This morning, I killed my Facebook account. Ahhhh...it's hard to explain how good it feels. It's like I just went from being a chronic hoarder to completing the most thorough spring cleaning possible as well as the post-purge Goodwill drop-off.
When I first joined Facebook a few years ago, it was with cautious optimism. I had avoided joining MySpace because I had no desire to reconnect with anyone from my past, but when a friend explained to me that Facebook is a great way to share pictures with friends and family members, I made the decision to join. I love pictures, and I wanted to be able to watch my friends' kids grow up even though we live far apart.
As soon as I joined, I started receiving friend requests from people I knew from the past but hadn't heard from for ten years or more - folks from elementary school, high school, previous jobs, previous cities, etc. The reconnections peaked my curiosity while simultaneously triggering my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. "What is everyone I've ever known up to these days?" "What do these people who I don't even know think about my random thoughts?" "How was my 3rd grade friend's trip to Belize? I must know!" I got sucked into Facebookland quickly and soon began collecting friends like I used to collect rocks, snow globes, and stuffed animals, except that those things were inert and relatively harmless, while Facebook friends were a living force, ever updating, morphing, and doing doing doing.
Within months of joining, I found myself compulsively checking Facebook. I didn't play the stupid games, but I still maniacally checked people's postings, updates, pictures, friend connections, and blah blah blah. Millions of previously unimportant factoids were suddenly significant enough to investigate several times per day. It was an addictive habit, offering no true benefit while sucking up time as well as emotional & mental energy for nothing actually productive or important.
Before I knew it, I had 20 million Facebook friends. Okay, not really, but that's how it felt. Some of the "friends" were people I'd known from the past and not even liked. How had this happened? All I'd wanted to do was share pictures with friends and family members, and suddenly I was having feelings about how many comments I'd received on my status updates and how many people I didn't even really know had wished me a happy birthday! WTF?
So this morning, inspired by the turn of the new year and the fact that my football team pulled out a victory, I killed my Facebook page. I could not have predicted the wonderful feeling of calm that would wash over me upon its death. It is quite astounding. Since I shot my Facebook account in the face, I have gone from feeling like this:
to feeling like this:
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