We Quit Facebook

We quit Facebook.

This really shouldn’t feel like a monumental statement, since in the big scheme of things Facebook has been around for an infinitesimal fraction of human existence. But for some reason, this feels like a breakup.

We initially talked about giving up the “social network” after the 2016 presidential election cycle, when we saw many friends act in genuinely unfriendly ways. People unfriended each other, family members took offense to the views of their siblings and the resultant “echo chamber” was a generally hostile place to be.

Around that time I carefully avoided political posts for fear of unruly comments from people I love and respect. Gradually, I groomed my Facebook presence into a positive, sanitized version of myself. Josh took the opposite approach, posting more controversial topics and responding to the inevitable contrary comments. This method was time consuming and emotionally trying. And since he had a house to fix and a baby on the way, Josh quit Facebook first.

I had a harder time coming to grips with the decision to pull the plug. I built up a pretty nice Facebook following by sharing photos of our house project and my growing baby belly. Plus, the public page for my blog accumulated almost 1,000 followers – small change for most sites (but to me it felt like a lot of people to engage with).

The first dent in the Facebook armor came when I did research for my Data Visualization class during the last semester of my masters degree. I analyzed every single post I made on my public blog page and found that most posts had one or fewer reactions (likes, shares, comments). As I dug in further, I found out that Facebook predicted that those posts would not be popular, so they showed them to fewer people in an effort to maximize “engagement” (side note: This same maximizing algorithm is why hateful posts become popular on Facebook – those posts are engaging, even if they are morally disgusting).

I could buy an audience by boosting my posts, which I was tempted to do a couple times. However, since I don’t make much money from blogging I could not justify it. Again, in hindsight it feels so weird to say that I even considered paying a platform that claims to connect “friends” to show my content to friends. What?!

So last spring I stopped posting as frequently on my public page. I intended to focus my energies and content development on my own blog to drive traffic there through organic searches. The problem is… that never happened. When I ramped down sharing on my public page, instead of more frequent blog updates I ramped up sharing on my private Facebook page.

I liked the responses I got from my social network. I felt supported and cared for and encouraged. So I started posting and sharing more, feeling more supported.

And that is exactly what Facebook wanted me to do.

Only, I didn’t feel more supported. Like many folks, certain Facebook posts made me semi-anxious. When I was starting to breastfeed, I definitely got great advice from breastfeeding groups on Facebook. But I also got majorly stressed that my freezer stash wasn’t big enough, and that I would have a terrible time going back to work at the end of maternity leave. Thankfully, those things didn’t come to fruition – my freezer stash is in great shape and I’ve had a wonderful transition back to work.

It turns out that while my 1500+ “friends” are probably great, I have a few really great friends (and a wonderful family) in real life that I was neglecting by spending time on Facebook. Josh went to a wedding a few months back and had a wonderful time as he actually caught up with friends, since he hadn’t followed their latest happenings on Facebook. In contrast, several real-life acquaintances commented on how cute my baby was, though they’ve never met him (and probably won’t). Those strange interactions, combined with the occasional “Oh I saw that on Facebook” comment that would shut down an attempted update to friends, left me feeling a bit creeped out and sad.

I finally “woke up” when my son was four months old and starting to imitate us. He would reach for my water bottle after I took a drink. He wanted to try the food on my plate. If I used a napkin, he wanted to use it too.

What would happen when he wanted to try using my phone? I didn’t like the implications, since there are countless studies on the detrimental effects of screen time and social media on kids, with very few (if any) positive stories about social media providing childhood benefits.

So I decided to join my husband and quit.

I want to give my son a chance to get to know us, his parents, in the classic human way. That means more face-to-face and less screen time. That means I need to learn to leave my smartphone behind and shut my laptop screen. That means I need to be present, physically and mentally, not “phubbing” my kid because I’m too busy posting about him. #irony #sadtimes

And on top of that, I want to give him a chance to establish who he is and what he stands for, independent of what his parents post about him. I want him to be free from Internet histories when future friends, significant others, or employers search for his online presence. I know that because of what I posted on Facebook already, there will be baby pics available to those resourceful enough to find them. Luckily for him, he’s a pretty cute baby.