Why I came off Facebook - and I am much better for it!

Straight away I have noticed that my subject heading to this post is quite preachy, yet I'm still going to run with it. I am very much like a recovered smoker, alcoholic or drug addict. Once they become free of the addiction they feel they have to enforce their life choice on everyone else. I see so many flaws in likening substance addiction to Facebook use, but I still think there is an incredible denial of addiction in those who keep using the worlds most popular social network.

Anyway I deactivated my account a few weeks ago, and prior to doing so I had many arguments with myself as to why I use Facebook. In doing this, I reconciled on how I actually use it and the ideal usage for me. Realization brought to me the fact that how I use it is a long way from the reasons I gave myself for staying.

Like all my ways of thinking, and maybe human thinking, I wanted to define FB and the reason we use it into a single sound bite. And I think I have done. It's simply the quest for attention. That sounds negative but seeking attention is a human desire and we all have it to a greater or lesser degree. It's how we seek that attention or validation which is the subject for judgement. FB brings out the worse vehicle for attention seeking.

FB's Mark Zuckerberg devised the site under the mantra "bringing people together". He is a clever entrepreneur and he meant that with a sub-text - bringing people together with advertising agencies. So what? It's a massive tool, it costs money to run, who is supposed to fund it? I will go on to admit that during my 6 years of active FB usage, the adverts went by quite unnoticed by me. Occasionally they targeted my book history to recommend me new releases, and the same goes for music. But again, it did not divert my attention to an minute annoyance. So my rejection of FB is not based on it being a massive consumer study for nasty corporations.

Privacy is something that bothers many, and only me to a small extent. Everyday before and since FB we happily gave our credit card, address and phone details to a variety of companies over the Internet. I've given less of these identity theft vulnerable details to FB. So privacy isn't a determinant either.

So what is my problem?

Well for many the attraction is that we keep up with our "friends" lives easily. Well we do and we don't. In fact people only show a very filtered happy version of their lives. Sure occasionally a pet will die, or a relative and we offer our condolences, but those are major headlines not everyday life. If we are to believe life is like FB - most of us celebrate the weekend with a glass of vino, start the Saturday with a lovely breakfast, mourn the loss of the weekend and hate Mondays. All the fatter people have photos leaning from the shoulders up with their head leant forward. All the beautiful (and some who just think they are beautiful) people pout at trendy night clubs raising a bottle of WKD. According to FB we are all such great chefs. We all have great families and days out and are always on amazing holidays. It isn't life and it isn't the genuine window into our far flung "friends" lives we like to think.

But that is other people's usage and I'm a firm believer in free expression not matter how important or trivial. My deactivation was about me and my usage.

As a FB user I was the worse kind. If FB was a drug I wouldn't be the occasional line of cocaine on the weekend, I was the £300 a day heroin addict. I could not go a few minutes without refreshing my iPhone. iPhones and FB are a bastard combination. If something funny or interesting came into my head, it had to go on FB straight away. The dopamine reward was a plethora of ´likes', telling me I was a funny and clever guy. No responses meant I'd failed myself. Like a gambler losing, I just told myself I had to do better next time. Every event had to be photographed, and all my feed needed to know how great my life was. When it was going bad, I hid that. I sneered at the ones who aired their relationship and friendship problems with everyone. Yet now I think they were the most honest.

Then there was the politics. I'm a politically opinionated person. I don't expect to be agreed with, but I reach my conclusions (I feel) after reading up on the subject and exploring all the arguments and data before my opinion is formed. In that respect I expect my challenger (usually to the right of me) to have done the same. The main issue I think is worth a damn for me is the issue with Israel/Palestine. I posted my stance many times, yet the only response I got was from those who I felt had to understand more of the issues. I compare this to a debate I had on Twitter recently over Palestine (sometimes heated) with a Jewish person living in Israel. He took me around the block. All my arguments formed with 3 books, a drama series called The Promise and many trips to Wikipedia had an equal. The bombing of the King David Hotel, the mandate of Palestine and land for peace initiatives, he knew it also and better than I. And I was in my element. This is something I couldn't get from FB. Occasionally on FB I would have conversations over trickle down economics with an old friend now living abroad. He was a very knowledgable conservative, a greater believer in individualism. The bank bailouts would cause the most lively discussion. Then someone else would come in with a well intentioned but simple comment - someone who is worthy of opinion but I will wager has not read much JM Keynes. It was like a drunk has wandered into debating society by accident.

But this is the point, FB is pluralistic in the extreme. Pluralism is a good thing usually, but when you seek a haven from everything puerile in society or things you find unimportant, FB shoves the crap back into your face. But then again, I shove my puerile crap back into everyone else's faces, it's a lose-lose situation.

