25 Feb 2014
What I have to say here is nothing new or profound. Others have said it far more eloqently than I do here. But I feel it is valuable to add your voice to a cry you believe in.
Facebook not only provide no real value in my life, but it was actively destructive.
So I deleted it.
It's overly addictive
Every feature of Facebook, from the like system to the layout of the pages is meticulously designed and tested to make the user spend the maximum amount of time on Facebook and be exposed to the most relavent ads. In this way, it is very much like a common web games that have exploded on the internet. Games like Farmville with no real purpose or skill required. They turn humans into glorified click generators.
Facebook becomes a habit, a mindless tick. It is designed to leave us hungry for more.
You are not the customer, but the product
The primary business model of Facebook is selling ads. As is the case with every ad supported service, the user is not the customer, but the product. Every bit of data that they can collect on you furthers their cause of directing the most relavent ads to you that you are most likely to click.
They do not exist to provide the most useful service to you. They exist to squeeze as much data out of you as possible to make you click on more ads. This is the only way they can continue providing the service.
You become unsatisfied
People edit their profiles. They are as picture perfect as they can possibly make them. You only see the best snippets of peoples lives, and that gives you an unrealistic vision of what human life actually is. Your own life will almost certainly pale by comparison. It is a strong contributing factor towards making you unhappy and dissatisfied with your own life.
It stifles real relationship
Of all other reasons, this one stands out for me as by far the most pressing to pull the plug.
With Facebook, it is completely possible to continue to feel connected with someone for months, even years, without having a single conversation with them. You know about their amazing trip to Disneyland, you saw their great new haircut, you liked their new relationship status. And yet, you haven't had a real, deep conversation with them for years.
Now, I'm not that this is necessarily bad. We lose contact all the time with people. Some would say that Facebook makes reconnecting easier sometime in the future.
In theory, I might agree with this. In practice, I find that this is a rare corner case, and the main effect is that you feel less compelled to make deep connection with anyone. Relationships are cheapened when you don't actually have to learn about who the other person is to feel like their friend. You lose incentive to reach out and connect with people when you can just reach out to their profile and get caught up on all the trivialities of their lives.
When cutting out this cheap placeholder of real relationship, you find that you are actually compelled to reach out to people. To go to lunch with someone. To meet with them face to face and develop strong, human connection. You have to learn to make and maintain real friends.
Though I picked on Facebook, this applies to all social media. Nothing that I've seen adds any value to my life without also being destructive in some way.
I'd rather live happy in the dark ages than discontent in the bright, shiny future.