Should I Quit Facebook? Here’s How to Decide
I joined Facebook in 2008. Making connections was exciting and, in the early stages, anyone with a pulse was quickly a “friend.” That boy in my 8th grade algebra class who I vaguely remember? A friend. The woman I met at a local event? A friend. My cousin I haven’t seen in 20 years? A friend. It was an exciting time and making connections felt good.
Some 350 friends later, I often toggled between staying on Facebook and quitting the social media platform. I know I’m not alone. We weigh the pros and cons. We pledge to spend less time scrolling through the lives of other people and more time living our own life. Finally, we set resolutions to start new hobbies, learn new things, and nurture real relationships through tangible connections.
Yet, year after year, we stay. We love the good and tolerate the bad. But, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to step back and make a conscious choice to either stay or quit. Five years ago, I chose to quit this social media platform and haven’t looked back. For you, your choice may be different.
To help you decide, I designed this handy-dandy flowchart as a guide. (If you click on the chart, it will open a .pdf file for you to view or download.)
If You Stay
You’ve thought it through, and you’ve decided to stay on Facebook. At this point, build on what you enjoy about it. To make Facebook great again, you have to be part of the solution, a role model. Here are some pointers and ways to keep it healthy.
- Find the right balance by setting time limits and making sure the other aspects of your life are front and center: your relationships, work, hobbies, sports, and interests.
- Model good Facebook behavior by not ranting, posting fake news, participating in time-sucking vitriolic debates, etcetera. The timeless CNN article, The 12 Most Annoying Types of Facebookers, provides a comical read.
- Remove the app off your phone to remove the temptation to mindlessly scroll.
- Unfollow or unfriend people who continually post content that annoys you.
- Unfriend folks who you really don’t know or care to spend time with. I call it the Grocery Store Test. If you saw someone in the produce aisle and you were way over by seafood, would you go out of your way to talk with them (time permitting)?
- Do not feel obliged to “like” statuses that you really don’t like. The Facebook algorithm is set up so that what you like will appear more on your newsfeed.
- Subscribe to a high-quality online or print newspaper that ranges from the skews left to neutral to skews right range (chart here). If you’re getting your “news” from social media, you may be getting inaccurate information.
- Consider your interests and like/follow their Facebook page. Their content will then appear on your newsfeed. For example, if you enjoy travel, follow Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, and Budget Travel.
- Make sure your privacy settings are set to your liking. Here’s an informative guide from Techlicious entitled, The Complete Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings.
If You Quit
Breaking any habit takes a bit of effort, with the first few days being the hardest. Some folks find it easier to leave Facebook if they’re on another social media network like Instagram. That was the case for me. I found Instagram to be a better fit for me and having that alternative made leaving Facebook easier.
To take a trial run, you may want to deactivate your Facebook account. Deactivating is temporary and gives you the flexibility to come back and reactivate your account if you choose. While your account is deactivated, people can’t see your timeline or search for you. (How to deactivate.)
If you choose to permanently delete your Facebook account, you can’t regain access if you change your mind. Before you delete your account, it may be worth downloading your Facebook data, which will include things like birthdays and photos. (How to delete.)
Once you’ve quit Facebook, use this as an opportunity to do more of what you enjoy and discover a kazillion other things to do. Read a book, go for a walk, play a game, call someone, start a hobby, cook, lift weights, create something with your hands, have lunch with a friend… the possibilities and experiences are endless.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
How do you feel about Facebook? Have you thought about quitting Facebook, or do you love it?
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Interesting article. My career was in Silicon Valley so I jumped on FB in the early 2000s, excited by new and shiny stuff. The goal of FB, as all social media, is to keep you there (stickiness), which sounds vaguely of manipulation. The computer scientist Jaron Lanier (who coined the term VR) wrote Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right now. After that read, I shut down my FB account and picked up Alexandra Stoddard’s Gift of a Letter and started writing a few letters a week. Many friends sent me email thanks (in spite of the irony of that) but to keep a valuable style of communication going, we simply have to adopt it. A good deal of social media is at odds with print, privacy and a refusal to react to every little thing.
I have never liked Facebook and hate all the other stuff like TikTok, it’s so full of inane rubbish. Influencers often annoy me as well, why do they need to share everything about their (often fake) lives?
In the early days of the internet we had something in Britain called Friends Reunited, it was a tool to help people contact old school friends and reminisce and was fun for a time. However if you decided to actually meet up with former classmates you often found you had nothing in common with them as we had all moved on and were very different people to the teenagers we once were. It happened to me and I was left deflated.
It was great for the couple who came up with the idea, they eventually sold it to a media company for millions.
Good article. I quit FB several years ago because I think it’s easily hacked and not transparent. The funny thing though is this year I thought I might re-open my account to publicize my latest books. FB summarily deleted me! With no explanation. when I read about the bullying and troll-like messages that continue to go on, I wonder about their policies. My entry was a picture of me at a book fair in March. Nothing virulent in that! I don’t trust Meta.
I quit a few months ago. It was making me sick. My problem is that I take online courses and so many insist on having FB groups. So my not being on it is limiting course communication.
I will say having been off it for 90 days has been exhilarating. Toxic waste dump be damned.
Patti, no need to cancel out your FB account, just go by a “fake” name and delete all other personal information. I had to have a FB presence during the pandemic to attend online church services and wasn’t a fan of FB but didn’t want to miss out on Sunday service either. So, I created a FB page with a name that no one would ever figure out and it worked like a charm. I can “snoop” on other people, but they cannot see me.
This is exactly why I have never joined “social” media. Snooping is unsocial. I don’t want anyone snooping on me.
I was one of those “never FB joiners” mostly because I tend to be a private person and prefer to share my personal information only with people who I am close to, not the whole world. My attitude towards FB was always that the people who “open their kimonos” tend to be insecure and need constant reassurance from others that they are enough. I also disliked the “bragging sessions” and display of inflated egos. But that is just me, and that is what makes the world go round, different strokes for different folks. If you enjoy FB, do what makes you happy!
Another place for bragging and inflated egos is LinkedIn. It was great at the beginning for people who, like me, were self employed and looking for business contacts. Then you started getting people who bigged up their CVs (I often didn’t recognise the careers of people I’d worked with).
When it was taken over by Microsoft it then became less serious and started attracting people working in areas like the sex and porn industries. I decided to shut my listing down after that.
Many people on FB are insecure and addicted to recognition of others to make themselves feel important. Bragging is not for me, don’t have the time.