Why I Deleted My Facebook (And Why You Should Too)

We all do it. We all spend endless amounts of time just scrolling. Scrolling through nonsense, scrolling through drunken pictures of people we hated in high school, scrolling through pointless (and sometimes weird) articles our relatives share — relatives that are way too old to be on Facebook in the first place. But why? For what? We aren’t gaining anything from watching other people live out their lives from behind a computer screen.

One day I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized how ridiculous it was that we pretty much watch our online friends live their lives and a put a gold star on what they’re doing by “liking” their crappy statuses or over-filtered pictures. It dawned on me that if someone truly cared about you and what you were doing with your life, they wouldn’t just watch you live it out from a safe distance online. If someone truly cared to see how you were doing, they would reach out with a phone call or a text at the very least, just a gesture that shows they actually give a shit about what you’re doing with your life. It’s awfully silly that we forget that there is a lot more going on in our lives other than what we choose to post on social media.

I have to admit that the responses I’ve gotten from people after telling them that I have deleted or no longer have a Facebook have been priceless. The blonde sorority girl I sit next to in advertising class gave me a shocked and disgusted look and said, “How do you…live??” She was serious. I laughed. You don’t need Facebook to live. Really, there’s nothing on Facebook that you can’t do on your own or elsewhere. Sure it’s convenient for Internet stalking that cute guy in your art class, but you’d probably get a lot further with that relationship if you actually talked to him in person. Deleting that form of Internet presence makes you feel so free, and so much more confident in yourself since you aren’t defined by everyone’s first impression of your profile picture, but rather your personality.

My advice to you is to deactivate your Facebook. Just do it. It has been one of the most liberating things I have done in my short adult life. I know it sounds daunting and a bit like social suicide, but you won’t regret it. There are endless things you instantly realize, like the insane amount of time you spent on it and how much of your beautiful life you were truly missing out on.