It’s been one month since I deleted my Facebook page, and I have never felt better.
I’ve taken breaks before, but somehow I’d always end up logging back in. I made a billion excuses about why I needed it: work, “connecting” with family and friends, finding takeout menus, keeping track of photos and memories (which you can download before deleting, by the way), and of course, for the memes.
There are so many reasons I finally pulled the trigger after 11 years on the platform that it’s taken me a lot of time to process (like, for instance, learning Facebook has 52,000 data points on every user, which are essentially facts about you, everything from your gender to how much alcohol you like to drink. Heck, I don’t even think I could come up with 520 data points about myself, or even 52.)
Primarily, I deleted Facebook to save my own sanity. I’ve ridden the mental health roller coaster since my teenage years, and finally realized Facebook was really, really not helping. I had developed unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with uncomfortable feelings and situations, which generally meant I would go to Facebook whenever I was uncomfortable, sad, anxious, stressed, annoyed, hungry, bored, self-conscious, overwhelmed, angry … you get the idea. Whenever life threw some extra-difficult circumstances my way, the time I spent “self-medicating” amounted to a substantial chunk of my day, at least two hours, often more.
Facebook is not a great place to be when you’re feeling emotionally vulnerable, though. Algorithms push content that gets a reaction, positive or negative, and with those 52,000 data points, they are really, really good at figuring out what will push your buttons … and make you push theirs.
The vast majority of the time, a “scrolling binge” left me feeling even worse than when I had started. But instead of getting off the platform like a rational human, I’d dig in even deeper. Why? My best guess was because I subconsciously wanted the feel-good dopamine hits that came with each little red notification bubble. They’d provide a tiny bit of relief, but my overall emotional trajectory would still be in a nosedive, and the vicious cycle would continue until I felt absolutely awful about myself, the world, and everyone in it.
There’s a possibility this is just me, but after talking with four other friends and family members who also recently deleted their accounts, I think this behavior may be more common than anyone realizes. It’s just that, as with everything else mental health-related, there’s a lot of shame involved, and being on a screen all the time is now considered “normal,” whether it’s healthy or not.
Once the Facebook fog lifted — it took about two weeks for me to stop automatically navigating to the platform and another two weeks for the urge to check my feed to dissipate almost completely — I started to notice “reverse side effects.”
For one, instead of spending my time ruminating about angry comments from internet strangers, I’ve been doing what I call “real life stuff” again — house projects, exercise, family time, reading, crocheting, having in-depth conversations with my kids about really important topics like whether otters or beavers are cuter, gardening, hiking, tasting my food again (for real: try a week or two of eating without your cell phone in front of your face) — and doing them not just so I can share them for some external validation from internet strangers.
Doing things just because I enjoy them has actually been really, really nice, so nice that I’m considering deleting my other social media accounts, too. I have a lot more energy and motivation when I’m not participating in the “rat race” of endless sharing and one-upping. Playing the piano because it’s fun, not to take a video for Instagram. Exercising because I want to, not because I need a sweaty selfie to prove my mettle. Traveling without hourly photo ops to make everyone else jealous of how “amazing” my life is, a life I had ironically checked out from in favor of an iPhone screen.
And the TV shows I was missing while scrolling my phone have actual plots. It’s crazy!
I’m second-guessing myself less and feel more confident in my decisions — from what I choose to wear to my photography. Facebook was started as a way to rate female college students as “hot or not,” and on a much, much larger scale, it’s still ultimately a stupid popularity contest, with all the same consequences. I truly didn’t realize how far that fear of judgment had permeated every area of my life.
I still have my battles with self-esteem, but I feel less ‘not good enough’ all around. I’m less afraid of criticism, and I give much less weight to the opinions of total strangers.
To my surprise, the concerns I had about needing the platform for “useful things” … you know, like Facebook stalking people from high school … haven’t manifested. A simple phone call generally answers any questions I would have spent hours searching for (after getting distracted by memes and nasty comment threads first, of course). I’m still talking to the friends and family members I regularly engaged with, just via text message. Memes can be easily found all over the internet. Business-wise, we’re really examining if we have any concrete benefits from Facebook that wouldn’t fall under “vanity metrics” — imaginary internet numbers that sound good for marketing and promotion, but ultimately mean nothing.
I don’t miss it one bit.
By CAITLIN WALKER | [email protected]
