Why I left Facebook Social Network

TLDR: bored and didn’t see any future

Leaving Facebook has been one of these things where I have 10 reasons to do that. And 20 not to do that.

But well, I chose, I have to live with it now and here we are. First of all, I didn’t leave for good. I still need an access to groups, because people are there. But I stopped following people. I don’t really care about what happens in lives of others.

Well, I care, but not on day to day basis. I enjoyed it at the beginning, there was so much new information about my friends or people I knew. But as the time went, I was the same shit all over again. I like to stick for three weeks and then leave. And go back in 6 month or one year to see what is new.

I like to be entertained, find new information and be inspired. If I cannot find this, I’m out. Out of social sites and groups in general.

I realized, I am not interested really in passively interacting with people. Not communicating with them in writing. Well, not on platform that stores everything. I like to chill out and send and receive messages I can respond after one or two weeks, don’t have to be perfect and can be bluntly straightforward. No games. No shit.

I always had a weird feeling from using Facebook. Something I could never rationally explain. Something which drives me away from it.

Usually I am proud to be on cutting edge, but is Facebook even cutting edge anymore? Well, it is, because there is nothing better. I mean there is Instagram, Snapchat, but the experience is not much better. They have the same essence with the same business model and similar attitude (like you are like shadows/plebs and our product).

Later also another question popped in my head: do I want to be cutting edge like this? Do I want to live like this? It’s not that hard for me to see mainstream trends. But apprarently there is much more to experience in life than the current form of social networks.

What I want is to discover a new social network or website and say “Wow! This is so fucking awesome! People here are fucking awesome!”

Also I dont’ trust the platform. It took me years to realize, but free is never really free. And we are not really in control. I rather be a king on my website than slave on a fucking inhuman social network.

And I really like Facebook as a company. Well, most of it, from technological perspective.

The idea of connecting human beings together isn’t certainly new and yeah, I like it like a lot. But the execution? I don’t know. The way I currently feel is I’d rather live in obscurity and be cut off of people than use Facebook or networks based on similar business model.

In the end I still sort-of believe in federated communication platforms like Jabber. Freedom to pick own community. Fredom to choose a server. Freedom to have a peace of mind. I just don’t fit to values of Facebook. I’ll never find my place there. And I tried for years. It just doesn’t work. I’m tired of that and of trying, it’s time to move somewhere else.

Also I should touch the problem of notifications and mental clutter. I don’t give a shit about “important” events, although I’m sure one could design and program notifications in much better way.

But current form they only steal my focus and cause mental overhead.

I hoped, for years that the way Facebook choose content which is shown on the wall and groups would become useful.

But groups didn’t become useful. Not as a replacement of oldschool forums. Majority of people moved here, but still, it’s messy and disorganized. Am I micromanagement freak? Not really. But I like to see all content, but without clutter. So it’s basically the same reason I left deviantArt - for years I hoped they will allow search of your own members in a group I was an administrator of, but they didn’t. Fuck it, I’ll just move somewhere else, where the grass is really greener. Or there is no grass, but I can grow my own.

Which brings me to another point - the value of time. We, adult people, need to consciously choose what is worth of our time. In the end nothing really matters, like Facebook or anything else. There’s only us and we are much bigger, with much more potential than social networks or anything else. This is not a tipping point I believe and as a concept it will become obsolete. Until a new generation comes with the same idea, but a bit different execution. Execution which will result in much happier system.

There is certainly more in this, but these are my main thoughts on Facebook, but also on an evolution of internet society in general.

P.S. I believe 20 years from now, when behavioral economics and other behavioral theories are much more advanced, I’ll laugh on this. “Haha, so bluntly written, behaviour of people is generally understood now and it’s clear.”