Why I quit Facebook

Taken on a diving trip in Borneo, pre-sharing every moment on Facebook

I have always embraced the digital world. And to be fair, who under the age of 40 hasn't? From the 1980's and the games that came on an 8 Inch Floppy, to the early days of blogging back in 2004 telling my stories on this big monstrosity of a website and even now with my Apple Watch taking pride of place on my wrist, the computer had me.  

Naturally I jumped at the chance to join Facebook some time in 2006. 

Hello to the future. I could share my entire life through this brilliant blue and white platform and totally stalk all my friends doing the same without having to log into loads of different platforms. New blogs came and went but here was this lovely social network where we could easily share all our photos and see everyone's life events. Big blue thumbs up. 

Falling into the vortex 

Facebook and I hummed along nicely for a long time before it joined my phone in 2009. Until then, I never found it addictive. Compulsive, yes, but not to the point where I'd be logging on 10 times per day (minimum) without even realising it.

Then came the Twitter account followed two years later by Instagram. Seemingly out of nowhere my phone suddenly had them all - gmail, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Wordpress, the world at our fingertips. Everyone's photos and thoughts, all there as a small curated window into their lives. 

Somewhere in this vortex, my digital life became all consuming. One of the photos from my wedding shows a guest with that blue screen reflecting from her phone onto her face. We were all doing it. 

Since everyone else was doing the same, the full realisation never quite hit that maybe this staring at other people's lives, or tailored news stories that the algorithms found for you was doing some harm. Fleeting moments of angst would occur but mostly I didn't have an issue with it. Some of those finds from the news feed have genuinely changed my life (check out the 1 Million Women movement for that!). But perhaps if I had connected with friends better in real life or just gone to the library more, maybe the same thing would have happened? Hard to know. But as I kept pushing refresh, more info would come out and I would gobble it up. 

Trying and failing to quit

Two years ago I was at this phenomenal party. After a lot of champagne, I announced to the world that I was quitting Facebook for a year and that at the end of that time I would write a book about it.

Neither of those happened. The hangover did, and I added more friends met that evening on FB - only one of whom I ever connected with again in real life. 

I did quit Twitter and Instagram though, and finally shut down my blog which had been limping along since moving back to New Zealand in 2015. I was mostly done with the internet for a while.  

To my surprise, I found didn't miss these platforms. So why on earth could I not bring myself to quit Facebook?

It came down to friends and sharing our lives (and our kids lives now) on it. One or two had quietly dropped off Facebook over the years and claimed they'd never looked back but I had too many of my people scattered all over the place - New York, Kuala Lumpur, Kingston Ontario, Shanghai, San Diego, Tauranga, Cape Town, various parts of Europe, you get it. I feared missing out on their lives or being able to meet up with them should one of us be visiting any of these places. That painful anagram: FOMO. 

I tried to quit again about six months later later. What I did was contact those who I knew I'd only have contact with on Facebook and got their WhatsApp details then pushed the deactivate button. It turns out you have two weeks to log in should you change your mind... I returned within two days. That happened several times.

Finally

Until this last Christmas. In 2017 I had no proper holiday. Every day of annual leave was used to look after someone other than myself or spent stressing about an upcoming piece of work. My family and I were going to where I grew up and I realised about a week before we left that I didn't want a soul to know I was there - I needed a total break from the world so I could focus on my kids (aged 3 & 4) and enjoy some quality beach time. So I pushed the delete my account button, assuming I'd be back on within a few days of deactivating my account. Two weeks later the account was gone for good and off Facebook's servers. 

The kids were thrilled they had mum fussing over them more than her phone for once...

I had a great break. Photos of my kids enjoying their days were shared with a few good friends over WhatsApp - not people I hadn't even tried to see in 20 years - and I found myself reaching for my phone less and less, to the point where I'd not get it out at all some days. Two friends had babies in that time and they told me over text rather than assuming I'd seen the FB update. I'd get up at 5:30am and go for a run but then not feel inclined to humble-brag it over social mediums like I would have in the past. 

Moving on 

It has been easier than I thought. Turns out you can just look at the news outlets you'd read anyway, and catch up with friends regardless (would you believe that people love to give you the unfiltered low-down in person!). The clutter and constantly reaching for my phone in a quiet moment is gone, but you know what, so is the FOMO. All it took was a decent dose of will power to get rid of this big distraction that works for a lot of people, but wasn't working for this girl who just couldn't switch off. 

There will be other mediums that come and go, but for now I'm done with those big blue thumbs up and red hearts that appear when someone loves your post. 

To be fair to the company, this week Facebook acknowledged it has issues and is working to address these. It will be interesting to see how this pans out in reality. But for now, any stories I tell or photos I share with a wider audience than my core group of friends and family, will be through this nice new blog. 

P.S. If you're looking for a practical step-by-step guide on how to permanently delete your account - the second half of this article was great. 

Kat