Recently (about two months ago) I deleted Facebook from my phone. I didn't delete my actual Facebook account since me and my lovely, all-knowing, beautiful wife are one of those super cool couples who share a Facebook account. I won't even get into how annoying shared Facebook accounts are. But, all that said, my phone is void of Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
You may be inclined to ask me why I deleted it, but I'm sure you already know why. Everyone knows. Everyone knows that Facebook and all other social media apps can be extremely addictive, distracting, and time consuming. This is no news to anybody. But, probably because of its extreme popularity and variety of consumers, Facebook seems to have something in overwhelming quantities compared to other sites......... drama.
Yes, I do believe that each person can more-or-less decide/chose to be a part of the drama or not, but even if I'm not directly involved, I involuntarily have to experience it on my timeline. Yes, I do have the ability to hide it, or block the person, or just ignore it... but I grow weary of having to deal with that kind of thing over and over.
I'm an avid user of Twitter, Instagram a little bit, and Snapchat occasionally. I haven't experienced this on any of these platforms to the extent that I have on Facebook. Now, it is probably due in part to the fact that I have almost 400 "friends" on Facebook and I only follow 89 people on Twitter.
One other reason I deleted it is just for the fact of all the stuff that used to see that I didn't care about whatsoever. Sometimes I feel like people don't use FB for its actual use of sharing what's going on in their life and just "share" stuff that somebody else posted on somebody else's page that was posted there from someone who found it on some other person's page.
But, enough of about why I did it, and now onto the more important question.... Has it actually made any sort of difference in my life?
I would say that it has made a difference. Not really for better or worse. Because, like I said before, all social media is addictive, so I am still spending just as much time on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat as I always have, but I just cut out that one line of influence.
It's like when you climb into bed at the end of the night, totally beat and so ready to fall asleep, but you think you better just check your phone quick. So, you jump on Snapchat and check out the stories. Then head over to Instagram and see what photos have been added since you last check it 2 hours ago. Then, scroll through Twitter for a while and see whats funny, what your few friends on Twitter are up to, and laugh at some Joe and Obama memes. Then, lastly, you endlessly scrolls through Facebook for the next hour before you finally decide to actually go to sleep. Well, imagine that, just without the Facebook.
At first, it did feel like my phone was missing something. I feel like we get the itch to check all our social media apps at once, one after the next, and I'd get to that point where I would normally check my FB, but there wasn't an app to check it with... and so I was like... now what do I do? I guess I'll put my phone down and actually look at my kid while I'm pushing them on the swing.
But, surprisingly, that feeling quickly went away. It didn't take long before I didn't even think about the fact that my phone was "missing" something. Although, it did come to pass that I was start to miss information. There's so much that people just assume you know because it was posted on Facebook. There were all kinds of things happening that nobody talked about in real life because all the information was already posted on Facebook, so I was supposed to know it.
This bothered me a little bit at first. But then I decided that if it was something of actual significance and actually meant something in my life, I would know about it. I think most humans are wired to want to be in the know. To know the rumors, or secrets, or just the happenings of everyone they know or have ever known. But, that's what I was trying to get away from by deleting the app, so I had to make myself get over that want.
Part of the mistake I made is that I still am on Facebook, but I don't actually access it. So, when I totally miss a party and days later the person asks "Hey, why didn't you come to my party?", all I can say is "Sorry, I don't use Facebook."
"What's the point of this post" you may ask. Believe it or not, I don't really have like an agenda with this post. Facebook is fine. Twitter is fine. They're all fine. But, sometimes we can become dependent on some things (sometimes the wrong things), and I was just curious what life would be like without Facebook. So, that's what I'm doing. I highly recommend it to anyone interested, even if only a week. I don't know if I'll ever go back to using it or not, but for now, if you want to Facebook message me or send me a party invite or tag me in a photo on Facebook, all I can say is "Sorry, I don't use Facebook."
Thanks for reading!
-Ryan
ps. Yes, I do appreciate the irony that you probably came across this post on Facebook. But, how else was I supposed to get you to read it?
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