There are many reasons that people still have a Facebook. It’s one of the largest media platforms where people can connect and stay informed. I deleted mine a few months ago and haven’t looked back. Many people use it for business and I’ll be honest that I was a worried by a drop in views. It seems I had nothing to fear! If anything my viewership has gone up. Color me surprised! But why did I quit Facebook after using it everyday for since I was 19 years old?
Konmari Method
Do you remember when the Konmari Method was the only thing people could talk about? About how you should purge anything that didn’t “Spark Joy”? That’s what Facebook was for me. In the past I had used it so much. As I got older I used it less and less. My friends list became smaller. My posts became infrequent. Why? Life changed for me in the last 5 years and I didn’t feel like sharing it all. So in the end I deleted it because it didn’t “Spark Joy”.
Sense of worth
The worst part of social media is that we get to see the way people live. What’s terrible about that is we only see the perfect, edited and curated pieces of how someone lives. It’s not the whole truth and if it is then it’s rarely embraced. I had lied to myself and others about how I lived. It was exciting to embrace a new culture but I never spoke about the negatives about it. That idea toyed with my self worth. If something wasn’t good enough, perfect enough, it wasn’t worth posting about. Everyday is worth living. It’s not about the perfect days. The bad days also help make us who we are!
Nothing to contribute
Because I never felt like anything was worth sharing, I hardly ever posted. My Facebook feed became photos from strangers. I was beginning to learn about other people while no one learned anything about me. It’s a false sense of friendship and felt empty. I had acquaintances add me to their friends list because we had spoken. That’s not a friendship I was interested in. I figured that no one would miss me if I quit Facebook.
Freedom from acquaintances
I never spoke about personal experiences. I felt like these people on my friends list were nothing but strangers. As I stated before if something wasn’t post worthy then it wasn’t going to be shared. I started to feel pressure to share those photo perfect snippets of life. I didn’t know these people. Why did was there pressure to please them? Instead I found that I would only reach out to my closest friends. There are many better ways to talk to these treasured folks and I didn’t need Facebook for that!
Reconnecting with treasured folks
Now that I’ve quit Facebook, I’ve been using my email so much more. I have a small list of friends that I email weekly to keep in touch. It’s so much more personal to do it this way. It’s 1 on 1 time with people I’ve always loved. And while I’ll miss out on photos and other things that people share to Facebook, this system works best for me. I speak to those I want to and the background noise of strangers has been cancelled. I don’t spend time scrolling for hours looking at how other people live. Instead I focus on my own life and the ones that I adore the most. That’s enough for me.
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