Almost a week ago I decided to remove myself from Facebook (I’m taking a sabbatical from Facebook) so that I could have more time to do things that were more important to me, other than waste it on Facebook.
I’ve enjoyed reading more about how to write better, and exploring Ghost coding, and Linux usage, and spending more time with my wife.
I’ve also talked about it with a couple friends, and they admitted they’re thinking about quitting Facebook too. So I thought it might be a good idea to talk about a few reasons why YOU should quit Facebook (if you haven’t already!). Maybe you can relate to one or more of these, and you’ll be inspired to take the leap too.
1. You’ll have more TIME to focus on things that are important to you.
This was primarily the reason I moved on from it, to give myself more time. Facebook is a time-sink – you put time into it and you get very little or nothing back.
If it’s not part of the solution, then it must be part of the problem.
To explain that quote in context, if you think of your various goals in life, then ‘the solution’ is whatever helps you come closer to achieving those goals. If something is not part of the solution, then it may be part of the problem.
Some of your goals might be to:
- have better relationships
- learn a new language
- travel overseas
- learn a new skill
- change careers
- save for a house
- find someone to love
- write a book
There are countless goals that we could have in life, and all of us have more than enough goals to occupy our time.
But we have less time to do that if we’re distracted by inane bullshit that has no meaning to us, and doesn’t help us achieve our goals in life.
It’s all well and good to relax occasionally, but when a ‘relaxing activity’ takes you away from doing the things that you know would be of more value to you, then it becomes a problem. That’s when you have to start taking drastic steps to change things around and get that time back.
Quitting Facebook is like quitting an addiction. You can do it, I know you can!
2. Your emotional wellbeing will no longer be determined by how popular (or not) your status updates are.
A lot of people on Facebook end up angry, frustrated or depressed when their updates or shared content is being ignored. They might think something is really important or worthwhile, but no one likes it or cares about it. Meanwhile, your buddy who posts cat photos gets a thousand likes and 370 people commenting about it.
Comparing yourself to others based on their popularity on Facebook leads to ‘the dark side’. Breaking away from this behaviour will be better for your health.
3. You won’t have Facebook notifications to distract you from other important activities.
When you’re out at brunch or dinner with friends, your phone buzzes from a new notification. You’ve been trained to check it, so you interrupt your conversation with them to see who’s honouring you with a like or comment.
Meanwhile your friends look at you annoyed as they wait for you to return to the conversation.
Or you’re in a cinema and you do a status update on Facebook about how you’re about to watch a movie. Half an hour into it, you try to discreetly see if anyone’s commented on your update. If they have, you engage in a brief conversation for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, you’ve missed an important scene or plot explanation, and a bunch of people around you are annoyed at you because of the light from your phone…
Quitting Facebook will help you stay connected with your friends, enjoying the moment. And it’ll help you avoid the wrath of strangers!
4. You’ll get your privacy back.
Facebook encourages you to share your life with friends and family. But it’s not just your friends and family that are getting everything you share.
If you’re not paying for it, then YOU are the product.
Someone – a lot of someones – are paying Facebook for the information you’re providing.
Mostly companies that can make money from knowing what you’re talking about or interested in, so they can direct relevant advertising at you within the walls of Facebook or elsewhere on the internet.
But there’s also government agencies that love to gather all the information about what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with, and where you’re doing it.
All this that you’re providing them for free. They’re very thankful!
And then, of course, there’s your boss, who will quite happily use your ‘I hate my boss’ status updates against you if you should happen to make them public. Or, heaven forbid, you’ve got your boss as a friend… (What the hell were you thinking?)
By quitting Facebook you’ll get your privacy back. There’s less of your personal life for companies to buy from Facebook, so they can sell you stuff you don’t actually want.
5. You’ll have less online arguments.
Someone’s left a nasty update about someone or something you care about. So you decide to leave your own nasty comment in return, or you try to correct their ignorance. The next thing you know, it’s midnight and you’re still in a nasty discussion about something of no importance with someone you don’t even care about.
And your wife has gone to bed angry, giving you the cold shoulder when you finally get there. You blame Facebook, she just blames you.
Quitting Facebook can help save your important relationships by giving you less distraction.
6. Rediscover the real connections you have with people in your life.
One of the things that being on Facebook does is disconnect you from real life people. They remain as friends in Facebook, there’s often little incentive to connect with them in real life.
By quitting Facebook you can rediscover connections with people that you haven’t hung out with for months or years.
Instead of just sharing an update with them on Facebook, you arrange to meet them for coffee, or dinner, or a movie.
Quitting Facebook can help you reconnect with people that are important to you. You can talk around a dinner table and share more intimate discussions than you can ever do online.
Quitting Facebook helps you get your life back, mixing with people who are real, rather than pixels on a screen.
Join me. Quit Facebook and rediscover your life.
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