{"id":2897,"date":"2019-12-05T09:53:45","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T14:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/?p=2897"},"modified":"2020-06-03T10:35:46","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T14:35:46","slug":"i-quit-facebook-and-what-happened-to-my-stress-levels-will-shock-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2019\/12\/05\/i-quit-facebook-and-what-happened-to-my-stress-levels-will-shock-you\/","title":{"rendered":"I Quit Facebook and What Happened to My Stress Levels Will Shock You"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Do you ever wonder why people stay in dysfunctional relationships?\u00a0 If you\u2019re on Facebook and feeling increasingly unhappy about being trapped because it\u2019s the only way your social circle contacts each other, you don\u2019t need to ask that question.\u00a0 You already know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll make excuses for it. \nYou\u2019ll look for the benefits. \nWorse, you might actually get some sort of service or support you don\u2019t\nthink you can get anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Facebook is Bad<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I broke up with Facebook recently.  When I say I am done, I mean I deleted my\nprofile and everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did it for a lot of reasons, but yeah, the cynical contempt of Facebook’s users by the people who own it, and the corruption behind it, are major motivators.  To be frank, I was feeling mistreated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality is that any interaction over Facebook is not\nhappening organically but is being manipulated. \nWe\u2019ve probably all heard about The\nNotorious Facebook Emotional Manipulation Experiment of 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s more than that direct and blatant manipulation.  Our interactions are being guided by\nadvertisements, for pity\u2019s sake!  How you\nconnect to a friend on Facebook who is going through significant emotional\ntrouble is being used as data to encourage you to look at advertisements and\nbuy products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the very nature of the platform, it is also how Facebook\nis encouraging us to communicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or think<\/em> we\u2019ve communicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of us post updates on our lives from Facebook and think\nwe\u2019ve communicated<\/em> with our friends. \nI am increasingly of the opinion that\u2019s not what\u2019s really<\/em>\nhappening.  What I think is really\nhappening is that we\u2019re curating newsletters.  Well, that and forwarding other people\u2019s<\/em>\nthoughts.[1]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a value in curated newsletters, yes \u2013 if you\u2019re a\npublic figure, or manage a large interest group of some sort.  I\u2019m not, and I don\u2019t\u2026 Not anymore anyway.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, sure, sure, social media can make you feel<\/em> like\nyou are some sort of celebrity and that mass communications are the best way to\ninteract with your fans.  And therein\nlies the danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please don\u2019t interpret this as saying Social Media is Evil\nand Wrong.  It\u2019s not.  I\u2019ve used the Internet as a way to meet and\ndevelop friendships since the mid-nineties. That means I\u2019ve been using online\ncommunication for about half my life \u2013more like 70% of my adult life.  I\u2019ve developed many genuine friendships[2]<\/a>\non message boards, discussion groups, and other forms of social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the disconnect comes in when you\u2019re not<\/em>\nmessaging people and having conversations personally<\/em>.  Sure, sure, commenting on posts can become<\/strong>\na conversation.  So often, however,\nyou\u2019re not really doing that.  You can\nacknowledge what you saw with no conversation at all, just by pressing that \u201cLike\u201d\nbutton.  It\u2019s more like Show-n-Tell.  While it has its place to give ideas for\nconversation, are you getting out on the playground and playing Superheroes,\ntoo?  Chances are that you\u2019re not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I learned from quitting Facebook<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I do spend a lot of time online.  Yes, some people noticed when I left a\nplatform.  So, what happened, and what\ndid I learn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I worried a couple of friends.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A friend of 30 years or so actually went so far as to text\nmy husband, afraid that something Really Bad had happened to me when my profile\ndisappeared.  Yes, I sent him a\nreassuring email and explained my choice. \nAnother friend thought I\u2019d been mortally offended by something she\u2019d\nsaid that I\u2019d commented on and was worried about it.  I wasn\u2019t. \nI told her so.  It\u2019s all good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had friends comment on the importance of reaching out.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Like me, some of my friends were bullied when they were\nyoung.  One of the scars this leaves is: Do\nthey really<\/strong> like me, or are they just being \u201cnice?\u201d  <\/em>This will make you slow to reach\nout.  Within 18 hours of deleting my\nFacebook account and telling people I knew about it, three people made comments\nabout how they were afraid of leaving Facebook because they wouldn\u2019t be\nconvenient to contact and that they\u2019re bad at reaching out.  More interesting, every single person I\ncontacted responded with happiness that I did reach out and turned out to need\nthat contact in some way or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m there.  I\u2019m good<\/strong>\nat reaching out to my parents and son every week.  That weekly call and the visits are a pretty ingrained\nhabit that I like.  Not so good\notherwise.  I\u2019ve been conscious of this\nproblem for years.  The reality in my\ncase is that Facebook seems to satisfy the \u201creach out\u201d urge (which is an\nincredibly low and small signal for me, anyway), and it\u2019s not doing my\nrelationships any good. Like putting artificial sweetener in a hummingbird\nfeeder, I was getting the feeling<\/em> of being socially satisfied.  