the Facebook feed. It’s a mindless waste of time, and most of the times we don’t even realize it. In a way, it’s an extremely efficient hack the developers have to retain your attention. Facebook released featured feed in 2012 along with infinite scrolling, and now they have even more powerful algorithms to serve you content that will catch your attention and keep you scrolling. It makes you addicted to the process, and Facebook keeps earning billions by putting ads in there.

So to get rid of this addiction, we will do what nicotine patches and gums do for cigarette addicts. We will shift your scrolling habit to some productive medium, or at least on a platform where you can control your feed easily. I shifted to Pinterest, but you can also go for Reddit or Tumblr or whatever else floats your boat. These platforms also have infinite scrolling but most of the content is controlled by you and your interests. It also reduces your scrolling addiction. Just open these apps whenever you’re free instead of Facebook.

Step 3: Erasing Memories 🧠

If you really want to quit Facebook for good, you have to withdraw your investment in it, exactly like what you do when closing a bank account. In this case, your investment is the data you’ve shared on Facebook throughout your time on the platform, and it’s super easy to withdraw it. This article explains it very well. So go ahead and delete all you data from Facebook.

Come on, you don’t actually want to keep all those status updates from five years ago, do you? Remember how stupid you were back then? And those selfies weren’t really straight fire 🔥 as you keep telling yourself.

Last thing is your “friends”. I don’t have to convince you that those 700 friends you have on Facebook are not real, so I’m not even going to try to. Most people have a very limited number of real friends — people they actually care about and people who are actually there for them all the time. And trust me when I tell you this, when you tell them you won’t be available on Facebook, they won’t take offense or forget you. They will find other ways to reach out to you and keep in touch. And if they don’t? Well, then you’ll know for sure who your real friends are, won’t you? 😅

Step 4: Spread the Awareness 🗣

This is the most important step of all. A study shows that people joining rehab centers in groups get rid of their addiction much fast then others. Facebook is Facebook because of people who are on their platform. If there are no people left using Facebook, there will be no Facebook. Start with you friends and family, and explain to them why they should quit Facebook and how to do it. If you manage to get them off the platform too, Facebook will no longer serve any purpose for you. Your resolve will be unbreakable and you will never feel the need to go back.

Step 5: The Clean Up 🗑

If you survive all the above steps, this will be a piece of cake for you. Delete that messenger app too and shift to some other messaging platform which is more secure, like Telegram. Bring your gang along with you and have fun. Slowly but surely, your Facebook usage will drop down significantly.

You don’t even have to delete your account. Because you don’t use Facebook that much anymore, you will start noticing that your Facebook notifications have stopped making sense and most of them are just unnecessary garbage. This is Facebook making one last ditch effort to lure you back into the trap and stop you from leaving completely, but it won’t work. You’re already committed to your decision, and Facebook’s pathetic attempts to bring you back will only push you away further. And just like that, you’ve beaten the Facebook Addiction for good🎉. Congratulations!

Well, maybe not. Haha! That’s fine, too; all that matters is that you limit your usage. “Excess of anything is good for nothing”, as the time-tested proverb says. On a warm Sunday morning, if you do want to kick back and visit Facebook for once to see how your not-so-good friends are doing, go ahead. But you’re probably only going to feel some pity for them and log out after a few minutes 😂😉.

If you like this methodology, don’t forget to leave some claps 👏🏼 . Think you’re ready to take this challenge? Then share this with your friends and followers and let them know about the #DropThePhone challenge! Tweet to me and let me know how long your streak continues!

If you enjoyed this story, you can check out more like this on our publication The Skynox Blog. We write about product development, lifestyle, health & fitness, and more interesting stuff. We also run a global initiative for open-source development, Team XenoX. If you’re a developer, you can check out and contribute to our open-source projects by starting here.

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