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Facebook became all the rage when I was in my last years of high school, and at first, I found it to be a wonderful tool for self-promotion and popularity. I was a mess, but I could convince the people in my world that life was fabulous.
I would upload photos from my digital camera and post them for my ex-boyfriend to see how hawt I was and that I was hanging out with his friends. I would talk to my gurls about going to parties and show people that I, too, was cool enough to have a place to get drunk that weekend. I would post statuses like “Hannah: is loving life =)” to prove to everyone that I was doing just fine without my ex-boyfriend, even though I was occasionally showing up at his house without notice to try to trap him into getting back together with me.
But, ladies and gentlemen, trans and non-binaries, I am here to tell you that after a relatively short stint of Facebook obsession, I believe I have discovered one of the keys to happiness: I deleted my Facebook account seven years ago, and I’ve rarely looked back. I truly think it’s the only way to live. Here are six reasons, beyond the fact that your information has, unbeknownst to you, been collected, sold, and used to target you, why you should delete yours, too.
1. It undoubtedly irritates you.
Have you ever gotten on Facebook and found yourself in a better mood when you got off? Probably not, and if you have, it’s likely because it makes you feel better about yourself to be superior to all the people that fell off after high school or college. When I first deleted my Facebook, I would log back on every once in a while to see what was up with the what’s up. And most of what was up was long-winded statuses of people’s political and religious beliefs that made me so infuriated I would spend two hours creating a thesis-like response to put them to shame.
Or novel-length posts of people airing out their dirty laundry while simultaneous complaining about how people needed to get out of their fuckin business. Look, I just don’t need that misery in my life, and neither do you. There is an obscene amount of trolls in the world, and if you can reduce your exposure to them by ¾ by simply deleting your Facebook, you’ll be better off. If you think you’re going to miss out on funny videos or a picture of a baby cheetah making friends with a baby golden lab, take your ass to Buzzfeed.
2. If you focused as much on yourself as you do on your image, you would be a happier person.
This goes for Instagram as well. Perfecting your image takes a lot of time. You take a million photos to get the right one, you might even spend additional time editing that picture to free it from any imperfections you’re insecure about, you make a great deal of effort to show everyone that you have a great partner or family/a successful career/the best vacations/a happy life. And if you’re being honest with yourself, you know that you’re bullshitting – at least a little bit.
I know few people that are as happy in actuality as they make themselves out to be on social media. People post the things that they want others to see, the version of themselves that they feel okay to present to the world. And if you spent all of that effort, let’s say, learning how to love and take care of yourself, going to therapy to sort your shit out rather than posting about it, actually connecting with your partner/family, building your career, and being present during your vacations, without worrying about what other people are going to think about your posts, your life would be more fulfilling, and you wouldn’t feel the need to bullshit.
3. It’s a waste of your life.
How much time do you spend on social media? And how much of that is just because you’re bored? A quick scroll can easily lead to hours going down a rabbit hole, and, before you know it, you’ve killed half the day. What are the things you’re actually passionate about? Where’s that book that caught your eye? The new things you’ve been wanting to try forever? Think about how much progress you would make if you spent 1-2 hours per day on that, rather than scrolling through the trenches.
4. Your whole family is on it.
The primary reason why I deleted my Facebook in the first place was that my mom got a Facebook. She would comment on all of my party pics from college, even if they were photos on somebody else’s profile that they posted of me. And it was embarrassing. It was also exhausting to read statuses she posted, such as one arguing that she was justified in refusing to give her seat up on a plane so that a couple could sit together because she was there first and picked that seat for a reason.
Once our parents, our grandparents, our aunts, uncles, cousins, and the family members we’ve never even met got on Facebook, that’s when you started to be trapped. You can’t escape them or their spewed nonsense on social media unless you straight up refuse their friend request. And that leads to them questioning you relentlessly about why you haven’t accepted them, even though you have 1000 friends. Then, once they’re following you, you have to worry about the types of responses that are going to be elicited from your posts.
