The One Decisive Reason I Left Facebook - And Why It’s So Liberating

Have you noticed, too? At least for me, it felt like nothing was happening on Facebook. My generation (I was born 1999) seems to use Facebook only to comment on useless memes and mark each other as often as possible under posts.

Maybe it may be because of my age group, but Facebook is somehow not what it used to be. In the past, we used to share and comment on each other’s experiences on Facebook, sharing and commenting on each other’s lives. Yes, it was even possible to get to know each other via Facebook.

There’s somehow nothing left of it today. Mainly Facebook is used to log in to any other services (because you’re too lazy to enter all your data and think of another password) and when you scroll through the feed (formerly called timeline, right?) you only see ads, news articles and comments on useless memes and name lists, where you can see who is statistically the worst driver.

In the past Facebook was still hip, but when parents and relatives registered on Facebook and obviously wanted to be “friends” with their children, alternatives such as Instagram and Snapchat were sought and found to share their lives with friends. And since everyone owns a smartphone, WhatsApp is more likely to be used for message exchange than Facebook.

Of course, when I delete my Facebook account, it doesn’t bother Facebook, because I still use WhatsApp and Instagram if I don’t want to live in a socially isolated way. It’s not a statement against collecting data, because then I would have to delete my Google Account too, but it’s a logical step in the direction that I don’t need an account for every service I no longer use at all. What do I have to present myself there for if I’ve only opened Facebook to make sure that I haven’t missed a message after all?

Everyone who wants to get in touch with me has enough other ways, from my homepage, via Twitter to email. I can be reached almost everywhere, usually better than I was on Facebook.

But the main reason is this: I can spend my time on better things than checking my Facebook account. Instead of scrolling through the feed and letting me be bombarded with this garbage that is there, I can use my time to think about my next blog article, for example.

Carpe Diem! — Horace

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