The Finalization of Facebook Detox (It’s a Good Thing)

About a year ago I had decided to no longer go onto Facebook. I wrote about it, and called it Facebook Detox. (Admittedly, I wrote Detox I, II, and possibly III.) At first, I thought it would be really hard for me to no longer have social media. As the days turned to weeks, then months, I can honestly say, I am not missing a thing. I still kept my Facebook messenger on my phone, but, I never had the Facebook App. Ever. I wanted to keep in contact with some of my friends who are distant from me but, have been my friends for 35+ years. They are the friends that we caught up on Facebook Posts, and, honestly, I have to say that I do not miss Facebook at all. I will never miss “selfies” (pictures people take of themselves), I know a person (whom I shall call C.) who is about 8 years older than myself. I noticed that she spent 90% of her time whilst hanging out with me, on Facebook. She constantly posted pictures of herself, and, would keep me up to date (about every 5 minutes) on how many people liked her picture she had taken of herself. In fact, she would get upset if a certain guy didn’t comment or “like” her photo. She really was in her mid 50’s. Her whole life was spent on who liked her profile, who liked where she was, her posts, her pictures. (I use this in past tense, because we are no longer friends, and I really am a better and happier person since I had severed ties with her.) I did give her credit for one thing. She never took a selfie with a shower curtain behind her. (Gag, people. Really!!) 

I have seen this age of people that care so much about how many friends they have on Facebook, and even will go so far as to make Facebook, or any other social media as a “scale” if you will, of whether or not you were friends, based on the interaction with (said social media). I didn’t end my friendship with her because of Facebook, however, her friendship was measured according to her, based on Facebook. In fact, we got into an argument, and her first thing she texted me as I was driving home, was, “I deleted your bitchie ass- We are officially no longer friends” in reference to her going onto Facebook, deleting me as her friend, and then thinking that I would be so torn up about her deleting me, I would absolutely break down and sob. I didn’t. In fact, I still think it was funny, in a pathetic way, that she would think that our Facebook friendship meant more to me than our actual friendship. 

It made me realize, however, that people are conditioned to feel acceptance, friendship, self worth, all on Facebook or any other social media. 

I tend to see Social Media as Pavlov’s Dog. The bell in this case would be the message indicator that someone like something, retweeted, reposted, etc etc whatever you posted or wrote, and the reward is looking at the phone to see who liked, commented, retweeted, reposted, shared the post you wrote... etc. 

Is it really that rewarding? 

I have found in my case, that I can and do live with out social media. When I am with my friends, I want to be with them, not posting things that we are eating together, where we are, and taking a picture of what we are doing just to make sure everyone likes or comments what I am posting. How about the old fashioned way of being around those you care about? I found it really refreshing and, even felt really proud of my mothering, when, last February I took my two sons and one daughter out for dinner to celebrate child #4’s birthday. While we were waiting for the order to arrive, not one of us were on our phones. We were in conversation, laughing, even playing a catapult game with packets of Jams and a spoon, (taking me back to my teenage years!) and really enjoying each others company. With that, We would once in a while take a picture of places the jam packets would land (one catapulted to a TV wall mount and remained there). The waiter came by as were doing this, and we apologized profusely, when he, and several of his colleagues said they loved us as customers because, for the first time, a family is not on their phones, and, we were paying attention to each other and those around us. They had said they have not seen that in years. In fact, the waiter was about the same age as child #4 or #5, and he said he had never seen that in life, and most people nowadays are just too engrossed with their phones, that, people don’t even greet him when he comes to the table to get their order. He also said that sometimes, he would have to wait about 20 minutes for the customers to be off their phones so he could run over to the table to take their orders. 

This is what it’s come down to. 

Is our society really going to not be interactive and interface with each other? In the 1950’s many people didn’t want Televisions in their homes because they felt like it was a control tactic (or tool) to get into the younger people’s brains. Some people called out that those who thought televisions were dangerous were conspiracy theorists who had too much time on their hands. Well, aren’t we now? 

I really think that Facebook was more harmful to me than I realized, and I am so glad I made the decision to cut out social media.