Finally joined Medium and glad I followed you.
I have an on-again off-again relationship with Facebook. I abstain for weeks at a time then have periods of intense scrolling, clicking, liking and wasting massive amounts of time. I won’t install it on my phone – which my wife thinks it kind of weird – but I don’t want to carry time-wasting around with me. For this reason most of my time spent on FB occurs while I am at home distracting myself from something more meaningful.
What usually draws me back after periods of abstinence is either to publish and gauge reaction to my work or to share feelings around. major events like the Orlando tragedy. One thing is certainly true, when you return no one has missed you.
While re-engaged, though it turns out I haven’t missed anything after months away, I still check for just about anything I can find to distract me. NowThis and AJ+ video clips or some alarmist ‘news’ headlines about injustice usually do the trick. I have learned a lot about certain issues but admittedly don’t spend the time to read and research on my own so in essence FB provides bite sized bits of info sandwiched between irrelevance. Kind of a lazy voyeuristic information gathering tool.
I generally tend to care less about the actual individuals on FB but have truly reconnected with some pretty amazing people and can see little cousins riding bicycles for the first time and all of that – which is great. To me that was always the best aspect of the platform and why I will probably always keep an account. None of my actual friends really use FB so again, no loss for me in that regard.
My wife loves FB and it is a major marketing tool for her business. She has made amazing connections and has an impressive knack for the whole system. I applaud that and we have recently agreed that my time is better spent on Instagram as that provides more return for people in my line of work.
Glad I decided to get involved with Medium though as your post has given me a reminder that now is a good time to take a break from FB.
