Thanks to Facebook, I was able to connect with my old friends and families, celebrated their happy moments with a thumbs up, knew what they eat, where they were, expressed myself so others know a little bit more about me.
Okay, I’m going to refer Facebook as she from this point because Facebook was the last thing I’ve seen before I sleep and the first when I wake up. At the end of the day, I spent a lot of time with her but the hours were gone without anything get really accomplished.
She was a silent killer, she made my insecurity grew significantly, how can I not do that when I all that I saw was the holiday pictures, the new gadget that they just bought. I began to see and compare what they have but I don’t at the back of my mind. comparing myself to them was depressing, it wasn’t a good way to start my day. The worse thing how can my mood be affected by someone else so easily, those tiny little news stream shouldn’t harm me but it did. I guess one contributing factor is because people have the tendency to present themselves in the best light possible.
She was like a drug to me, I craved for more attention even from the people that I don’t know, strive to gain more “like” and comments. Scrolling through it day by day become a habit and addiction. I didn’t think that way of course, so I challenged myself whether I was willing to fast from it for a month (have you heard about Facebook detox)? It didn’t end well. It’s basically a social validation feedback loop that hacked my life by exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology, you may question this statement cause I’m nobody but this statement about social validation feedback was quoted from Sean Parker, founding president of Facebook.
I made a rough calculation on my relationship with her, half an hour in the morning during the toilet time, five minutes during brushing my teeth, half an hour during the commute, an hour maybe when I had break or lunch during the day, another half an hour on the way back home, another half hour during dinner and my free time and oh perhaps another half hour before I sleep. I wanted to improve myself, invest in myself to be a better me and I know that I needed the time. At the end of the day, I knew that I had to cut her off.
I uninstalled the apps on my phone, it wasn’t easy there was a time when I came back to install it after a while but by keep focusing on what I must lose in order to gain has helped me a lot.
By the way, do you remember that I only quitting halfway? Why didn’t I completely banish her? Facebook it’s not completely, 100% evil in my opinion. she has some positive benefit if you can manage her. I still use Facebook to check on company or restaurant pages whenever I need some information, some old friend still sending me some message from Facebook and I politely tell them that I’m no longer active in Facebook and it will take some time for me to reply them and give them my mobile number as well.
And that’s it, I no longer interact with her on a relationship basis, only visiting her from time to time.
I know I’m not alone! perhaps some of you need to break up with her just like I do or you already did it. Do share your story or struggle perhaps we can encourage each other!