In reality, I was probably socially starving\nto death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are people who think if you\u2019re not thinking about and\nreaching out to people urgently, then those people aren\u2019t really important to\nyou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, sure, if you\u2019re neurotypical, don\u2019t have problems with\nmental illness, or whatever, maybe.  That\nain\u2019t me.  I\u2019m even willing to bet it\nain\u2019t some people who are reading this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I am Not Normal, I wound up writing up a spreadsheet\nwith a bunch of relationships I have and how often I really oughta be\ncontacting them.  I know it sounds cold,\nbut I figure it\u2019s no worse than having an address book because it\u2019d be impossible\nto remember everyone\u2019s contact info.  I want\n<\/em>to maintain my relationships.  I will<\/em>\nforget or let time get away from me.  I\nhave a tool now to keep me from doing that. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had friends initiate reaching out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once I started reaching out, people reached back.  That was cool.  What was better was that they also started\ninitiating contact, too.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m subscribing to a few newspapers and reading more magazines.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Facebook, as a news source, is terrible.  We all know it, and we get lazy, letting the\nnews articles forwarded to us be our primary news source.  Sometimes I feel like it\u2019s about as reliable\nas supermarket tabloids.  If I\u2019m eye-rolling\nthat, I don\u2019t think I have any business with the Facebook News Feed as my\nprimary news source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve actually sucked it up and paid for a few online news\nsources.  I\u2019m going to be dedicating some\ntime each day (haven\u2019t decided how much yet) to reading them.  It won\u2019t be as much time as I spent screwing\naround on Facebook, but it\u2019ll be something significant.  Being Informed is important, surely.   But I don\u2019t think that circulated articles\non a platform known to manipulate the feed is a way to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not that I think that commercial soi-disent journalism is\nexactly pure, either.  But choosing a few\ndifferent sources that I read, myself, should help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been integrating this with a Time Tracking Experiment.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Just because I have Border Collie Brain Syndrome[3]<\/a> and need to give my brain something to do, I decided to track every minute of the day <\/a>and how I spend it.  Yes, it is a tedious pain in the butt and no, I won\u2019t be doing it the rest of my life, but I think it has given me some really important feedback on how I spend the finite moments of my life and what\u2019s worth it to be spending those moments on.   The utterly anemic amount of meaningful contact with real people became blisteringly obvious in less than a day, though, and was a factor in this Leaving Facebook thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have not gotten rid of (nor do I want to) all online socialization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Get real.  I\u2019ve been\nsocializing at least in part online for nearly 25 years.  I do enjoy online chats, even if those chats\nhave moved to a different device or platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Email?  Look, I was a\nprolific correspondent even as a teenager before online communication was\ncommonplace.  I was always writing some pen\npal or other a letter, and even passing notes to my friends in school.  Writing is a favorite form of communication\nfor me (duh!), and yes, I write emails even more than I subject my\nlongsuffering correspondents to my atrocious handwriting.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am feeling less depressed.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d been going through a bad period because of Reasons.  Facebook was Not Helping.  It\u2019s not that things aren\u2019t\u2026. tense in the\nworld right now.  They are.  Hey, I\u2019m still reading the news and not\nsticking my head in the sand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the deal. \nAdvertisements revolve around making you anxious, then offering a\nsolution for that anxiety.  That is\nspecifically how advertising is designed. \nFacebook\u2019s revenue comes from selling your data and advertising.  It is specifically designed<\/em> to make\nyou anxious<\/strong>.  Once I could see the\nfnords, it helped me realize there are other ways to stay informed about the\nworld, interact socially with geographically diverse friendships and not use a\nplatform that is hurting rather than helping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relief was almost immediate.  As in, \u201cmy fitness watch that measures stress\nshowed it\u201d immediate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yeah\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve done more \u201creal writing.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Just as my low bar for feeling satisfied with social\ninteraction was tripped with Facebook, my somewhat higher bar for feeling\nsatisfied about writing was also tripped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m spending more time on articles \u2013 researching more and\nediting a bit more.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Can You Do?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

You might or might not want to leave Facebook.  I have Views, but you don\u2019t have to share them.  That said, I want to challenge you a\nbit.  Are you talking to your loved ones\noutside of a \u201cPost and like\u201d format?  I\u2019m\nnot saying you have to call \u2018em on the phone. \nI get that you might prefer to communicate in textual format. Boy, howdy\ndo I get that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, instead, try this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n