I deleted my Facebook profile this month and it was the best decision I have ever made.
Prior to my hasty decision to write-off Facebook, I was scrolling through the clutter of videos and memes and I came across a blog post about Gabourey Sidibe. The post about the “Precious” star was a transformation Tuesday.
In particular, it pointed out the fact that the star had not lost weight since filming the movie “Precious.” The writer of the blog post was particularly blatant about discriminating against the star solely on her weight and nothing else. It got to me.
I thought, “This is my queue. It’s time to leave Facebook.”
It wasn’t just the blog post disrespecting a famous woman based on her size that convinced me. The months of shared fake news and strangers picking political fights had overcome my urge to stay on the map any longer.
Like a ritual routine, it can be hard to break, here are some of the upsides, downsides and things I’ve noticed.
Here are the pros:
- I don’t see anyone from high school anymore.
If you were like me, high school was a terrible torturous time that I just want to forget. You can’t forget when Samantha, your high school bully, keeps updating her status with all her baby daddy drama. Nobody needs to know that Brad cheated on you again.
- Bye, bye Trump arguments:
When you aren’t on Facebook, the chances of getting in a dispute over our president is significantly less. Nobody wants to argue about it unless there’s a computer screen between them and the other person. By deleting my Facebook I wipe my hands clean (mostly) of Trump disputes.
- I don’t see my ex anymore.
…Enough said…
- Free time!
This is kind of irrelevant because I only spend 30 minutes a day on Facebook. I probably just spend that watching TV, but “WestWorld” is a much better use of my time than Facebook.
Here are the cons:
- I don’t see anyone from high school anymore.
Regardless of how terrible high school and Samantha were to me, I secretly love hearing about her baby daddy drama. I love the drama. It’s like Gatorade. It replenishes my electrolytes. But staying on Facebook to feed on the drama is probably not the right reason to stay on Facebook… right?
- I have to find a new location to find my memes
Sharing memes with my friends was the only thing I did on Facebook. They were all in one central, convenient location too. This just means I’ll have to find a new app for that.
- I can’t read the comments on The Criterion articles anymore
I get a kick out of reading some of the thoughts and opinions some may have about the articles The Criterion shares as a whole, but especially those comments on my own articles.
The reasons I miss Facebook are because I miss feeding into the drama of other’s lives. I won’t deny it. This is also the exact reason why Facebook had to go. It was no longer about connecting me with people from my past but a site where on a daily basis I could either go to make myself feel better or worse about myself.
