I’m not sure when it started, but somewhere toward the end of last year I realized that Facebook was making me crazy.
Every time I logged on, I found myself feeling anxious and twitchy. Peopled I’d known and respected my entire life were sharing racist and misogynistic memes. Friends I’ve had for years were mocking sexual assault victims. The news pages I was following were constantly pummeling me with updates about how awful the world had become.
Little by little, I felt like I was dying inside.
I thought about quitting Facebook altogether. That was the logical solution after all, right? But then I remembered the pieces I really do love — the chance to keep up with friends I don’t get to see enough, and the groups I’m in that are made up of moms who all have kids with the same condition my daughter has. I’ve turned to those women with questions and concerns more times than I can count, and giving that support up sounded awful.
In so many ways, Facebook seemed to be bringing out the absolute worst in so many people. But there were still a few bright spots I wasn’t quite ready to walk away from.
So, late one night, after a few glasses of wine and a bit of time spent clearing out my closet, I decided it was time to give my social media feeds the same treatment — I went through and deleted everyone and everything that didn’t bring me joy.
We’re not talking a small culling here. I deleted almost every page I was following and unfriended about 70 percent of the people I was connected with. I kept only my closest friends, a few family members and people I need to be connected to for work — people I put into a separate group with different settings.
I knew there could be some backlash to this decision. No one likes to be unfriended, and it was possible there would be those who took it personally. In some cases, I actually blocked people, hoping they would think I’d simply deleted my account, specifically because I knew there might be drama if they found out I’d actually hit the unfriend button.
But I felt confident in what I was doing. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered who it was that had decided we should be friends on social media with every person we’ve ever met. Maybe I don’t need to know what totally BS political propaganda the kid I sat next to in chemistry class 15 years ago is liking. Maybe I’m better off not being privy to the horrifically hateful comments some family member I’m not even close to are making on a public page.
Why do we do that to ourselves? Why torture our souls like that when we could instead just hit unfriend and move on?
Maybe, just maybe, my sanity is worth more than anyone else’s feelings. And maybe my in-person interactions with people would actually be better if I wasn’t constantly exposed to their less-than-stellar online behavior.
It was just a theory, but I knew I had to try something. And removing the clutter from my feed felt like a better option than being forced to remove myself from the aspects of social media I otherwise enjoyed.
It’s been a few months now and I can officially tell you: I’ve never been happier with Facebook than I am now. My feed is made up entirely of people I love, posting things that don’t make me crazy. I still have full access to the groups I turn to for support and if anyone has been deeply offended by my unfriending them, I’ve at least not had to hear about it.
The reality is, for most of us, our social media feeds contain more clutter than any other area of our lives. And a lot of that clutter is maddening. Not just annoying, but downright infuriating.
Why do we do that to ourselves? Why torture our souls like that when we could instead just hit unfriend and move on?
Yes, some may argue that you can mute people and pages that frequently get your blood boiling, but … why? Why do we feel obligated to continue following anyone or anything that doesn’t bring us joy?
These are arbitrary rules, people. And you’re allowed to break the norms and go minimalist on your feeds instead.
I can tell you from experience, it’s more freeing than you could possibly imagine.
