Facebook is arguably the king of all social media platforms. With 2.4 billion monthly active users^[1] and still counting, it is clearly here to stay, at least for now. It has become a giant repository of all things social and digital. It is even a repository of time and activities; millions of dollars move across it daily, so are millions of emotions exchanged from behind each user’s screen. It is a meeting place for the idea of men/women, and a melting point for their messages and emotions.

When it arrived, it was advertised as a platform that will connect us with friends. It certainly did. What wasn’t advertised was that it will be a platform that will brew new emotions in us and steal our time. They certainly didn’t!

But Facebook entered our life, and like a storm crashing into a gentle sea, left all who experienced it scampering for cover. Some did get the cover, and some were swept away by the storm.

As for me, right now, I can conveniently divide my adult life phases into three: life before Facebook, life with Facebook, and life after deleting my Facebook app.

Do you wonder why I give Facebook a distinct slot in my phases of life?

This is because Facebook offers a peculiar kind of life phase itself. A life phase that can only be understood by those who lived a real life before its advent; who then later lived a life that involved heavy use of it; then afterwards; who fully or partly regain their way of life as it used to be before its entry.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I was one such person.

Before I move on, I wish not the reader to start perceiving this essay as a thinly disguised word war against Facebook (and social media) that can’t wait to start. No, it is not. Rather, I want to use it to educate us and inform us, even probably entertain us. The article will be about my Facebook app use specifically.

I want to share what I experienced after deleting my Facebook app with you. I had lived a different life before the deletion, and now live a different life after the deletion. I say Facebook occupies a life phase on its own!

Don’t worry. You will know how I lived my life with Facebook by reading about how I lived my life without it. Here we go. These are the 10 Lessons I learnt after deleting my facebook app.

 1. I Learnt I Have More Time to Read Elsewhere           

Before I registered on Facebook and downloaded its app, I was an omnivorous reader. I was still an omnivorous reader after installing the app though, just that almost all what I read afterwards comes from Facebook!

The platform is addictive, and the app makes it even more. The first thing I did after having the app installed was to carefully vet who I sent friend requests to and do the same before I accept friend requests from others.

This has a rather unexpected effect. Because I have taken pains to compile my friends list, my newsfeed started to feature mostly, posts of those that are like me, who think like me and who have the same worldview as me – and I consumed it non-stop!

Because we share the same beliefs and worldview, their posts are naturally the most attractive to me and they almost became the exclusive material I read.

Of course, after I deleted the Facebook app, I found myself gravitating back to reading from many different sources again. I wasn’t exclusively fed writings of people that agree with me like it was on Facebook. Variety entered my life again. And like before, I start begging to disagree.

2. I Learnt to Sleep Earlier

My sleep cycle was severely disturbed by my Facebook obsession. I suffered from sleep deprivation for a long time due to it, but it has become such an accepted part of my life that I thought little of the suffering I was going through. Indeed, I don’t even know it was torture until I regained a normal sleep cycle back after I deleted the app!

Two things contributed to this. Firstly, I leave checking my Facebook feed until bedtime because I have to work in the afternoons. The feed would have accumulated by then, of course, but I derived a misguided joy from having it that way, mainly because it seems best to consume them whole rather than piece after piece throughout the day!

So the scrolling begins, and I will be scrolling through posts usually until well past midnight. I usually make sure I read every word, but of course, they are so juicy: They are posts made by people like me, and they gave me great joy to read. That is, until my head starts banging…

You see, I read thousands of words when I do this nightly ritual: essays, articles, debates and expositions. And I want to finish it all before another one accumulates the next day. So I read it, my brain working overdrive to digest it all throughout the night.

By the time I finished, I usually have a small headache and have a hard time falling asleep. But I thought little of this and sought to repeat the “fine” experience the next night.

Not until I deleted the app do I know the joy of having a sound sleep.

 3. I Learnt Envying Is Bad for Me

I didn’t learn to envy until I had my Facebook app. Like I said earlier, I read quality materials produced by people who have the same worldview as me. The problem is just that most are more knowledgeable than me.

And how I envied their knowledge!

I will scroll through posts mulling over how I can be like a hundred others on my newsfeed – the fantastic writer, the logical debater, the accurate warner, the awesome social commentator and the occasional funny dude. I will envy their abilities and wish I have same, even wish I have their popularity.

I soon noticed it is taking a toll on my happiness and satisfaction: Every time I made a post and compared the paltry number of comments and likes my post was getting with that of friends, my heart will sink, and I will start envying my friends.

As soon as I realized this, I know it is about time I delete the app. It has already robbed me of a lot of things, and the last thing I want from the app is it adding envy to my troubles.

I love my friends. I won’t let an agglomeration of their abilities, assembled by a mindless app make me start developing animosity for them!

Friends are permanent, app are transient. App go! Friends stay!

 4. I Learnt It Is Necessary to Break Every Addiction     

It was through having Facebook so accessible via the app that first opened my eyes to the reality of addiction.

