This is the NUMBER ONE WEBSITE ON THE INTERNET for those who want to LEAVE FACEBOOK.
If you are interested in submitting your story for possible publication, please e-mail
submissions@facebookdetox.org. If you have left Facebook or if you are considering leaving, and want help,
there is help available for you.
About the Author:
I am a writer, teacher, and world traveler who has been on and off Facebook and other (a)social networks for many years now. I once considered myself addicted to these sites and knew that they were giving me nothing in return for the amount of time that I put into them. I tried to leave on multiple occasions, finding that it was hard for me to stay away. There was always a huge push for me to come back to Facebook, and I often returned just to find out how worthless and depressing Facebook was.
It all started with an experiment: Upon leaving Facebook and (a)social networking in March 2012, I found that my life improved greatly. At the time, I was enrolled in law school, and immediately noticed that without the distraction of Facebook I was spending more time studying, more time improving myself (through diet, working out, etc.) and more time learning and reading on my own. I had more outside interests; more passions. I began to look at people in a more positive light. While on Facebook I was skeptical of others and saw many as people who liked to brag about their lives. After leaving, I began to appreciate people for who they were. I was no longer jealous of others for their barrage of endless perceived accomplishments. As a Christian, I found that my walk with God was improved by spending less time off of Facebook and spending more time reading and studying God's word, the Bible. I have been somewhat critical of Facebook as a means to share religion and have mentioned that in some of my posts.
My goal with this blog is to give people a real reason to leave the site. It is for people who question the usefulness of (a)social networks, who are bothered by the amount of time they spend on (a)social networks, and for those who are considering quitting.
It is now 2020 and this site has been going strong for 8 years. I have taken breaks at times, but there is always something new to say about Facebook. Current events have made Facebook even more deplorable than ever. Therefore, I believe that it is VITAL that this website remains current and pumping out article after article that relates to the cesspool that Facebook has become. It is a depressing website chock full of political arguments and boundless pride that brings little joy to the life of the reader. In fact, the longer you spend scrolling down through Facebook, the more depressed and lethargic you become. I could go on and on (and I have). With that said, welcome to Facebook Detox.
Future Book:
I am currently (slowly) working on a book about Facebook and (a)social networks. If you would like to add to this work or share your own stories about (a)social networking, please let me know. I would like to include these stories. If you would like to remain anonymous, that is fine.
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If you want to
submit your story for publication either in book form or as a post on this website, please e-mail me at the e-mail address above. Thank you very much for reading.
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Keep at it, friend. Good work on this site; would love to read a book.
ReplyDeleteI have been putting it off for years, focusing on this site instead, and my studies, but I am writing it and it will be out this year.
DeleteI'm trying to get rid of facebook for the New Year--hopefully your entries will make it easier! Hope you had a great trip in Puerto Rico!
ReplyDelete- Alana
Thank you, I had a great time in Puerto Rico. I wish you luck. As long as you believe in yourself and take it a day at a time, you can rid your life of Facebook.
DeleteSo great to have found your site. In the midst of detoxing myself and boy was it ever needed. The sad news is I feel like friendships are lost the minute I deleted that account. That is sad, isn't it? But I am excited to regain my life. My time. Maybe even read an actual book and have actual conversations with those that chose to stay in contact off facebook. I'm interested in your book and contributing/helping if you are in need. In the very least, I look forward to reading it when it is completed! Thanks again. All the best!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. If you have anything you would like to say or write about, I would welcome your comments and ideas for posts or contributing to a book. I am always interested in how other people's lives improve after getting rid of Facebook.
ReplyDeleteI discovered this site yesterday afternoon (1/7/2014) because I Googled "Facebook Detox," looking for support. I have been devouring the posts here ever since. I feel the posts I've read (and their commenters) are very much speaking to me. I find myself agreeing with nearly everything, making me feel that I did the right thing: You see, I am four days away from my Facebook account being deleted for good; I deactivated on New Year's Eve, 2013. Before I left, it took me several days to clear everything I ever was there, and I was thorough -- it's just an empty account now, and its days are numbered. I was on Facebook for almost exactly five years. I'd had enough of it for about a year, and finally, I'm starting to feel better about myself, letting acquaintances and long-ago "friends" go, along with their hour-to-hour drama that doesn't concern me. I am feeling freer, whereas before, I was always getting jealous, mad, sad, bored, feeling superior or lonely -- nothing I was reading on Facebook was making me happy anymore. I was anxious, feeling more alone than ever, hungry for actual connections that I was grasping for on the site but had not yet realized I would not really be able to find. Instead, I was feeling buried by Facebook -- even though three major, good life events and several actual friends came to me from Facebook, just in 2013. So I understand the power of Facebook to connect people in very positive ways, but, sadly, those good experiences are mostly few and far between, and I feel that in 2013, I "got lucky" on the site, and otherwise, not much good was going to come from staying. Thank you for this.
