Quitting Facebook

In the spring of 2017 I happened to come across this Ted video:

After watching it I checked my iPhone to see how much time I actually spent on Facebook - the FB app was by far the major battery drain... I spent several hours / day checking my FB page, mostly to discover that nothing at all had happened, despite having close to 1000 friends.

Coupled with the message in Adam Alter's research (see the video!), I decided to quite FB and Twitter. I deleted my accounts within a week. Well...FB takes about 2 weeks to delete, as they want you to be really sure you want to leave.

What has changed since? Absolutely nothing. I still get party invitations, hang out with friends, go to 'secret' events etc. I just get the info in the old-fashioned ways: from newspapers(!), flyers in cafes, friends who call me and ask me if I want to come along for this and that.

FOMO is soooo overrated. You're not missing out on anything because most of the time absolutely nothing happens anyway. And if something worth your time actually happens, then you'll find out in most cases anyway, w/o FB or Twitter.

>>99% of the time I spent on FB was absolutely wasted and of no use to me whatsoever. I get more work done and I have more time to hang out, read, do exercise etc., than I had before.

I still have my LinkedIn account, but I am contemplating letting that go too. Oh, and a Flickr account (if that still counts as social network?), but that'll stay!!

The entire premise that you need a social network account to have a social life, or to stay up-to-date with current events, is entirely false.

You're not missing out an anything at all!