FB is a lifestyle for many of us. It has replaced email, text, phone and even face-to-face communication for many of us. Myself very much included. Therefore, there are ramifications in just coming off FB. How do you just deactivate? These are the arguments I had with myself. Do I announce it to all, or just deactivate and see who notices. I chose the latter for reasons I will explain in a minute. If you announce you can lay down your reasons in message to your "friends". For me that looked too diva. I was maybe more focused on those, who would shrug their shoulders and say "so what" than those who would miss FB as a point of contact for me. You will get a back-lash (if you are lucky) whichever route you choose. I chose just to come off as a real determinant of what FB is and how shallow it is. If people want to make contact with me, they have my number or my email. I am still on passive Twitter and easily searched on google. If they want to see pictures of me and any adventures, then I can happily forward them on request, rather than be like old people who thrust photos of importance only to them into your lap, while you look at each one and forcing interest. In other words, in this day and age it takes very few clicks on the WWW to see I am very much alive and well and not faking my death for insurance reasons. I will talk more about photos in a moment.

The back-lash I had was about 7 people on my previous friend list taking the effort to find me, and asking if I was off FB, or defriending them. All asked why I came off. Going forward I could possibly send them this post. But I had to answer in a few sentences which isn't easy. It's a bit like when you go teetotal for a spell. You are offered a drink and you chose a soft one. They ask why and you feel like either a self-righteous principled arsehole, or a recovering alcoholic when you explain. When really you want it to be; I just don't want to take alcohol into my body at this present time, it is no big deal and I am happy for you to continue. But this is the point when you make a lifestyle decision, explaining it can always be received as criticism when you strive hard for it not to be that way. Your ex-friends can see your decision to quit FB as saying "my life is rewarding and my real-friends provide me with such a hectic life I have no need for FB - but you do need it". This is not the case with me. I constantly questioned why I had at least 100 "friends" at any one time, I spent most Saturdays at home, or most the guests at my wedding came out of church-charity rather than life long friendship. FB actually intensified any loneliness I had rather than gave relief.

Photographs are a large reason many stay. FB is very generous in offering unlimited storage, whereas google and Flickr charge after a point is reached. Then again, FB has defined our picture taking more than electronic cameras which were in popular use five or more years before FB. Cameras on phones were widespread a good four years before FB. The sharing aspect of FB seems to have increased usage. The idea that you can take a picture and publish it widely with a click has been a blessing but greater curser. It makes us fear a camera like celebs fear the paps. In fact maybe that's a problem with FB in general we think it has turned us all into celebs. That just because our thoughts can be published to a 100 people at once, makes them interesting or worthy. A quick look on your newsfeed brings back the grim reality that they are really not. They are caught in a big crowd of everyone shouting at once. Facebookers often criticize Twitter as you get much less feedback than FB. The reality is your thoughts are as important on FB as they are to the strangers on Twitter. I love the quote I picked up once "Facebook is 'look at me' while Twitter is 'look at that'. This is an uncomfortable thought if you deny that your FB feed is for attention seeking.

I like my photographs and traveling recently I took heaps and posted them. However, every time I wanted to relive my travels I would go back on and see the same photos. It compressed my travel experience of 6 months into a few stills. Now these aren't readily available, I relive my travel memories through this blog. Or even better through the best recorder of memories there is; my mind. Sometimes just lying in bed at night and going over my travels in my mind, brings new things out which I didn't think to snap or blog. In that respect my FB travel photos have narrowed my memory of travel not aided.

There are many many positive effects of the aftermath of quitting FB. Firstly, if you are an iPad or iPhone user, you will realize what a great gadget you have as you look round all the other apps, than that horrible blue 'F'. You find yourself searching news apps like Pulse, or Google Currents. You find news the good old way, not through a "friends" update.

It helps you redefine your friendships. Now I'm not so purist that cyber friends cannot be healthy. They can. Without FB you see the people who you may not have seen personally in years in a different life. You can encourage an email. If they have gone on holiday recently, maybe ask them to email their photos to you. If this is too inconvenient for them, question how badly they want you to see them. In any case pictures are overrated in describing an experience. People who contact me through text, email, Skype, twitter (loads of options) are obviously the ones who valued my friendship. Those who saw me as merely a FB "friend" also become clear by not making a very simple effort.

For most FB is an enjoyable, healthy and harmless experience. I may say that as an institution it has done more good than harm, just not in my case. There is also the trendy aspect as more people love the tag "I don't do Facebook", and I love that tag also. I admit it has become an elitist comment, which may become more widespread.

Quitting FB comes with some soul searching, and honest self analysis is almost always a bitter pill to swallow. But the toughest pill to digest is that your life doesn't become richer just because you broadcast it. The other pill is how unimportant you really are. And if you are important to people, you will remain important with or without FB. Another acid test for me for me was how few people on my friend list read my travel blog with infinitely more detail on my travels than my photos. It's not my friend list, they are all lovely people, but I am still one of many on their friend list, and my travels were a million times more important to me than to them.

I want to finish with another quote I read in the Guardian "don't look for happiness in your feeds, switch off and feed your happiness". Now that is surely worth a 'like'!!