When I first joined
When I first joined Facebook, we believed it was a tool for personal connection. We posted pictures of our kids and vacations. Then we added as many friends as we possibly could. Old high school and college friends? Sure! Add them! People you hardly knew in high school? Why the hell not. Add them! Strangers could see our personal posts because we didn’t change our privacy settings. Before long, our “friends” started to pose, posture and use Facebook as a platform for their own personal branding. They posted perfect selfies while also posting poor angles of their “best friends.” As Facebook added likes, business pages and groups, the divisiveness worsened. But nothing prepared us for 2016.
Facebook in 2016
In 2016, Facebook had a big disinformation problem. During the Cambridge Analytica scandal governments around the world realized that users private data were being mined for political targeting. Politicians on both sides of the aisle used it to their advantage. For me personally, Facebook became a political cesspool. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was the catalyst for many of privacy laws we have today. However, the damage was already done to our collective psyche. Facebook friends became strangers, mocking each other for their political and religious beliefs. Terms like snowflake, libtards, sheep and Repuglicans were all over the platform. Facebook amplified the world’s divisiveness.
Of course, Facebook wasn’t the only platform to blame. It was just an easy mirror held up to each and every one of us.
Quitting the Facebook Habit
Some of us quit the platform. Others stayed, finding groups that fed their newfound rage and viewpoints. Conspiracy theories entered the equation in 2020 and election disinformation abounded. I’ve seen some of my closest friends grow a tumor of paranoia in their souls, like a bad cancer that no chemotherapy can shrink. Facebook capitalized on our fear and we eagerly supported their business model. Facebook could not figure out how to fix their algorithm and started to lose money.
I deleted my Facebook page. The divisiveness of social media affected my mental health. At first I stupidly tried to engage, to have productive discussions until one day, I was triggered by an acquaintance. It was a high school acquaintance that wrote something so ugly that I had to question why I was even connected to half of my friends list! When I shared with another friend that I didn’t like that person then and I especially didn’t like them now, I realized that my own mirror had cracked.
My heart felt heavy as I looked at my reflection staring back at me.
My Real Friends List
I reviewed my Facebook friends list to see who I would miss. Every single person that I loved and respected had my email or phone number I did not need to use Facebook to keep in touch and to maintain those relationships. So I created a new personal page, transferred my permissions from my blog and company to that page and deleted the old one. You may have sent me a friends request and I did not respond. Give me a call instead.
I have to say that it’s been more difficult for others to see me leave. In the beginning, I had one particular friend regularly send me her Facebook posts. I’m happy to say that this has now stopped. Others get quite upset from what their friends post and will screen capture and encourage me to smell the toxic odor once again. I usually recommend that they leave Facebook for their own mental health. And yet, some people find it impossible to leave, connecting their identity to their daily addiction and using it as their primary method of connection. They don’t understand why they still feel so empty.
Difficult Conversations
Now, you may think that I don’t have difficult conversations but that is not true. I have many people in my life with opposite viewpoints and we argue over a glass of wine and then laugh about it. I choose to have those people in my life, but I do not choose to have thousands of others directing their negativity towards me, especially when I don’t know them. I have chosen to remind myself about what’s truly important and to focus on those people and experiences that help me put more love into the world. Now when I see a neighbor, I don’t think about what they posted this morning, but rather I wonder how they are doing and I may stop to chat. Perhaps ignorance is bliss!
Life has changed and for the sake of your mental health, if you feel the way I did and still do, I would encourage you to limit your use of your social media. I promise you won’t regret getting rid of the noise. Breathe and live in the moment, the moment that you choose to have and the moments that bring you peace and beauty. Facebook is not helping you maintain your friendships, it is tearing them up. We have enough to worry about and life is so very precious.
Live it.
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