I had great hopes of my month away from Facebook: more productive, happier, more centred (by which I think I mean less irritable), thinner!? Very great hopes indeed.
After all, the studies have shown that social media is bad for us:
http://www.openculture.com/2017/08/the-case-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts.html
I’d even written an article about all my issues with it, unpublished (not the one you are reading now) that I hoped to sell to a magazine and get paid real money for. The intention was there. But when it came to carrying out the self-imposed digital exile, it was a lot harder than I thought.
But first the why? Why bother coming away from it at all?
I was beginning to feel that Facebook was set-up for rejection; the whole business with ‘likes’ and all that, not to mention the potential for toxic comparisons. 'Comparison is the thief of joy' and all that, so I flounced away from it in the manner of a disgruntled, sacked employee - ‘See you later losers! I’m going somewhere I’m appreciated!’
(Where - I don’t know, where can one go to feel appreciated these days?)
But, almost as soon as I deleted the app, I felt strangely dislocated. I felt that I was really missing out. Perhaps this is why Facebook is so toxic - it gives the illusion of being connected to other people, without any real contact. But, illusion or not, it’s very powerful,
because without it, I felt a real sense of isolation.
I have to admit that, in the past, I've used Facebook to garner support; griping about things that have happened in my life. One step away from the ambivalent, attention-seeking status updates. The sort of thing that my husband and his mate so vilify - you know the sort of thing, where someone says something like -
Worst day ever!
Prompting the
R u ok hun?
responses.
And do you know, I did get comfort from them, the responses. Something like the digital equivalent of a gang of mates crowding round their sobbing pal in the the nightclub loos and saying;
"Forget him, babe, he ain't worth it!"
Although I never complained about my love life on Facebook, I did have a couple of moans about other things - the train service, people making unsolicited comments about my weight after I'd had a baby, that sort of thing, and the 'likes' and the supportive comments were very reassuring. Proving that perhaps social media can be used for good as well as evil ;) Perhaps it becomes toxic only if you use it to replace actual, human interaction. Maybe it's O.K as a supplement to said interaction...?
In a cold, depressing January, without social media, I felt like I was wearing blinkers; there was a world out there that I was cut off from. Which sounds like a massive overreaction but that is how I felt. I was missing out on the baby photos and the updates from people I genuinely like, but don't get to see very often. (I realise that there are also plenty of people you barely know, haven't seen for years and have no intention of seeing and perhaps one of you added the other to up your friends numbers, and this is where it gets a bit weird.) But, yeah, I was missing seeing the updates from the fam.
However, I’ve been on holiday before and not looked at social media for a week and didn’t feel any sense that I was missing out on anything then, so why now?
Perhaps it was because I was doing it as a New Year’s resolution so it was automatically doomed to failure. Forbidden fruit and all that. The equivalent of the New Year diet (which I swore I wouldn’t do this year). In fact, compared to Dry January or Veganuary or any of that, this was supposed to be seamless, easy, cleansing, even.
For reasons I can’t go into, this January has been even more brutal than usual. It's always an endurance test at the best of times but this has been a sad and terrible month. What is the antidote to this?
A break from social media is supposed to make us value our real life friendships more and seek out social contact - which is good for your mental health, but the trouble with January is that everyone is either broke, laid low with some kind of virulent bug, or both!
So a break from social media really can feel like a (partly) self-imposed exile.
How did I cope with the digital privation? And did I end up using the time more productively? Here are some of the methods I used to fill the gap.
- Reading more - I’m not talking (purportedly) mind improving, award-winning books here. I devoured classic crime novels (complete with some rather dubious class and race assumptions) and re-read books by my favourite author, Marian Keyes; I find the mood enhancing properties of her novels better than chocolate.
- Having a good house clear-out. - Well, you see, I intended to do this but was ill for over a week with some kind of bug* and I haven’t actually done anything about this yet, beyond taking some old books to a charity shop, I’ve felt too drained, but the intention was and still is there…
- Being proactive with my writing. - We-el, yes, actually, I’ve entered three writing competitions/opportunities already this year… (don’t) watch this space.
- Exercise - Ha, ha, ha! In all seriousness though, please see above re sick bug.
- Being more sociable - the intention was there, the invitations were issued and I did see a few good friends, on a few separate occasions, and salve to the soul it was. However I do appreciate that financial constraints make it tougher for January meetups to happen, plus the aforementioned bugs (sorry to go on about it), plus the weather...
- Spend more quality time with children, undiverted by screen activity. - Er, please can I refer you again to the bug.
In conclusion:
I really did think that this might have been one of those smug - "I haven't looked back since I purged myself and my laptop!", posts. (Although that would have been ironic as most of the traffic to this blog comes via social media.)
But I haven't really experienced that much difference, one way or the other. Perhaps I will feel differently after two days back on Facebook, turn tail in horror and become one of those anti-social media evangelists who bark about how insidious and toxic it all is but let’s just see shall we.