In high school, I posted a photo showing off my new dark hair and the results of a month’s tanning, and my grandpa commented, “I thought you were a Mexican at first!”… nice. Facebook makes it nearly impossible to avoid the conflict that arises from differing family values, and it leaves no room for the healthy separation between your family life and your personal life.
5. It allows you to creep on your exes/your bae’s exes.
How many times have exes come out of the woodwork on social media? How many times have you creeped your ex’s page or your bae’s ex’s page until it made you sick to your stomach? Facebook has changed the game in this regard– everything is immediately available, or can be found with a decent amount of cyberstalking, and being the masochists that we are, we will subject ourselves to things that make us feel like shit. Give yourself a break by not even giving yourself that option.
6. You don’t need to stay connected to everyone you’ve ever met for your entire life.
I’ve never heard of an excuse for having a Facebook that I thought was a viable one. You don’t need it to stay connected with your friends or family. If you actually want people in your life, you find a way to stay in touch with them that doesn’t involve the shallow interactions of social media. And there’s a freedom that comes along with disconnecting from all of the people that aren’t a necessary part of your social system. We’re meant to move through life with autonomy, severing attachments that hold us back, aren’t healthy and positive, or are no longer contributing to our progress. Cut. them. off. And live the life actually you want to lead, with the people you actually want to be around.
When I finally agreed to try out Bumble after years of avoiding it (it took awhile for me to be convinced that online dating wasn’t just for desperate losers), I found myself in a dilemma. Nearly all of these apps have to be linked to your Facebook. And if you don’t have one, such as myself, you find yourself forced to be limited to people you meet in bars or the friends of friends who usually end up being disappointing and creating a rift within the friend group.
So I caved.
But don’t get it twisted. I didn’t sign back into my old Facebook, opening myself up to all of the misery that I had left behind years ago. I created a shell Facebook with just enough information to be approved for existence. Then. . . somebody reported that I was trying to scam people, and Facebook kicked me off, even after I provided them with proof via my driver’s license that I was a real person and a solid argument that I wasn’t trying to scam people, I was just trying to meet baes on Bumble.
I told a couple of people that I knew that worked at Facebook that I had a bone to pick with them about this undeserved treatment, but they told me there really wasn’t anything that they could do… Facebook was really strict about that kind of stuff, and once they get a tip-off that you’re up to no good, you have a hard time getting off of their shit list.
Which is interesting, considering the hot water they’ve recently dunked themselves into, but I guess at least they’re trying? However, I didn’t think it was fair that I be excluded from a broader dating pool, just because I had refused to fully rejoin the dark side. I was back on Bumble within two days with a new shell Facebook linked to a different email address, so jokes on the platform that was forced upon me for letting me create another “spam account,” so that I could go on to meet my current boyfriend.
How is Facebook the necessary step to prove that you’re a legitimate human being when, from how I’m keeping score, Facebook has been a generally negative contribution to humanity?
Mark Zuckerberg, I’m not buying into the altruistic spin on Facebook that you’re preaching via CSPAN. Shut that shit down..
Image via Thought Catalog
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hannahrose
Excuse me, but I've got some shit to say. @xohannahrozay on IG and Twitter.
@xohannahrozay
@xohannahrozay
Am I the only person that just doesn’t give a shit that Facebook sold my information?
I’m just pissed they don’t give me any of the profits.
Nope. That’s kinda what they do.
Figured they’d been doing it all along tbh
The readership and I want to know if it was at least a queen bed the other night?
I posted an article on the PGP Reddit. Unfortunately, it was a twin bed.
went to r/PGP for the story and wasn’t disappointed. 10/10 recommend
You don’t have to care that Facebook sold your information as long as you know that they were banking on you and many others not caring and that you, and everyone else who is too cool to care about that shit, are only making it easier for it to keep happening.
I think you need a Facebook profile to maintain your dating app profile(s) so for that reason I am out. Thank you for your time.
Did you get to the end of the article? I support you in this.
Glossed right over it. Nonetheless, I am still OUT.
And thank you for your support, Hannah.
