Why I decided to finally delete my Facebook account
I thought about deleting my Facebook account for over two years before I finally did, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Here’s why I permanently deleted my account after being inactive for a while, and why I suggest doing the same for others.
1 Facebook is increasingly poisonous
Maybe Facebook was always like this and I was blissfully ignorant. But over the years, I’ve noticed that the web is becoming more and more toxic. I noticed that my Facebook news feed got worse after the 2016 US election and things hit a tipping point for me during the COVID-19 lockdown.
It seemed as if people were becoming more and more hostile to people who disagreed with them, regardless of where they were on the political spectrum. I’m not immune to it because I’ve been just as bad on Twitter and other platforms. However, I wanted to stop seeing others as enemies and have more mature conversations about sensitive topics – even if we disagree.
Seeing so much negativity and hostility drains you and I found myself in a constant state of fight or flight. Even though I was in the back seat on Facebook, I felt like I had better things to do with my life than watching others type angry words at each other across the screen. Deleting Facebook subsequently helped me stop the destruction on social media.
2 I wanted to cut a lot of people out of my life
While I’ve occasionally cleaned up my Facebook account by trimming my friends list, you often run into friction between removing people you’ve been close to. Since I have been on the platform since 2009, I have accumulated several “friends” that I no longer had anything to do with. And to be honest, I also had a lot of people on my friends list that I didn’t know at all; we happened to go to the same school or university.
I know you can unfollow people you don’t want to unfollow and hide their posts, but it wasn’t about not seeing individuals from the past on my channel. I didn’t want them to know what I was doing; not because I don’t like them, but because it’s none of their business.
Dunbar’s number suggests we can only have about 150 relationships at a time—and while my 500 friends didn’t seem like a lot on paper, it’s a lot more. Rather than awkwardly decide to keep someone on my friends list because I met them at a party once, it was easier for me to delete my account entirely.
However, I made one mistake. There were people I really cared about and would like to stay in touch with. In retrospect, I would have taken more time to evaluate who I wanted to stay in touch with (and then reach out to) before deleting my social accounts.
icons go to trash” src=”https://static1.makeuseofimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/social-media-icons-going-into-a-bin.jpg” style=”display:block;height:auto;max-width:100%;”/> In 2019 I was on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and LinkedIn. I was a very heavy user of each – I remember one day when I clocked nine hours of screen time.
Being on social media seemed like a normal thing. Including MSN, I’ve been active on all platforms since 2007. It’s hard for me to remember a time without social media, so I never questioned whether it negatively affected how I interacted with the world.
During a difficult period at the end of 2019, I decided that I needed to change. During this era of intense self-improvement, I learned about reward methods and how social media can influence that. I kept an open mind and deactivated all my accounts (except LinkedIn) for almost a year.
I posted twice on Facebook after my experiment; one announced my return and the other said I had moved from the UK to Denmark. Ironically, the second post made me realize that I don’t want to be on Facebook for this new chapter (and that I’m happier without it). So a few weeks later I permanently deleted my Facebook account.
People often worry that they won’t have a way to contact people without Facebook or whatever social media account they want to delete. This is a real problem, but luckily you have a lot of options these days.
I was constantly worried about deleting my Facebook account because if I did, people wouldn’t be able to contact me. But if I really wanted to use Messenger, I could just create a private and untraceable account — and then use the Messenger app.
Lots of people use WhatsApp (plus alternatives like Telegram) and I’ve decided that those are much better alternatives to Facebook. Good old texting and iMessage are two other options, and you can even keep in touch via Instagram.
5 I didn’t like how Facebook made me feel anymore
When I first joined Facebook, I saw it as a great way to keep in touch with my friends and family. In the first few days, I had mostly positive opinions and feelings when using the app. But over time, things took a turn for the worse. In addition to getting bored with the app, two other big problems arose.
First, Facebook stifled my creativity. Because I was spending so much time on Facebook, I wasn’t doing nearly as much as I could have been with my big creative dreams and ideas. And even when I did, it was on social media services (like taking photos that would get likes from my Facebook friends instead of what I actually wanted to capture).
Facebook also gave me an intense feeling of FOMO, especially when I saw how everyone else was doing. For example, I quit my job and started my first business at a time when my friends were getting promotions. Even though I knew quitting my job was the right long-term decision, I was also broke at the time. Combine that with others getting raises etc and you can see the problem here.
I also felt obligated to write whenever I did something interesting. For example, when I was traveling, I had to tell my friends where I was going. Since deleting Facebook, I’m much happier that I don’t feel like I have to share my entire life. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make on Facebook.
Deleting my Facebook account was a huge decision, but I can safely say that it was one of my best long-term decisions. I have better relationships with the people I care about and am not exposed to nearly as much negativity as I was. Not sharing my personal life is also a huge plus. I suggest deactivating your account for three months and then seeing how you feel; if you like your life offline, feel free to permanently delete it.