#goodbyefacebook

I finally did it! I got rid of Facebook, honestly feel like it was past time.

I joined Facebook back in 2007, I think I was late to the party and most of my friends were already on there. Over the years it has satisfied my stalker tendencies but the best part is it made it easy to keep track of friends as either they or I moved. It is so much easier to make a post about a random life update, instead of reaching out to each individual friend and letting them know. Looking back, have I lost the closeness of friendships because of this? I relied on such an impersonal method to give news instead of taking a minute to engage a friend?

I’ve enjoyed watching my friends kids grow. I’ve enjoyed seeing pictures of puppies and dogs. Really though, we only see the part of their life that people choose. So much on social media, not just Facebook, we see a picture perfect representation of someone’s life and we assume that is what it’s like. We don’t see the imperfect parts. The struggles or the hidden conflicts. We compare ourselves to these representations and are sometimes found wanting in ourselves… not healthy.

Recently, I noticed that my Facebook feed was full of negativity, shame, judgement, conspiracies, and conflict. Only a couple of friends had positive posts of dogs, workouts, food. There were also more and more advertisements. It finally dawned on my that I was getting minimal value and was only checking Facebook out of habit. It was time to go. I think there is a bit of FOMO taking effect as well.

I’ll still be on instagram but I’ll probably cut back on that too. It’s time to connect with my friends in less impersonal ways. They are my friends for a reason and I love them.