I quit facebook two weeks ago. This was not the first time I do it and I am guilty of making a few people think I blocked them.
My decision came after finding myself checking Facebook every hour, habitually more than anything. A breakup made these few lost minutes on the social network painful. I will not dwell on this, but those who have been through breakups will likely empathize.
Ditching my facebook life also known as facebook detox, has been surprisingly smooth and not so surprisingly, rewarding.
1- More quality time with the ones that matter. I found myself emailing, texting yes texting friends I wanted to hang out with or just check in on. Not knowing what they were up to through Facebook left me with a thirst to reach out. Guess what? The calls lead to meaningful conversations, to drinks, dinners, offline meetings. To illustrate, not having access to my events in Facebook, meant I had to reach out to a friend I had not been in touch with for details about the party. And bam, we were truly reconnected :) I even have my friend from Beirut calling me more often now to get my news since she can't stalk me anymore.
2- Focus on me and what makes me happy. One of my Stanford professors Benoit Monin, published a study that shows that usage of facebook and other social media tools, can make you perceive your life as unhappy. Why? Quoting the article: "Your friends' lives are filled with nonstop weekend barbecues, laughs over happy hour and cute kids who say the darnedest things." "...that people chronically overestimate how happy their peers are, and this misperception leads to feelings of loneliness."
Indeed, this happened to me. I have been able to focus on my activities, my plan for the day, my projects without comparing it to the 1000+ friends' whereabouts and statuses (most commonly used: "another sunday in ____" + photo of blue sky).
I have been journaling and spending time listening to myself instead of others. When was the last time you listened to yourself?
3- Efficiency. This goes without saying that when you are not browsing facebook every so often you probably focus on the task at hand. It is so easy for my mind to wonder from a facebook post, to another city, another state of mind, sometimes another emotion. Not having the option to distract myself, makes my time on computer more efficient.
The downside (or lack of it):
Spotify. Heart breaking, but if you signed up for Spotify in the US you cannot access it without facebook. For those music lovers this could be a deal breaker.
FOMO (fear of missing out for those who did not go to B-schools). You will get over it. You will learn how to enjoy your current activity and listen to yourself and what you need. (and god we learn when we make small changes in our daily life).
The bottom-line:
Taking a break from Facebook, from time to time, believe it or not, won't end your life as you know it. Take this risk and you will see benefits you may not have expected: reconnecting with yourself and others in a meaningful way.
And guess what? You could always go back to the virtual world by simply logging in. Boom nothing is gone. All your info is there and the happiness updates are still scrolling down the newsfeed.
Need a real digital detox? Check out this retreat I am going to next week.
Currently using Spotify with no Facebook.
ReplyDeletesame here. shot them an email and they reconfigured my account, which was created originally using FB
DeleteI used to feel the same way as you, I wanted to quit Facebook as well. What I ended up doing was logging out and seeing what happens if I don't use it for awhile. I realized Facebook was just a distraction I used to check out others, pages, etc. I realized that if I quitted Facebook, then I would have only removed an external dependency that I was relying on, for the purpose of distracting myself. But by removing this dependency I would only force myself to try to distract myself in a different way. What I would have ended up doing is create world around myself where I can distract myself the same way as before, but now excluding facebook from my set of tools. What is the fundamental difference between how I perceived what I was going to do and what I was actually going to do was the fact, that there is an underlying problem, the need of distracting myself, and with removing the circumstances, one would not deal with the problem, only try to create a different environment where the problem might be easier to be lived with.
ReplyDeleteBottom line what I am trying to say that your happiness, an inner state of yourself that is being happy or unhappy, does not depend on facebook or whatever, true happiness comes from the inside not the outside. Therefore in theory if you want to be happy, you can be happy with facebook and without facebook. And by happiness I mean, pursuing your interest, giving yourself pleasure, care for your loved ones.
Although this might not have to do with you anything, your post made me think of this.