DeleteThis is a great site - thanks for creating it! It reinforces my decision many years ago to give FaceBook a pass. I concluded, with some sadness, that I don't really care what my hundreds of acquaintances are doing and I am not interested in telling them every little thing I am doing either. I try to invest phone, email and face time with my close friends and family. But letting the FB juggernaut pass by has not been without cost. On two occasions, professional gatherings that I wanted to attend stopped sending email invitations in favour of FB. Some web services have dropped their own login accounts and you can only log in via FB. And perhaps the worst development is that younger members of my extended family now only announce life events, like pregnancies, moves and even deaths on FB, and assume everyone knows. Fortunately I have a way of having the best of all worlds, a finely tuned filter that lets through only the tiny amount of FB info that has any value for me - my wife is on FB...
ReplyDeleteI have just deleted my Facebook account 2 weeks ago. While I had noticed facebook was making me miserable for...well...years...I didn't delete for a long time because I felt obligated to those I had "friended."
ReplyDeleteI had always tried to keep my personal information off of fb. I never posted anything I would be afraid of someone knowing - anyone, even employers or the gov't. So my misery wasn't actually from my own posts. Rather, it was from former friends and current relatives. I found myself losing respect for them because of what they were posting online.
I saw young cousins bragging about horrible behavior. I saw former authority figures (teachers especially) who I had respected making fools of themselves online.
Then there were the personal hurts. I would befriend someone in hopes of reconnecting only for them to ignore me. People I hadn't talked to in years would either snipe at something I said or miss the point. I realized the only people posting anything meaningful on my fb wall were those who I already talked to outside of fb.
Still, I staid for the "obligation" particularly family, and a few former close friends, that I saw were throwing their lives away. But I soon learned a fb account cannot make up for years of non-personal interaction. We both still thought of each other fondly, but at best they didn't listen because it had been so long since we had seen each other that I couldn't possibly offer anything real to them (which sometimes might have been a legitimate complaint, but I felt I could tell my younger cousin that under-age drinking and driving is bad whether I have seen you in months or not), or at worst would yell (via message, I did have the tact to only right these messages via private message, not on their wall), "how dare you judge me!" despite the fact that I never said anything condemning, only expressed concern.
This made me realize you can't help someone via fb. If someone is really screwing up bad enough that you feel it worth the risk of being thought of as nosy and judgmental, you better do it face to face where they can see and hear the concern in your voice and not think your just a busybody (which is an ironic accusation, since your knowledge of their behavior stems from their own posts they made public to the world). In my 7 years on facebook, only a handful of times did someone not react negatively to my attempt at help, and only once did they actually listen to it.
So, I deleted it. I'm honestly not a busybody. I didn't comment on 99% of the stuff I saw, and when I did, I did it via pm's and only out of concern for their well-being. Once I realized I couldn't help the people I saw, I realized I was simply torturing myself. Watching people I loved and respected either throw their lives away or make fools of themselves and lowering my opinion of them, but not lessening my affection, which made it just painful.
I finally realized that facebook doesn't really keep relationships alive, it just preserves a shell like an animal in formaldehyde. While you can renew a dormant a relationship that has been dormant for many years (thought not always) by life brining you back into each other's daily routine, you can't keep an old relationship alive via facebook. At best, you get to smile at their success, but you can't share in it. At worse, you watch helplessly as the opposite happens. Choosing to walk away from facebook doesn't mean you are killing the relationship. It means the relationship has been dead and you just aren't watching the corpse decompose in the casket. Rather, you are remembering the relationship as it was when it was living and breathing.
The past two weeks have been amazing. I haven't had a single negative thought about someone I love. And I have talked on the phone or seen in person all the people with whom I had meaningful fb conversations. It's great!
I need advice. I have a facebook group and a facebook page for my business. I really want to delete and never look back, but I am told that social media, is the only place to expand my business. What should I do?
ReplyDelete