Is there life offline: How I gave up Facebook for a year
Most of us cannot imagine our life without social networks.In them, we discuss burning issues, communicate with colleagues, learn news and make acquaintances - from Facebook to a snapshot, social networks have become a continuation of our life, just as real as what is happening outside of them. At the same time, everyone at least once caught himself on thoughtless scrolling through posts - by inertia, and not because there is something really interesting there; or turned the social network into a tool for procrastination - just not to work or learn. It is not worth demonizing social networks, but is it any wonder that we are still trying to build a trial and error relationship with such a new and so comprehensive phenomenon? Maria Skatova suspected that she was really dependent on Facebook and decided to abandon him for twelve months - this is what came of it.
Chronic Facebook
In December 2015, I realized that I did not have time; they had to work late and on weekends, and unresolved letters jumped out of the mail in dozens. I slept badly, constantly angry. My productivity was almost zero, and I began to look for ways to do more during work hours. All the experts advised to start by taking into account the time spent, and I installed an application on the laptop that tracks all the programs and websites that you use. It gave me a diagnosis in a week - Facebook is to blame for everything. I hung up on the social network up to six hours a day. In my heart I have long known that I spend a lot of time there, but an impartial application proved that this is true.
To be honest, I didn’t even like Facebook, it just frustrated me. I was constantly angry with strangers on the Internet with whom I disagreed. Instead of talking about our life, I discussed other people's posts with my husband. The eight-year-old son, giving out another pearl, said: "Come on, post it on Facebook, let's see how many likes put!" I was obsessed with how others perceive me, and I constantly tried to improve my online image. Every day I methodically deleted several old statuses over the past years, trying to "clean up" my virtual past.
I tried to control the situation many times. I blocked access to the site at the provider level, started a timer, did not go to the social network on weekends, and left the phone for the night in another room. Removed from the tape of all who do not agree. Blocked the media, so as not to see sharp posts of sharp articles and not to start. Cut the number of friends to three hundred. Removed the application from the phone. To no avail. I felt that I was addicted: I knew that the situation was unhealthy, I felt bad from an overdose, I had long ceased to enjoy the process of consumption — I simply could not stop. The end of December is the traditional time for New Year commitments, and I decided to start a year with the social network. In order not to fail early, I began to investigate my dependence on Facebook and write about it in a blog.
To leave for a year
Quitting Facebook after six years of daily use was difficult. For the first three months I was constantly drawn to enter the site, I composed the statuses in my mind, exhausted from the desire to see the tape and enter into conversation. At first, emotions were overblown: once I burst into tears, starting to watch Al-Jazeera’s film about social network dependence. My draft article on the refusal of Facebook only worsened the situation: I constantly had to think and read about the social network. Delete profile in one fell swoop turned out to be impossible. First you need to deactivate your account - and for this, in turn, you must specify the reason. The social network offers a whole list, and for every point she has an excuse - Facebook promised that we can still be happy together. In the end, I deactivated and activated my account dozens of times.
I do not believe that a simple rejection of anything can give a long-term result - it's like a diet, followed by a breakdown. It was important for me to understand myself and understand why I spent hours like her and commented on other people's statuses, I was looking for someone else's approval and attention. As part of the self-study, I reread my statuses for six years - what was left of them after a thorough sweep of the virtual past. It was not easy to do this: several thousand posts were full of sadness, despair, passive aggression towards themselves and the world.
I tried to relieve my condition: I kept a diary, I meditated every day. Meditation helped, and after a month and a half I noticed that I had become more conscious - now I could calmly watch the urge to go to the social network. The traction completely disappeared only after six months - then I was able to face the real causes of dependence: burnout, dissatisfaction, misunderstanding, where to go in professional terms. Putting your frustration into the network turned out to be easier than solving the problems that caused it. So I turned to a psychotherapist to figure out with myself. Therapy helped a lot: I can no longer convincingly lie to myself and try not to run away from problems.
Truth or myth
It turned out that I am not alone in my morbid addiction - a lot of research has been published on this subject. Facebook dependency is not a recognized diagnosis, but it is being actively studied. Clinical psychologist Brent Conrad, who specializes in addictions, even identified 21 reasons for Facebook addiction. However, a categorical view of the virtual component of our life also leads to sad consequences. In China, where social networks are officially banned, Internet addiction is considered a clinical diagnosis and the main threat to the health of adolescents. There is an impressive video of The New York Times about how Chinese experts use military methods to "return" people "to reality." Instead of understanding the causes of a possible problem, local authorities immediately followed the path of violence.
At the beginning of March 2017, Facebook has more than 1.86 billion users, and the audience is growing at about 17% per year. Scientists have a huge platform for studying the largest social network in the world, and they constantly publish new research on the dependence on Facebook, the frequency and duration of social network use and the consequences of such obsession - some of the data can be found in the public domain. The social network is not harmful in itself, but the results suggest that our psyche can turn it against us.
For example, researchers from Poland and the United States came to the conclusion that there is a link between depression and the length of time spent / activity on the social network. According to scientists from Sweden, women spend 30% more time on social networks than men; and women feel less happy. This effect is familiar to many: the "filtered" life of others seems to be "ideal" - unlike the one that we lead; in the end, we are haunted by FOMO and eternal dissatisfaction. I experienced it myself: the longer I sat on the site, the worse I got. I felt that I was “not living” compared to friends from the social network, who would post cool statuses about my “magic” life. It became easier for me just because I had stopped looking at other people's stories and focused on my own.
Facebook affects the attitude to your own body. According to a survey by the Center for Eating Disorders among Facebook users aged 16–40, half of the participants feel insecure when looking at other people's photos on the social network, 44% want to have weight and figure like those who are read about. Every fifth woman reported that she had criticized her own figure on Facebook pages. This, too, was familiar to me - a tenth of my statuses were devoted to unsuccessful attempts to lose weight or play sports. My most fierce "enemies" became slender runners in bright leggings.
Offline life
I have used social networks every day since 2002. My whole life, work and emotions fell out automatically on the Internet, even the birth of a child went almost online. During my Facebook-free year, I immigrated to New Zealand. To make such a step in silence, alone with yourself, to open the country for yourself alone is something new. I liked it: I regain my daily routine in small pieces, day after day. I no longer need to share my notes with the world in order to feel that I really lived this day and experienced something worthy of attention.
After I released six hours a day, I had the resources to change my profession. I started working on a long-conceived book - more than half of the manuscript is already ready. She began to regularly write to the blog, met new people. I have a feeling that creative resources that used to be scattered by a small suspension on numerous statuses began to accumulate and be spent on things that are essential for me. But this state of affairs also had disadvantages: it’s hard for other friends to get to me outside the social network - part of the relationship naturally died out. Some potential clients, accustomed to doing business through Facebook, could not work with me and disappeared after a request to transfer the discussion to the mail.
Fear of missing something important, known as FOMO, proved to be justified - I was left behind. Expat groups, groups according to my professional interests, job search groups, groups of Russian-speaking families in New Zealand communicate via Facebook. I missed the opportunity to get free training on information campaigns in social networks - I refused because I was not on Facebook.
I violated my promise not to open a social network twice. The first time when I changed my place of residence in my profile - for potential employers. The second is when a powerful earthquake happened in New Zealand: I wrote that we were fine. Then I realized that I no longer want to communicate on Facebook: after a long break, I felt that with such communication my borders were violated - and that was enough for me. I miss the days when I received dozens of birthday greetings on my wall. But then I remember that after my departure only ten people came in contact with me through other channels. Not everyone will be happy with this decision - but now I like my life much more.