Why did I leave FB without warning? I mean, hell, I do a post and an hour later, I disappear.
I left FB because I'm immature.
Social media is part of my job, and I'm really good at it. Sadly, that means I spend WAY more time on social media than the average person.
I realized that it was taking its toll on me. I was getting too much exposure to negativity or petty arguments or angry people. It's all over the place. You only have to spend a few minutes on FB, and you'll start seeing overwhelming amounts of garbage.
It has nothing to do with YOU, the people who read my blog.
You know how FB works, right? IF a FB friend *likes* a page or comments on a page or post....even if YOU aren't friends with that person or even if you don't *like* the page....you see all those comments.
In addition to that, my company's FB page has over 46000 followers.
I am exposed to an exponential number of comments compared to the average FB user.
I'm immature because I couldn't stop reading comments. I couldn't stop seeing comments from people who carry SO much hate in their hearts. I couldn't stop reading comments from people who's arrogance is OFF THE CHARTS.
I don't believe the world is a bad place. I think people are (in general) good.
Sadly, I think social media is a great tool for bullies and trolls who want to remain anonymous because they don't have the balls to say the exact same thing to another person's face.
SURE....any loser can lash out at someone while they are hiding behind a keyboard.
The way FB is set up is that a person has to tie their own personal account to a business account. I've always hated that. I believe that a business account should be separate. It's like leaving work at night. I could never get away from work, and I could never get away from all the toxic/angry posts from complete strangers who were friends of friends.
And I'm immature. I couldn't look away. I knew that the only way I could disconnect myself from all that garbage was to deactivate my account.
The bad part of that is that I no longer get to see updates from people I really do like. Some of you, I have never even met, but I enjoy your posts.
I understand FB probably better than 99% of you reading this. I understand that FB needs to produce revenue. They get that revenue from promoted posts, ads, boosted posts, sharing likes, etc. Hell, it's what I'm fucking good at, at work. I GET THAT.
But I could not disconnect myself.
I certainly didn't mean it to just disappear. When I woke up that morning, I didn't know that I was going to do it. I had to set up a fake identity and tie it to the business account. I had to transfer the development admin rights, etc.
When it was done, I realized there was no reason for me to keep my account. I didn't want to make some kind of announcement. That felt wrong on many levels.
Honestly, I didn't know if I could pull it off. I know people who are addicted to social media. That wasn't me.
I just couldn't turn it off at the end of the day. It was too many inputs from sources that I wasn't interested in. If I could JUST see my friends posts, I would be happier. But, FB needs it's revenue, and I need a break.
I don't know how long I'll be gone. It could be 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 months. My plan is to keep up with people who write blogs and/or use strava, and anyone who wants to keep in touch via email or text message.
That's it. It's really a simple reason.
For many of you, I wished we lived closer together, so we wouldn't even need FB to keep in touch.
It kind of is what it is. Maybe over the coming weeks, I can grow up and have a healthy relationship with FB. Until then, I need to stay away.
