Could you disconnect from Facebook for 30 days? 60? 90?
When you close your eyes and think about life without Facebook, what feelings immediately arise? Worry, fear of missing out… or elation?
Last night, after an especially joyful day (follow me on Instagram to hear about my exciting news), I snuggled into bed, pushed my pillow back to prop my head up a bit, and opened Facebook on my phone. Slowly scrolling down my feed, I was caught off guard by a seemingly passive-aggressive post from someone that made my stomach churn (it wasn’t even towards me, but it still felt distasteful). I tried to shrug it off and kept scrolling… Another friend posted something about a “must watch” video that will change your perspective on forgiveness. Sounds enticing, I thought. I could use a few lessons on forgiveness.
The video was about Sandy Hook, and it made me cry. By cry I mean ugly bawl til my eyes puffed up and my heart rate sputtered. Only five minutes long and my emotions spiraled into fear, disgust, and terror. Did it change my perspective on forgiveness? Not really. And that’s when the lightbulb went off and I thought to myself… what am I doing?
I just took a perfectly wonderful day and drop kicked it in five minutes. I went to bed upset and distressed over this ridiculous social media platform that seems to do more harm than good.
Think about it… what about Facebook brings you joy? Engagement and birth announcements, right? Getting tagged in a post from a friend about her amazing tribe. Maybe adorable baby elephant videos… oh, and the other day I saw a video of a piglet getting his belly rubbed that made me explode with joy. My kids loved it too.
And then I think about all the shit I have to sift through to find those gold nuggets. Posts about politics, video shares of crimes, or shocking news, and of course the ever-present and eerily relative ads, more ads, and even more ads.
The ratio of good to bad posts is abysmal. 1/10? Less? And the chances of me closing Facebook feeling unsatisfied, uninspired and sometimes downright angry or heartbroken is high. Sky high. So again I asked myself, what am I doing?
When you find something that doesn’t bring joy, and yet you feel drawn to it like rubbernecking on the freeway over a fiery car accident… you should run.
Last night I deleted the Facebook app from my phone, but I only felt partly relieved. Today I’m going to go one step further. I’m going to deactivate my personal Facebook for 30 days (I know that sounds like a cop-out, but I operate several Facebook pages for work and this blog, so I can’t drop my business pages too).
My vow to you… right here, right now: I will not visit my personal Facebook page for 30 days. I will not post, comment, like, or friend anyone during that time. In 30 days, I will report back to you on my experience. And I’m going to be brutally honest. If it was 30 days of bliss, you will know. If it was 30 days of me frantically scrolling the Internet for some other way to kill time, you will know. If I cheat, I will tell you.
Let me do this experiment so you don’t have to. Let’s see how much power Facebook has over us and what life looks like free from its lures.
Facebook? Buh Bye!
* Account deactivated at 9:07 am PT, December 14, 2017 *
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