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Goodbye, Pretty Hate Machine
It’s time to part ways with Facebook.
As I prepare to delete my account, a few reflections.
The TLDR; the costs outweigh the benefits. It’s takes too much attention capital, it is emotionally draining, and has removed most of us from a civic relationship to our community and country.
Why now?
Since I don’t login that often, all I get fed are pictures of past memories when I do login. This is nice, I guess, but I don’t need FB for this. The memories that matter are in my head and captured in journals. And all my photos are on Apple Photos, which provides curated memories If I want them.
I prefer focusing on making new memories, not reliving and rewriting old memories. I could go into a nerdy tangent here about the experiencing self versus the remembering self, but you can read Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” on you own.
Besides memories, I’m fed emotion-driven posts, luring me to engage and meet that emotion.
Sure, if I scroll long enough, there are posts with meaningful updates from family and friends, but the trick is … I have to scroll for a long time. I have to stay transfixed to the site.
The site has lost its value and utility; it takes more than it gives.
