04/16/2021
By Kate Stone Lombardi
The breakup seemed sudden, but the relationship problems must have been simmering below the surface for awhile.
And I didn’t delete my account – only suspended it. Call it a trial separation, though at this point, I can’t see us getting back together.
Here’s the bottom line: Facebook was bringing me no pleasure. My feed featured the same group of people, a string of political rants, and ads for things I didn’t need and sometimes clicked on.
As to seeing the same people over and over, I know that FB has an algorithm. Every six months or so, someone posts a way to outwit it, and it never, ever works.
But the bigger issue is social media in general. I’m as guilty as the next person of only posting news or photos that make me look good, or that depict a happy family, a lovely place I’ve been, whatever. (That’s probably why I only post a few times a year.) But the cumulative effect of scrolling through all those curated images week after week, year after year, just makes me feel bad.
Face it, or better yet – Facebook it – we know we aren’t seeing the truth – or at least the full picture – of other peoples’ lives. But we compare their outsides to our insides anyway.
One of the lessons of the pandemic has been to cut the crap. The relationships that don’t sustain us, the activities that didn’t bring us fulfillment – we don’t have time for that anymore. To me, Facebook represents the worst of the worst of superficiality.
Not supporting Mark Zuckerberg is just icing on the cake.
I know that I’ll continue to nurture the relationships that are important to me.
And I think I can do better than this.