Anti Social – why I finally Quit Facebook.

I wasn’t the first time I tried to leave Facebook…

To be honest I tried to kick the habit quite a few years ago. I was already getting the feeling that a lot of what I was seeing on Facebook was at best a waste of time and at worst hateful nonsense. I had a few business Facebook pages that I needed admin access to (or so I thought) so I created a new ‘work’ Facebook account, transferred the page admin and deleted my other Facebook account.

So I thought I had more or less quit Facebook …

But over time there were a few people I missed having contact with, and my friend list began to creep back onto my work Facebook. And while it was nice to keep in touch with people in that kinda passive way Facebook enables, along with it came the nonsense. It got to the point that there were more promoted posts, adverts and gibberish masquerading as posts than actual content from my friends.

And Facebook still wasted a lot of my time…

Somehow I still kept going back. Checking the site several times a day at work, or on my phone. Almost like a nervous habit, a distraction from some of the less interesting tasks or a way of not having to come face to face with myself.

I deleted the app from my home screen and shortcuts, but my neural pathways soon taught themselves to find the app and launch it. Next I deleted the app altogether, but soon I was opening a browser and visiting the mobile site without even thinking about it.

And it stayed like that for a while. The Cambridge Anaytica Scandal came and went. Elections were most likely meddled with elsewhere. Maybe Brexit. Zuckerberg appeared in front of congress and droned and wheedled his way out of any responsibility for anything.

Then I was finally inspired to leave Facebook for Good…

What finally did it was the news that Facebook was happy to allow death threats against public figures – a policy Imran Ahmed, founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, described as “flabbergasting”. I tend to agree with him. This seems like little more that a flagrant attempt to foment controversies to boost engagement.

So I decided once and for all – that I did not need to part of that platform, that organization. A huge money making enterprise that seems to have no real morals or ethics beyond the dollar. Through my own spiritual and life journey I had already reached the conclusion that one of the key things missing in day to day life is personal moral & ethics. The precepts of right speech and right action, to borrow from Buddhism. To be honest it can be a real pain in the bum – actually thinking about and owning your actions, your thoughts, your choices and doing the right thing rather than just what is fun or easy. But I try, more and more.

So why would I want to support a company that despite its huge success, reach and impact, can’t step up and try to do the same. I decided right then that the next time Facebook reported user number or engagement growth, I didn’t want Duncan Elsey to be part of those figures. So I deleted my account. And it felt good. And I haven’t missed it one little bit.

Full disclosure –  I was hardly a social media power user, and Facebook probably don’t notice or care that I am not there. But maybe there are more people who are starting to feel like me. And if you are one of them, I wanted to let you know that you can do it too.

If you have been thinking about quitting Facebook,  I am sure you know there has just been another round of leaks telling us how Facebook just can’t bring itself to put public good ahead of profit. That it knows Instagram (and presumably by association Facebook) was particularly damaging for young girls, but didn’t release the findings. And so much more.

The fact that Facebook keeps doing these things, over and over, suggests that the best time to quit Facebook might have been years ago, but the second best time is RIGHT NOW!

So what do I do instead of Facebook?

Well, in terms of technology I reached out to people who are important to me and let them know. I made sure they had other contact details for me, that we had other ways to keep in touch.

I set up or joined Signal groups (like WhatsApp, but NOT owned by Facebook at least for now). They are a great way of having an ongoing chat between loose-knit groups of people. Running groups, friend groups, book clubs. I find other ways to share those moments of fun, inspiration or even sadness with people I care about, without shouting it into the void that is social media.

But my objective wasn’t to just replace one platform with another. If I find myself with that urge to waste time online (browsing around endless websites looking for anything new or interesting to read) – I have a list of other things to do instead. Go for a run or hit the gym. Go and make some great food. Read a book. Meditate. Pick off a few small tasks around the house (of which there are normally many). Chat with a friend, or arrange to meet up. Write – maybe journaling, maybe creative writing, maybe something on this blog. The list is almost endless. All the things we tell ourselves we don’t have time to do – then go and spend and hour on Facebook 😉

This is part of a bigger shift for me. To try to focus on community. To spend quality time with real people and have real conversations. To buy more locally, be more local. Maybe to be the exact opposite of what Facebook would like me to be.

PS – a few more things that drove me to quit Facebook:

• Its murky history being founded by someone who though its was OK to hack a bunch of sites to build an app to rate female students ‘hotness’
• Its reputation for a lack of diversity
• The WhatsApp privacy change
• The slow shift to show me ads more than my friends posts
• The more obvious shift in our business to show our posts to almost no-one unless we pay, despite the amount of time we spend building a following and adding great content.
• I am sure there are more & more that will come back to me!