leaving social media

If you’re finding me here, and we were formerly connected on Facebook, here is what happened:

I was sort of quiet-quitting over the course of a month or two. I just really hit a wall with so many things about Facebook.

The reasons are myriad, but basically, the main reason is that I feel like it was working exactly as it was designed to: to push my buttons and emotionally manipulate me; to stir up inner and outer chaos; and also waste countless hours of my precious life by keeping me hanging on for any shreds of “connection” and engagement. In short, it was no longer fun or nourishing for me, and felt like a barrier to what we all want: true, authentic connection.

I debated whether to make an announcement or just fade away.

In the end, I decided to make an announcement. But in the meantime, I had deactivated my profile. It stressed me out that people might be thinking that I was disconnecting from them personally, when the whole point, for me, was to be minimizing harm in my relationships, and connecting in more human-centered ways.

When I tried to reactivate my profile for the purposes of making an announcement, I found that I was only able to engage with the platform in a very limited way. I could theoretically make posts, but couldn’t see notifications, access my profile, or see any responses.

So, here is my announcement, relocated to my new “platform,” my own website.

I wish I could say that Facebook was a worthwhile way to stay connected with the important people in my life, but of course, it’s not. In fact, Facebook has directly diminished the quality of some of my relationships, in multiple ways. It got to the point where, if I had an already-good relationship with someone off-Facebook, I hesitated to try to connect with them on there, because my experience has been that Facebook tends to turn things to shit in one way or another. And any meaningful connections have become diluted in a sea of fake “friends,” frenemies, and drama. The signal-to-noise ratio made it completely unworkable.

I was getting countless “friend” requests all the time, from people trying to sell me on their program, get me to join their community, or hustle me in some way. I had people reaching out to me in the DMs under a phony pretense of “connection,” when it was very obviously about them trying to push something on me.

And oy, the drama. There’s something inherently hair-triggering about being on the platform that makes it easy to get into conflicts, in a way that just does not happen for me in real life.

Facebook was a massive trigger for my RSD. In some ways it was a good catalyst for me to do some inner work around this, but I also remind myself that this gets amplified on social media in ways that it wouldn’t otherwise. There is no need to put myself through undue stress from something that’s supposed to be “recreational.”

That’s without even mentioning the time-suck aspect, and the opportunity-cost of being in the world of many other peoples’ thoughts instead of spending more time on my own.

I also tended to spend more time in a state of passive consumption, sharing memes, rather than creating my own pieces. And even when I did create things, even those were crafted and constructed in a way to fit into the Facebook way of relating, as opposed to what I just authentically wanted to express. Being on Facebook was stunting my creativity by shifting me into a certain kind of brain space. And it made my writing manipulative, too, as I catered to fitting into the Facebook-formula box.

The whole idea of creating things for the “likes”… I just can’t feed into that system anymore. It feels like a massive shadow circle-jerk.

And I think I’m allergic to all the bullshit things like “cultivating a personal brand,” “creating content,” and objectifying or productizing myself in any way, as I saw so many people doing on Facebook. No shade to those who are relying on Facebook to build up their businesses, but I just can’t be around it anymore.

Since spending time off of Facebook, I’ve noticed that my thinking has become more expansive… like, my mind has been able to unfurl, take a big stretch, and spread itself out. My angst and existential dread have dialed way down. And yes, I’m still very much keeping up with the news — I get various news publications via email every day. But that’s plenty enough to process without a barrage of hot takes on top of it.

I am done with being an avatar, a cartoon character, a flattened and fragmented version of myself, and anything less than a multidimensional human.

I am done with feeding people’s projections.

I am done with “the algorithm.”

I am done with a culture of disinformation.

I’m hoping that moving off of Facebook will increase the quality of connections in my life, both on- and offline. There may be a way to make Facebook work for me someday, but for now, I’m saving my spoons for people who actually want to connect with me personally, reciprocally, and meaningfully.

One more thing that I want to name here is the emotional harm that I repeatedly experienced from encountering blatantly hateful comments or memes, and reporting them, only to be told that they did not violate the community standards of the platform — while disinformation is valued, honored, and allowed to proliferate.

And can we talk about why we should continue to feed our corporate overlords? Seriously — fuck these guys. Watch The Social Dilemma. And then watch The Great Hack. And then ask yourself if you really want to continue feeding into and supporting this system.

In many ways, you could make an argument that being on Facebook is like staying in an abusive relationship. You’re hooked on something that doesn’t have your best interests remotely in mind. You’re feeding into the worst aspects of relating. You’re trading meaningful relationships for an audience of faux-friends. I get it — there is something really compelling about this world, but when you realize that it’s compelling by design, because you’re being manipulated, doesn’t it lose some of its grip?

I’m so much happier, more productive, and living in a way that’s more aligned with my values now that I’m not on Facebook. I recommend that you give it a try if you haven’t, even if it’s just “taking a break.”