10 Reasons You Should Consider Deleting Your Facebook

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A few weeks ago, I deleted my Facebook and it has positively impacted my life and my sanity. Here are some reasons why I deleted mine, and why I think you should consider taking the plunge, too.

10. Stop stressin’.

We all do it. Facebook is stressful. Something that started out as fun and a great way to connect with friends has become too much. Checking FB every 10 minutes to see how many likes you have on your new profile pic, getting angry over your mom’s embarrassing comments on your status, seeing what girl your ex-boyfriend is with…and for what? We’re bombarded with these images, words and updates that are STRESSFUL. The myriad information is pointless, unproductive and negative. Life is already stressful enough — why add more?

9. Some cheese with that whine?

Social media seems to be nothing but a big old pile of complaints lately. Whether it’s a status about the bad service you got at a restaurant or venting about the unfair professor who didn’t give you an A, we’ve all used social media at one point or another to complain complain complain. In hopes that someone sympathizes and validates our frustration, we’ve turned our social media platforms into a platform of negativity. As someone trying to practice the art of daily thankfulness, Facebook is the ultimate enemy of gratitude.

8. Connect.

With 500+ FB friends, the people who actually matter to you and who you consistently care about can be neglected. With FB off, I have to actually pick up my phone and call or text the people I want to hang out with. Not only does a call mean more than a FB message, but while I’m hanging out with them, I’m not on my phone, half-heartedly paying attention to them, nor am I gossiping about the latest update about someone I haven’t talked to in 4 years. Also, I’m able to see what friends actually put in the effort to talk to ME. Without FB, THEY have to be more intentional too. See what I did there?

7. Compare no more.

Ohhh, this one is a biggie. I am the ultimate comparer. I don’t know where I learned to compare myself, my life, and my abilities to others, but I am so good at it. And it makes me feel awful. Without FB, I’m not tempted to feel less than I am because I am not bombarded with selfies, I am not overloaded with coupley pictures that make me hate my life and I am certainly not overwhelmed with the amount of people I need to compare my life to in one day. I know that I can’t get on social media without being tempted to compare myself to my “friends”…so now I don’t get on and I have more time to be thankful about what I do have and who I am.

6. TMI.

Social media documents every little thing about your life. It documents everything about everyone else’s life too. It’s just plain overwhelming. There’s way too much information coming at you at once and, because of that, it’s harder to discern what is actually important information and what isn’t. That’s why we totally just zone out and lose track of time when we’re on FB…because our brain is overloaded and it’s a mindless activity. It’s just too much. Not being overwhelmed with so much has totally affected my mental health. Thumbs up.

5. Forget yourself.

Facebook is a vanity, self-centered MACHINE. Seriously. We have our own pages…devoted to us. It’s our platform to say and be whatever we want. We can spend hours on our social media making sure that everything looks just perfect. We want our lives to look just so. We are able to control how we appear. And that’s just unnatural. We sift through tons of pictures of ourselves to find just the right one for our profile picture…because that picture is going to represent us to the world, gosh darnit! We get anxious and frustrated when we are tagged in an unflattering picture because heaven forbid someone sees us without makeup on or not looking like we just walked out of a magazine. It’s so fake. It’s so anxiety-inducing. It’s so vain. It puts all the focus on us and in such a self-centered society, it’s not so easy to stop focusing on yourself and begin to focus on others for a change. But deleting FB will make you much more aware of where your focus is at. Get outside of yourself.

4. Go get something done.

Facebook is a time sucker. Delete FB and watch yourself get that paper done lickety-split.

3. Fight the system.

It is so annoying how our entire world revolves around Facebook. When I deleted Facebook, there were several apps like Spotify that I could no longer log into because they had been synced up with my FB. And I had to make completely new accounts to even use the app. How frustrating! I do not want to let a simple website define what I can do. That’s silly.

2. Who cares?

Who cares what that girl you haven’t talked to in 4 years ate for breakfast today? Who cares who the guy you had a crush on years ago is now dating? Who cares who got their haircut? Who cares who went on a date with who? Who cares what someone is wearing today? Who cares where the person you worked with last summer is going on vacation to? Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? None of this information is important at all. It won’t change your whether you know this information or not. And it far too easily turns into gossip. Cut it out and feel happier.

1. IT’S LIBERATING!

FREEDOM! Guess what? Exciting, wonderful things happen in my life even when I am not Instagramming them. Sad, frustrating things happen in my life even when I am not venting about them online. People still have birthdays even when I don’t write on their wall with my obligatory birthday wish…and they don’t even notice that my obligatory birthday wish isn’t there anymore. I still have friends — and they are still important to me — even though I am not bombarded with their statuses and photos. Wake up. Get off social media. Go live your life and be free from all the negativity on the Internet that is holding you back. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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