======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
It has been a long time coming. It’s not a snap decision where a recent event has caused me to step back and evaluate the risks to my personal health and wellbeing. I’m not rage quitting. The game has just gotten to be too much for me to handle, and I can’t in good conscience stay in it. I think the time has come for me to retire from Facebook.
Facebook entered my life in junior year of high school when I thought I was deeply in love with MySpace. This mistress took the world by storm and within a matter of months no one I knew was even logging onto MySpace. I guess it was just the new kid on the block and for some reason, no one cared about profile songs or customized layouts anymore. Poking had changed the game forever.
Facebook has since evolved into one of the most used social media platforms in the world and it is a great way to connect with people. It’s a wonderful tool used to share important memories in written and graphic form alike. It is an easy way to post short updates on one’s life or share important milestones they have reached in their lives. However, everything has changed since the late 2000s.
Gone are the days when my newsfeed was filled with chatter about Sarah and Kristi’s plans to catch the new Twilight movie. No longer do I see updates that Heather is on vacation in Miami or that Dan is just looking for some company in the library as he studies for finals. I don’t even see when David got a promotion at work because now there is an entire social media platform for the professional side of life. All of those vacation photos from Heather have now found themselves on Instagram. And day to day updates are more suited for Twitter.
All superstars will eventually see themselves replaced. They will play long enough to see their predecessors rise to fame, leaving them in the dust. And this is exactly what has happened. The reality is that Facebook has been replaced. Instead of accepting that fact and riding out into the sunset with dignity, Facebook has turned into a monster. Refusing to retire, I have seen this platform deteriorate into a pile of human waste.
Instead of hearing your take on the best Superbowl commercials, I’m getting 6 updates in a row of you checking into the gym, accompanied by an “inspirational” quote about motivation and hard work while I am still stuck in the office at 6:30 p.m. College graduation photos have been replaced with uninspired, overused memes or a link to an educational snippet on the benefits of having equal amounts of maternity and paternity leave following the birth of a newborn. Newsfeeds are flooded with polarizing takes on taboo issues such as public breastfeeding and abortion. Some of us know this to be dangerous water to dip into. And with the current election ongoing, blind sharing is at an all-time high. NEWSFLASH: You won’t convince anyone to change their opinion over a fucking Facebook comment. Honestly, all of this is giving me a headache, but I’m still not going to purchase any of your essential oils you spam your feed with to cure it.
For a while, I believe society respected the original design of Facebook. But now I’m even seeing my own mother post horror stories of babies being born addicted to heroin and going through withdrawals straight out of the womb. Yes, it is my fault for adding family members. I broke that rule. But never did I think I would see such atrocious things appear on my Facebook when I first created my account. The reality is that I can only unfollow so many people. Eventually, my newsfeed will reach a point where I am seeing updates from twelve people, all who haven’t said anything in months. At that point it isn’t even worth logging on anyways.
I don’t say much on Facebook because I refuse to add to the noise. Facebook has evolved into a monster and I don’t need this in my life anymore. With all of the other tools out there to fish for likes from, it just isn’t necessary. Don’t be surprised if my name doesn’t pop up when you go to invite me to your Jack and Jill baby shower..
Image via David M G / Shutterstock
Respond
@207Cush
I bet ATLGuy sells essential oils on facebook….
Multiple income streams= Major key to success
Not when it’s an obvious MLM scheme.
My FOMO of missing events and Tinder are the only reasons for my Facebook.
FOMO is real.
Facebook has become the above-ground pool of the internet. It’s nothing but 30 second recipe videos and endless paragraphs of political hot takes with blatant disregard for punctuation.
Sometimes they’re too triggered to use proper punctuation, it scares the sense right out of them.
I deleted my Fbook about 7 months ago, I don’t have an urge to see hometown trash, political rants, or click bait ads.
They’ve also made it worse with the algorithms of what posts you see. I avoided it at all costs the night of the first presidential debates just to have all those statuses reappear for the next two days so I was unavoidable subject to everyone’s incoherent trash talk
*unavoidably, jeez. speaking of incoherent
I maybe look at Facebook once a week, twitter is so much better.
I absolutely agree about Twitter. I was into Facebook until older people started getting on it and ruining it for all of us. It’s inevitably going to happen to Twitter too.
Older people aren’t smart enough to figure out how to read tweets with all the abbreviations, # and @
Damn you fantasy football and fraternity alumni groups, you’re the only reason I’ve been on facebook for so long and will probably continue to be until I die.
And so people know you’re not getting murdered when you hang out with your friends from the internet
My uncle uses Facebook to post puns and tag family members in them, I don’t allow them to get posted to my wall, can’t lie when I say I laugh at almost all of them though.
The only thing that keeps me on facebook is what is known as “Weird Facebook” or “Post-Ironic Facebook”. I’m pretty desensitized to regular memes so I go to those various pages to get my fix of properly funny content.
I only use it to make all my older relatives happy. Every instagram picture is shared to Facebook for them!