Before then, addiction was purely a socio-academic matter I read about from newspaper pages and blogs. By the time I start spending bits of my day and a huge chunk of my nights scrolling through Facebook newsfeed, indeed, feeling inadequate if I have not checked it in a day, I know what it is to be addicted too! For I am clearly already suffering from a mild form of addiction myself.

Some implications of having an addiction soon started showing in my life; an obsession with the object of addiction, loss of productivity and I started neglecting more important activities.

Once I am aware of these, I knew the sole way out is to remove the object of addiction from my life and deal with the aftermath cold turkey. I dealt with it and it was even easier than I thought.

I realized something afterwards though. Facebook is not worth having an exaggerated addiction for. It can be easily quitted. Additionally, I realized dangerous addictions are anything that we become obsessively attached to that leads us to neglecting more important issues in our lives and that declines our productivity. These things may be as mundane as Facebook posts.

5. I Learnt FOMO Exists Only When There is Something to Miss

FOMO means Fear of Missing Out. It is a psychological phenomenon currently under intense study ^[4] – probably because it is now so common. I experienced it too when I still had my Facebook app.

In its digital incarnation, FOMO has witnessed a blatant resurgence and has wreaked great havoc on people’s psychology.

It is probably among the main culprits behind our addiction to social media and Facebook in particular.

I knew I had a FOMO too when I started having unbearable cravings to launch my Facebook app whenever any major event connected to the issues and topics I am following happens.

But I was not launching the Facebook app to learn more about it from the source (if the source have an account with Facebook), but rather to read what people are posting about it, especially in the comments section.

In this case, the event itself takes a second place, and the fear of missing out on how people are reacting to it, and what discussions are coming up about it takes the pride of place in my heart. This was my FOMO.

Facebook is a big generator of FOMO for most of us. But that’s so long as we have easy access to the platform. Upon deleting my Facebook app, there follows a huge reduction for me on my FOMO sources. When I deleted that Facebook app, it seems I automatically deleted my FOMO along with it.

6. I Learnt My Notifications Are Much More Reduced

If the reader have been following all the downsides I experienced from having an app that gives me a quick access to Facebook so far, he/she would have correctly guessed that I was often lured into opening the app in the first place by its notifications.

Notifications are an excellent way to call our attention to what is happening on your favorite social media platform, but they usually waste our time.

Even before I deleted my Facebook app, I know the notifications can sometimes be a nuisance. But I don’t know how much of a nuisance THEY HAVE BEEN until I uninstalled the app! Deleting the app reduced my notifications so much that the life afterwards was marked by a great sense of relief.

7. I Learnt To Enjoy the Moment

Using the Facebook app deprived me of enjoying some special life moments in two ways. Firstly, I became too engrossed in capturing my thoughts (and events I witnessed) in Facebook-friendly style, rather than in a format that will be friendly to the ruminations of my mind. This especially affected my writing style.

Secondly, I became numb to appreciating events and life beauties simply for the sake of appreciation. This was a great deprivation, as it deprives my mind its much beloved past-time of replaying a memorable event for a long time. Instead, once I put my thoughts and opinions on Facebook, it seems to me that I have archive it there, and a bland void will grow in the part of my mind where that memorable event should be.

However, I am now gradually learning to enjoy my moments all alone again, in the privacy of my mind, after I deleted the Facebook app.

8. I Learnt To Do Without Some “Friends”

My Facebook account introduced me to a lot of new “friends.”

But of course, my “friendship” with many of them never goes beyond the comments section.

More importantly, I became a fan to many of these “friends”; following their posts religiously and defending them from trolls whenever I can.

It is not an overstatement to say I actually maintained active Facebook presence for a long time simply because of some of these people. I thought I was addicted to them. But that was only until I deleted the app (because of some of the reasons I have already outlined above).

As addicted as I thought I was for them, ever since I deleted my Facebook app many months ago, I now barely remember they exist.

 9. I Learnt I Have More Time for My Family

Social Media is a paradoxical invention, it has kept us more physically apart under the guise of bringing us closer together.

If the many hours I spent debating preposterous matters with strangers on Facebook is spent with my family, it would have had more benefit to my social life and my happiness.

Fortunately, I am regaining those lost hours now and channelling them to more beneficial activities. Since I deleted the app, I have had a bit more extra time for my work and family. Happy!

10. I Learnt My Data Can Take Me More Places

Except for YouTube, I don’t think I have watched more online videos anywhere more than on Facebook. It was on Facebook I learnt to enjoy watching online videos. Apart from consuming my time, watching them also consume a lot of my mobile data subscription.

Before the installation of my Facebook app, my data was usually spent reading a lot of texts; I am not a heavy data user.

However, ever since I deleted the app, my data subscription has become useful for other sites and apps rather than Facebook!

It’s taken a long while, but I have become an omnivorous reader again – And hey, my texts are no more from Facebook again!

References:

 1.          Top 20 Valuable Facebook Statistics – https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ (Retrieved 14-8-2019)

 2.          “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction? – https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Envy-on-Facebook%3A-A-Hidden-Threat-to-Users’-Life-Krasnova-Wenninger/b775840d43f9f93b7a9031449f809c388f342291 (Retrieved via Wikipedia.org 14-8-2019)