Good luck out there on the online dating world, it’s a cold place but I have a feeling you’re well equipped to handle it
I’ve been Facebook-free for 3 months now and it’s been amazing. I’m no longer rethinking my life because people with whom I haven’t spoken with in 5+ years are doing fun stuff. There have been numerous scientific studies done that show that Facebook alters the neurochemical processes in your brain and tends to make you more depressed. I got an Instagram recently so that I can share stuff with people easier, but have a hard rule of only adding people if I’ve spoken to them in the last year.
Also, wow 7 years without Facebook? You might be the only American millennial that Zuckerberg doesn’t have any info on.
Actually had this convo with my therapist the other day. Kind of pathetic how much time/energy we spend worrying about how other people view us on social media and making ourselves seem like we lead awesome lives.
Reality is 95% of the time my life is pretty fucking boring.
The mindless scrolling is also a dopamine release. You can and will become addicted to wasting time on your phone / social media.
*As we all scroll through the PGP comments
Yeah but have there been scientific studies done about PGP? Didn’t think so, scroll on without reservations.
Sounds like you’ve just found a substitute fix (PGP instead of FB) to your addiction my friend.
Another option:
Be happy for the success and achievements of others. Work on yourself and make your life amazing and take pride in it, and tell yourself everyday you’re pretty awesome for all you’ve done. To help this, adopt a mentality of minimal attachment and an otherwise easy going nonchalance to the stresses of everyday life and boredom and celebrate even the smallest of wins.
Basically the law of attraction.
I barely use Facebook anymore. However, I will say that on the rare occasion when I do log in, there’s nothing sweeter than coming across the profile of someone that was a bully / asshole to me growing up and finding out that they’ve gone absolutely nowhere in life.
Congress: “Mr. Zuckerberg, I notice that I am being shown multiple ads per day on my wife and I’s joint Facebook account that try to get me to click on BDSM marital affair services via Ashley Madison. Needless to say, Mr. Zuckerberg, my wife is not pleased. Are you telling me that all of my terrible behaviors are now out in the open due to me clicking around in your ecosystem?”
“Furthermore, Mr. Zuckerberg, why is it that I cannot see the nipples of a woman’s supple breasts as my wife is out grocery shopping but I cant watch a video of a man being beheaded by ISIS. Do you agree that this is infringing upon the First Amendment? Please don’t plead the fifth because I would like to know personally, Mr. Zuckerberg”
Nived always asking the tough questions. Nived 2020
I would legitimately vote for him. I wish our leaders would all do mushrooms.
Question is who would be Nived’s running mate?
I’ve been without Facebook for about 6 years now, and the only reason I’m debating reactivating is to join a dating site. Because the only date I’ve been asked out on in the past 8 months is the old man who sits outside the coffee shop. I like this shell Facebook idea. I really hate everywhere makes you sign in with FB
Sup?
Sup?
Also willing to toss my hat into the cyber ring, sup?
Oh my. Is this what it feels like to be the bachelorette
Would watch the PGP Bachelorette
Made a burner FB for very similar (identical) reason. 109% worth it an you dot have to worry about it affecting your professional life
Man, and people wonder why our generation gets made fun of. Sad that speaking to someone in person isn’t commonplace
“I told a couple of people that I knew that worked at Facebook that I had a bone to pick with them about this undeserved treatment”
Somebody sound the humble brag horn…
I deactivated my fb three years ago. Never looked back.
I find that for Bumble, I could reactivate it just to sign up, then deactivate it after my Bumble account was set up. I still don’t have facebook and my dating app works fine.
I’ve dated so many guys that have been so shady with exes on fb that guys who don’t have one are immediately more attractive to me.
Temporarily deactivated my Facebook in 2013 while going through a break up and then never felt compelled to return. It seems like a much different platform now and I think I’m saner without it. The major downsides are losing touch with some international friends and not being able to see event pages.
If it wasn’t so convenient for planning events and the fact that a couple of organizations I am a part of use it as the primary means of communication, I would have deleted it a few years ago myself probably. Shit sucks and Zuck sucks.