What happens when you leave Facebook.

I don’t have a Facebook, which should be obvious after reading my title.  I’m not the only person to leave Facebook either. I read back in 2013 that there was a trend for people leaving Facebook… I can’t remember the article besides that part that it’s a ‘trend’.  About a year ago, I truly can’t remember how long its been, I elected to join the shrinking population of non-Facebook people of the world for what I think are pretty good reasons.

Let’s get my reasons out of the way.  For one, I did not appreciate what it was doing to my social life.  Social networking online does not fulfill my social needs.  My friends and family members appear to do just fine with it and I noticed my face-to-face or phone-call contact with people was shrinking.  No one calls to ask how I’m doing anymore or even have a conversation. Instead they searched my feed, if they even cared to know what I was doing, and ‘like’ my statuses.  That’s not socializing.  Secondly, towards the end I only used Facebook as a time-waster to play casual games… which is a dumb reason to have my life on record and available to everyone with access to the Facebook worldwide web.  Thirdly, I didn’t really appreciate where Mark Zuckerberg was taking the privacy settings and letting his minions run social experiments untethered.  And lastly, do you know how psychotic you sound when you get mad at your boyfriend because he hasn’t accepted your friend request?  I do… and when I realized it, I knew I had to leave Facebook.

So what exactly happens when you decide to delete your Facebook.  I’ll be honest, I didn’t think many people would notice and I figured I’d be hard pressed not to get right back on.  Here’s what actually happened:

•  Everyone thinks you deleted them. Oh yeah they do. And they become very, very awkward about it.  One of my friends called me to ask why I deleted her. My mother confronted me at her house asking why I deleted the family and for what reason.  I think half of my Facebook friends called, texted, emailed or ran into me in person and it was one of their first questions every time. It actually increased my social experiences for a week.  The strange thing to me is that none of them figured out I deleted myself. It was like a forgone conclusion that if I wasn’t in their friends then I’d deleted them.
• No one understands why. I don’t know how many people I’ve explained myself to now.  At first it was my friends but now it’s just constantly.  So many things happen on Facebook and only on Facebook so I’m bombarded by things that end with me having to say “Oh, never mind I don’t have a Facebook”.  And then I get the stare. It’s this blank, confused stare as if I just said I like to kick babies.  The kind of stare that goes with a sad child’s “but why!?” cry.  Once I see the face, I know I’m about to have a 15 minute conversation where I come off as the crazy person on a soap box screaming in the park.  Because how could anyone delete their Facebook, right?
• I really don’t miss it.  I’m not saying that to convince you.  I don’t care, I already know you think it’s crazy (see the last bullet point).  I really thought that I’d have a hard time unplugging. Not knowing what people do all the time or being able to get invited to events… I thought that’d make me want to go back.  The truth is the Facebook addiction/habit is so easy to break I was over it in a week.  It helped that I didn’t get on for any real good reason for the last year anyways.  All I had to do was delete the app on my phone and go about things. I am busy enough to hardly notice.  Facebook even gives you a month to make sure you are serious. They keep your Facebook page available but offline in case you change your mind. From what I’ve been told pretty much everyone caves and goes back.  I didn’t even know when my month was up.
• You will no longer have any idea what’s going on in your friend group.  Seriously. I deleted myself and it was like committing social suicide.  People forget you weren’t one of the names in their friends when they created an event and you don’t get to go to the event.  Or you get last minute invites with “I’m sorry I forgot you weren’t on Facebook!”.  I’m not sure how you forget when you didn’t click on my name but at least they thought of me later.  At first I literally got calls from parties going “Hey why aren’t you here?!” and then slowly people adapted.  Do you have any idea how weird this is? Facebook has replaced the normal social interactions I took for granted my whole life.  What the hell happened to cards and phone calls?
• People will ask “How will I know what you are doing?”.  Number one most awkward question I’ve ever heard and I’ve heard if quite a bit now.  The answer is pretty simple… it’s called a cellphone.  You don’t even have to call me, these days you can text short sentences or even just emoticon pictures. It’s amazing where technology has taken us and how quick we are to forget.  Do you know when I was in Middle School I had to wait till I walked all the way home from school to call my best friend or ask my parents if I could go for a bike ride? And yet now, without a Facebook, how the hell are people going to know what I’m doing. God forbid they ask.

What I’ve come to realize is Facebook is only useful for stalking people.  That’s what your doing. Essentially Facebook is a collection of people shouting in a room hoping some other people in that massive room care enough to overhear them. And then the person waits to see a bunch of thumbs up.  I don’t even want to go to any of my High School reunions anymore because Facebook pretty much ruined it.  Think about it, if I want to know where everyone’s gotten in life or brag about myself I can just find them and like them and stalk them. Or skip the middle part and be a Facebook creeper.  Instead of moving on from a breakup, you could instead stalk your ex and see everything they are doing via Facebook.  Why?  What the hell is the purpose?  Unless you have a business and need the networking I’m a little confused on the point of Facebook anymore.  Thus I deleted it and conducted my own social experiment.  I urge you to try it yourself if you’ve thought about it. Give it a month, it will surprise you.