Life without Facebook

I am entering week 2 of no Facebook. And I must say it feels good.

Yes, at times it does still feel like I am experiencing a withdrawal - I grab my phone then quickly put it back, reminding myself that I shouldn’t. The little devil on my shoulder shouts, “Do it!” Sounds almost like a drug addiction which, if you think about it, is kinda scary…

I have become so dependant on Facebook (and Twitter, but the latter doesn’t have such a negative effect on me), I used to check it every day, starting in the morning with my first cup of tea.

Over the last couple of months, Facebook has made me feel - as we like to say in SA - kak, about myself, about my life. For someone going through a quarter-life crisis - not good. We compare ourselves to others, and more so than usual.

Friends are buying houses, cars, getting married, being promoted, going on extravagant holidays, etc. And me - well let’s just say I am not. And even though I know I shouldn’t compare my beginnings to somebody else’s middle, I can’t help it. And Facebook makes that worse. Even though many of you probably wouldn't admit it, I am sure you share these sentiments.

There have been several studies already proving that Facebook makes people feel crappy about their lives, it makes them envious. If you search on Google the list is endless:

One of the articles states this, and it’s what I am getting at here:

"Another group of researchers has suggested that envy, too, increases with Facebook use: the more time people spent browsing the site, as opposed to actively creating content and engaging with it, the more envious they felt. The effect, suggested Hanna Krasnova and her colleagues, was a result of the well-known social-psychology phenomenon of social comparison. It was further exacerbated by a general similarity of people’s social networks to themselves: because the point of comparison is like-minded peers, learning about the achievements of others hits even harder."

So yes, the ‘cleanse’ has been good for me, but I don’t feel well-informed anymore - about what is happening in the world, not in terms of my friends but design- and events-related. I am experiencing some serious FOMO.

Perhaps a solution would be to remove all so-called friends and merely follow groups and pages for informative purposes… What do you think? I might just test this theory. At least until this quarter-life crisis is over.