Why I quit Facebook

This morning I finally did what I've been thinking about for weeks:  I deleted my Facebook account.  Of course, the good folks at Facebook have kindly instituted a two-week period in which I can reopen it, but I honestly don't see that happening.  It felt good to cut that tie.


I got into it like everyone else, and for a while had a lot of fun with it.  I reconnected with old friends, made new ones, and generally started building a little community around myself.  Facebook is a lot of fun, and overall I really enjoyed it.  Slowly, though, I also learned to hate it.
It was in the last few months leading up to the 2012 election that I really started seeing the dark side of FB.  People I knew started posting things that ranged from the annoying to the downright vile.  Everyone seemed to be picking sides and taking shots at everyone who disagreed with them.  Eventually, disagreement itself became impossible with many people; any hint of a difference of opinion was met with sarcasm and personal attacks.

That's where I hit the wall last night.  A comment -- not well-thought-out and admittedly jerk-like -- elicited a near-nuclear response.  This inspired me to be even more arrogant, which drew more fire.  None of us were treating each other fairly or lovingly.  It was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I suddenly saw what I had allowed Facebook to do to me.  Understand that I don't blame the network; it's just a tool, and can be used for good or ill.  I was using it to indulge me need to be the smart funny guy who's always right, with little regard for how anyone else felt.  Surely they would recognize my brilliance and, won over by my rapier wit, would fall in behind me, right?  My desire to be a combination of class clown and Glorious Leader won me a few people who most likely hung around just to see what I'd say next, but the fact is that I was just poisoning myself and those around me.

Facebook is uniquely suited for this sort of self-aggrandizement at the expense of others.  It combines anonymity with the ability to show yourself off.  Chris Bloom on Facebook wasn't the same as Chris Bloom in real life; I didn't set out to invent a false me, but any situation where you control information about yourself is rife with opportunity to manipulate that information for your benefit.  Facebook Chris was a parody of Real Chris, both more sarcastic and more earnest, more caring and more self-centered.

In addition, Facebook offers a few other tools for the aspiring jerkwad.  It's live and public, a lot like ye olde chat rooms of the early days of the interwebs.  This means that your cool Facebook persona can start crap and be guaranteed an audience.  Unlike the old chat rooms, though, FB is persistent; you can go back and dig up old arguments any time you want, so the fun never has to end.  And instead of an audience of random strangers, your antics will be seen by "friends" of both sides, so they'll have a personal reason to get involved.

It's a perfect mix for some people.  Unfortunately, I'm one of those people.

It took me a long time to realize it, though others had tried to tell me.  My wife has pointed out numerous times that I can be a "Bible bully", someone who insists he's right, building his case on a Scripture or two and defying anyone to pull it down.  As wiser men than I have said, you can win an argument and lose everything else, and I seemed to be trying to prove that.  Except on FB, no one ever wins anything.  They just keep arguing.

So I quit.  Part of it was just sheer exhaustion.  You can only read so much manic cheerleading before it wears you out.  Part of it was disgust at the way no one ever wanted to listen to anyone else.  Most of it, though, was the realization that I had used FB to become a worse person.  I was indulging my twisted desire for attention at the expense of other people.  Of course most of them were probably doing the same thing, but I'm not responsible for them.  The one person I was required to keep in check was getting out of control.  I was embarrassing myself, my family, and my God.  I was hurting people instead of helping them.  So I quit.

And it felt good.