Last week I finally deactivated my Facebook account. This is something I have been considering for a long time, but for some reason couldn’t ever actually pull the trigger.
I used to really enjoy Facebook. I enjoyed connecting with people, and I enjoyed sharing photos and life updates. I enjoyed seeing comments on my posts, and I enjoyed responding. I enjoyed the fact that I could effortlessly keep in touch with people from different eras of my life. My relationship with Facebook wasn’t perfect though. For example, I’d see posts sometimes that made me feel left out. Or I would search my friends list to find that someone I liked had “unfriended” me, for reasons unknown. Sometimes I would see photos of someone that I had a more complicated relationship with, and I would feel sad or lonely. But overall, Facebook brought me more enjoyment than it did angst.
That changed following my daughter’s diagnosis. I had already been posting less in general, feeling a little self-conscious about sharing personal photos and updates with such a wide network of people, many of whom I hadn’t actually spoken to in years. But after Maria’s diagnosis, things got much worse. Previously innocuous updates from former friends and current acquaintances became grief triggers. I began to experience stress about whether or not I should still share news of my pregnancy, given the difficulty and uncertainty of our daughter’s diagnosis. I had originally planned to share our joyous news immediately following our daughter’s anatomy scan. Instead, I found myself processing the immensely difficult news we received while simultaneously trying to figure out if and how I should share it with my online social media network. At the same time, I was seeing others in my network sharing their own happy and seemingly uncomplicated pregnancy announcements. And it wasn’t just the things my friends were sharing… it was also the targeted advertising. Seeing pregnancy and postpartum-related ads was also difficult for me, because I did not know how long my daughter would live, and what her quality of life would truly be like. As our daughter’s due date neared, I decided to announce a break from social media, and proceeded to stay signed off of it for over a year.
When I did slowly begin to return, I found that the majority of posts I saw were still causing me stress. I also noticed that the type and frequency of content I was seeing had changed. There were a lot more ads, and I was seeing a lot less of my friends’ posts. But even the posts I saw that my friends shared were generally upsetting. Things that I used to find innocuous, or feel ambivalent about, now caused sorrow. It was very hard for me to look at Facebook without being frustrated at how filtered and contrived everything felt.
Hesitantly, I began sharing things again, but not related to my first pregnancy (or my second), or my loss. That was too much. Unfortunately, this caused yet another challenge for me, because in many ways I felt like a hypocrite. I was frustrated with the filtered feeds I saw others putting forward, but wasn’t I doing the exact same thing?
I began to follow pages and accounts related to grief and loss. For some time, this helped me feel better. I felt like I was seeing sentiments that I could relate to, and it made my new social media experience feel less one-sided. It took a long time (a few more years), but I recently began realizing that instead of providing validation, seeing loss-related and grief-related content was starting to feel more triggering than helpful. My entire news feed was comprised of grief and loss content, or content from now-acquaintances that caused stress or sadness. Even seeing updates from friends and family became emotionally complicated, in part because I would question if and how I should interact with the posts. Even with my own infrequent posts, I had a hard time finding the emotional energy to respond to comments.
I realized that the majority of my experience on Facebook had become difficult in some way. Social media is meant to foster connection, but I felt disconnected and anxious. I considered just taking another break, but I really wanted to relieve the pressure I was putting on myself to monitor my profile in some way, even when I wanted a break. Deactivation seemed like the next logical step to take, just to try it.
It still took me a few days to take the plunge. I did feel some sadness as I clicked the “deactivate” button and answered the questions Facebook asked me about why I was deactivating my account. Ultimately, I decided to say that I was no longer enjoying Facebook and wanted to try taking a break. Thankfully, the sadness I felt when I clicked through the prompts was quickly replaced by relief once I had finished. It has only been about a week, but it’s amazing to me how many artificial stressors I had placed on myself in order to maintain my social media presence. I felt immediate relief after deactivating my account. And even better, now that I am no longer managing my Facebook account, I have more time and mental energy to do other, more meaningful things (like working on this blog!). I feel more authentic and more at peace. I believe that the relationships that matter the most to me won’t disappear just because I’m not on Facebook anymore. Being off social media is helping to quiet the extra noise.
It’s reversible, but it’s not something I’m in any hurry to reverse. I’m excited to see how my energy and experience of life may continue to shift in the coming weeks as a result of this change. If you’re reading this and considering stepping back from social media, I encourage you to try it! Pick a trial period of time (a week, or even a month) and just see how you feel without it. You can always go back to it if that’s what you decide you want to do.
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