Lessons From 524 Days Without Facebook

I’ve Lost Nothing. I Miss Nothing.

It’s true, I no longer get to see what a rando from high school is up to on Labor Day weekend. I am also painstakingly unaware of every single person I’ve ever had contact with’s birthday. Sorry. I missed all of the political rants of my fringe friends and guess what? I’m fine. I didn’t know that you created another Facebook group, this one private, for our middle school core group. Damn.

I haven’t had this noise in my life for 524 days. It doesn’t make me better than you. It doesn’t make me special. I know everyone’s tried it, but “had to” go back for business reasons. It just makes my life quieter. Especially because after I deleted Facebook, I deleted LinkedIn and almost everything else I could get my carpel tunnel into, including Medium until recently.

I’ve lost nothing. I miss nothing.

When I think of Facebook now, it kind of blends with MySpace in my mind. I even drift into thoughts of my dalliance with Friendster. Because they are all gone from my life. Dead to me. Never to be heard from again. But the world won’t stop trying. At every turn, someone is offering me a life-changing Facebook group. Of course, said group will eventually go downhill like all Facebook groups do, turning into a clapback forum for complaining and self-flagellation. I can do that just fine on Slack. But I deleted that too.

Facebook was the most colossal rabbit hole I’ve ever gone down. And I have gone down a lot of rabbit holes in my life. A lot. Video games. Movies. Television. Netflix. Relationship obsessing. Fantasy sports. But Facebook? Head and shoulders above the rest. Well, maybe not above the season I had twenty Fantasy Football teams, but close.

All Facebook ever did for me was continually dangle the possibility of approved cyberstalking as a valid modus operandi. Open rabbit hole. Jump in. What’s she doing now? What was that guy’s name? Let me just look at some friends of friends and see who I can add. I know they don’t “know” me, but they kind of “know” me.

It baited me into the endless scrolling through of life’s minutia and I took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker for many years. Like a pufferfish. Using it for air and general social survival. It made it much easier for me to introvert the f*ck out of life. I told myself I was connecting a lot, but I was just clicking buttons and hiding behind the “oh, I wasn’t on all that time, I think it was just open on my phone” bullsh*t. No, it was me. I was scrolling my finger off.

I had nothing to show for it when I ended our passive-aggressive and oft-times abusive relationship. Nothing. At. All. Except for a few important lessons.

Lessons From 524 Days Without Facebook

Facebook devalues our personal relationships by making them too accessible.

Before I left Facebook, I made my birthday private. It was a test to see how many people actually knew when my birthday was. The previous year, when my birthday was public, I got about 100 notes on my wall. After I removed it from public view, the only reason I got more than a couple was that one person posted Happy Birthday on my wall. If not for that, no one would have known. And I would have been fine with that.

When my wall was full of streamlined birthday wishes like “Happy birthday!” and “HBD” it made me sad. Because it wasn’t real. It was almost offensive to me. If all you have to say is those two words or an abbreviation of the words, do you really give a sh*t that it’s my birthday? I made it a point never to write on someone’s wall for their birthday. I always sent them a private message with a nice note, recounting something from our past. “HBD” is the equivalent of telling me I am worthless, but somehow it’s become commonplace and acceptable within the confines of our techno-relationships. And it’s sad.

Our personal relationships aren’t bolstered by my one-off comment on your cute baby and your comment on my son’s graduation because “Cute” and “Congrats” are not communicative building blocks. They are quasi-forced interactions based on algorithmic availability. And that’s not how we build personal relationships. By accessibility.

Facebook notifications are scientifically calculated mindf*cks designed to get you back into their web of terror.

Beep. Blop. Ding. Arnold Diggs just commented on Fred Jones’ post as well. You only commented on it originally to be nice, but now we want to inundate you just to let you know how many other people also felt obliged to comment on the nice photo of Felicity Jones’ first day of ninth grade. It was the 163rd notification you got this morning because you commented with an emoji of a smiley face on 36 different friends’ photos of their children’s first day of school. Your fault.

But hey, wait a minute, Sally Porter commented also. You used to like her in grade school. Let’s see what she’s up to now. Probably send her a friend request just for fun. Since you are thinking about grade school, you should probably like the grade school’s home page in case there are some reunions in the future. Ah, f*ck. Reunions. You never finished listing ALL of your education back to Kindergarten. You should do that after you like all their pages. You know, reunions and all. Not at all hoping that your first crush sees you on there. Nope.

Ding. Harry Berger wants to play Words with Friends with you. He is literally a friend of a friend of a friend, but sure. It’s good for your brain to play word games. Games are fun. Don’t you wonder what other games you could play during your “downtime” later (now)? Maybe have a look right now. Bleep. You have 47 new notifications in your neighborhood Facebook group. These could be important. You should probably look at those now.

Bye.

The only thing Facebook is good for is finding people you lost touch with.

But even that only lasts so long. Because just as much as your college partner didn’t want to hear from you ever again, you didn’t want to hear from the farter in 3rd-grade science class or your old violin teacher (creepy). It’s actually an exceptional tool for this, but that worth is demolished by everything else.

Everyone calls Facebook the Internet now, but it’s not. Everyone is everywhere. You can find them in other ways, like Google. Or probably the most reliable way — call their parents’ old number. It’s probably still good and they probably remember you. Before the Internet and before Facebook, we found ways to find our friends. Phone calls. Letters. Directory assistance. Maybe we all lost touch for a reason and the old way back together would be more pleasurable than via WiFi and an annual HBD wall post.

I’ve Lost Nothing. I Miss Nothing.

It’s true. Nothing. There have been days where a passing thought to go back on had to be crushed like the donkey manure idea it was, but that’s ok too. Just because I know it’s better for me and I don’t miss it doesn’t mean I am inhuman. But it’s that exact fact that bothers me the most and keeps me from ever returning.

It’s been 524 days. My life is much better without Facebook than it was with it. I never really enjoyed being on Facebook. But randomly, I am still pulled toward it. And it p*sses me off. It’s just an extrapolation of the notifications mindf*ck creeping on me deep in my psyche.

You might feel more connected if you were back on. You might build deeper relationships. You might feel less alone. You might meet some new friends. You might be able to grow your new business faster. You might reconnect with some old friends.

I know. I might. But just because I might, doesn’t mean that Facebook is the answer. The answer to those mights is inside of me. And I don’t need to go back on Facebook to solve them. I’d rather enjoy my life free from the distraction.

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