A Month Without Facebook
(Note: cheers to the folks I know working at Facebook — this isn’t a slam on Facebook [mrmmm, mostly] but me rather taking time to be present.)
I just finished Facebook-free February. How was it?
AWESOME! 👍
I highly recommend anyone taking a month break from their Facebook. And what I mean by “their Facebook” is this: the thing that is to you that Facebook had slowly become for me. A habit. A filler. A siphon of attention that also provided me with the occasional dose of grief.
For me, Facebook had become a fidget. A distraction. Something to pay attention to during gaps in my day and then unwittingly follow link after link of mildly interesting articles that added some mildly interesting ephemeral knowledge to my day. Given a moment, I’d unlock my awesome phone and see if there were any new Facebook notifications or new mildly interesting articles.
Dr. Sherry Turkle talked at Microsoft last year and noted (gathered from students studying people at traffic lights) that once a car stops in traffic, in seconds people had their phones out and were engaging the screens. I became self-aware of that indulgence, too. When I did my Facebook-free February, my phone stayed undisturbed when stopped at a traffic light. I was present and indulging instead in my own thoughts and plans.
So I’ve taken this time for reading and researching those things that are super interesting vs. distracting and mildly interesting.
But. You do miss out. Family photos, big friend news, what dishes and drinks friends are consuming. Yeah. Guilty. I like to be cheeky and post pictures of freshly poured stouts and porters awaiting my attention, especially during the middle of the work-day as I gallivant around enjoying my sabbatical (also highly recommended — cheers!).
What I didn’t miss out on is the toxic nature that has spread though Facebook and other social media. These days… whoo-boy, am-I-right? While fidgeting with Facebook all the time is my responsibility to control, the Facebook feed for me had become uncontrollable and undesirable, littered with the promoted likes and comments from lots of folks I care for and admire, but whom I don’t need that level of deep insight into their social activity, especially when their world view is so opposed to my own (and I’m sure they don’t need that level of social insight into me, either… so lose-lose).
I practiced being the good stoic and realizing that my reaction to this unkind feed content was under my control, but then I also realized that it was like hitting yourself repeatedly on the head with a hammer. Why not stop that? Mmm. Yeah, feels better. Immediately.
So of course I’ll start using Facebook again. Facebook is great. I’ve got pictures of an awesome little boy to post, along with sharing pictures of many more stouts and porters before this sabbatical is over! But the default feed? Goodbye. I’ll create a custom feed of some sort to just see the posts I want to. Notifications? Off. All of them. And re-installing the Facebook app on my phone? Nope. I’m going to avoid that fidget until something in my life can’t be done without Facebook on my phone.
It has been interesting seeing the Facebook systems trying to lure me back — I increasingly get emails about missed notifications and how various friends have been posting stuff. I even got a Facebook text message notification the other day, though it was for an acquaintance I didn’t realize was a friend. Oh, I just got a new “what you’re missing” text message! Let’s see… I have a pending message and a pending poke. A poke? Pondering the fact that “poke” is still around disrupted my displeasure of Facebook sending a frigging text to my phone for something so meaningless.
So maybe your Facebook is Instagram, or Snapchat, or playing 2048, or some other cool groovy service that I am not cool and groovy enough to know about. Be present. See where your focus goes. Observe yourself. Your time and attention is priceless, especially to those right in front of you.
For myself, Facebook-free February provided less stress and more presence focused on things that matter more than scrolling, scrolling and scrolling and sprinkling the likes out on a daily basis. I’m holding on to that.
All the best to you. Cheers.
