This is a strange stage of my life. When I first started setting up a social media account over a decade ago I thought it represented a huge improvement for humanity, or at least those who were fortunate enough to have access to it. Facebook was probably one of the more exciting things I had witnessed in the technology age. Being able to keep in close contact with friends was astounding and the ease with which one could add other acquaintances as contacts was equally exciting.
The honeymoon lasted a year or two before dilemmas presented themselves. Did I really want everyone I knew to see what was going on in my life? What about work colleagues? And friends of friends? And the occasional person who was not friends of anyone I knew but suddenly wanted to be friends with me?
Maintaining all of this soon became something of an annoyance tinged with unnecessary guilt. Even people with hundreds of “friends” were often quick to notice if you removed them from your friend list. Then I started noticing when people began to remove me from their lists. I actually asked someone once and was told that I “posted too much.” I believe that was the nicest way they could phrase it when in fact they were probably put off by my subject matter — my propensity to write every twisted thought while holding very little back, swear words and all.
The posts of others were starting to annoy me as well. The memes and games were fun at the outset but eventually everyone was doing it and the result was 300 people all posting that stuff as well as news links, cutesy links, music videos, and occasionally some original personal content with the latter seeming to be the best use of the platform, in my opinion.
The trend continued. Things got more political and soon it was obvious what a diverse group of people were using this, and that many were within my friend list. There were disagreements, debates, confrontations, and some instances of ugliness. By the time we were well into the Obama Administration I’d had my fill of people on the far right side of the spectrum and I had to purge. I thought if I could rid my page of them, leaving only those with rational political beliefs, things would be better.
However, the news sharing was all still there. Not only was it too much, but the comments on people’s links were often infuriating if they happened to have a lot of far-right friends, and it seems most everyone did.
To sum up my feelings here I can say if I went to a party with 300 people and almost everyone was talking about and arguing politics, and 30 of those people were avid vocal Trump supporters, I’d have to exit the building quickly.
It wasn’t just the politics chewing away at my last nerve. Religion was taking a severe toll on me. Every bit of bad news whether on a personal level, or a national tragedy, was peppered with the canned “thoughts and prayers.”
Back to the social media platforms themselves, I’ve always been annoyed by the personal data collection tactics, the adverts (which are sometimes so explicit they’re showing you products that you were browsing on other sites just a few hours earlier), and the stockpiling of profits by these corporations which we are feeding. I never thought of data mining as a deal breaker although I didn’t like the tactic. I do understand they are in this for profits and the primary sources of income are advertising and selling data. It is the price you pay for a free service. But after witnessing all the political antics to influence elections, and the economic impact of these social media giants in the cities where they are based rendering them unaffordable for all but the elites, and the mergers of social media platforms in an effort to control an environment, I started to despise all of this.
For a decade or so I have maintained two Facebook accounts, Twitter and Instagram. My satisfaction level has largely been in continuous and often steep decline. I ceased posting to either Facebook account in 2017 although I was still active on it via comments on the posts of others. I was active on Twitter until I became fed up with sharing a platform with that orange shithole in the Oval Office. Instagram I enjoyed the most because it seemed to be more artistic and less political, at least with the group of people I followed. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much interaction with people and I started to question why I was bothering with any of this. After 10 years I was feeling everything starting to unravel.
Then I fucking snapped.
After a spontaneously acrimonious exchange with some fuckwad I didn’t even know on a friend’s Facebook post, I decided it was time. I disabled both Facebook accounts. I had already disabled Twitter a month or two ago. And in a final fit of rage to completely extricate myself from this social media cesspool of human degradation, I completely deleted my Instagram account.
This has happened before, but usually just one platform would get disabled for a few days before I returned. I have never shut off the entire lot of them.
At first I thought it would be nice to take a break for 2-3 days, and decide how best to make these work for me, if there is even a way to do that. Once I realised I had deleted rather than disabled Instagram, and that to return would require a new account, and finding all the connections again, I started to feel a strange sense of liberation.
The first few nights were odd as I would grab my iPad from habit and look at the social media icons which were linked to nothing. I didn’t know what to do with my hands!
Honestly, I have no regrets. There are moments in the day when I think of reconnecting, and then I read a news story about Zuckerberg and I feel completely reinforced in my desire to stay off.
It has been two weeks I think and I’m doing far better than I expected. There were people I followed on Twitter and Instagram as well as Facebook, and sometimes I feel a little sad about that. Then I realise it was only me following them. There was no reciprocity nor any relationship. In their daily lives they do not know I even exist. And I feel a bit more grounded when I acknowledge that fact.
Another irony in all this is that I have a few friends who have never had a social media account. I used to think that was strange. I could never quite understand how the hell they could function without one.
I do not know if or when I shall return or in what capacity.
It does not really matter right now.
