Why I Cancelled FB

Today I am getting my haircut with my older sister and my mom.  My sister lives in the city and is coming home for about a week.  We have gotten to be closer over the years, so it's nice to have her in town to catch up.  Plus, she can see our wood stove!  haha I feel like I've somehow mentioned that thing in almost every post since we had it installed.  My poor readers, you must be so tired of hearing about it! :)

I just read a blog post about FB recently.  It reminded me of all the many, many reasons I'm not on it anymore.  I thought I'd share them here and maybe encourage others to follow my lead and cancel FB.  Okay, I'm not really trying to convince you all, but I do feel very strongly about my reasons for not liking it.  Before I begin, I will admit that there are many good uses of FB.  I think it depends on one's personality and how they use it, as with many things. 

Rather than connecting me to people, FB made me feel more distant from certain friends of mine.  If I hadn't checked FB for a few days, I would miss someone's post about meeting for coffee or miss a group invite for some party.  Suddenly I realized I had a cell phone, work email (when I was still working), personal email and now FB that I needed to check in order to stay in communication with some friends.  It's now my opinion that if I need FB to stay in touch with friends then they are not really close friends to being with.  

I'm a very sensitive person.  I get jealous super easy and I feel  sorry for myself often.  The root cause of those problems is that I compare myself to others.  I've found that FB is like the comparing person's nightmare.  First of all, people only post their most beautiful looking photos, I mean, why wouldn't they?  And the news they post is almost always the exciting stuff going on.  It's hard to feel content with your life when everyone is posting their travel, baby, wedding photos and so many wonderful tidbits of their life.  I remember feeling like I wanted to post beautiful photos myself, and I know one of  my motives was to make myself look good.

The time issue was another problem.  It was hard to spend a short amount of time on FB.  And even after signing out, I would sometimes find myself still dwelling on a comment, analyzing it to no end.  Or I would become immediately dissatisfied with myself, my life, my husband, ....you name it, I could always find something that made me feel not good enough.  FB had the power to suck the happiness right out of my day, without my agreeing to it.  There are endless avenues of potential discontent and my husband could tell when he would come home if I had been on FB.  My mood could usually say it all.  It was something I read, or something I saw that threw me off.  I just got really tired of my mood being so dependent on how my check in with FB went.  And honestly, now that I don't have it, I have never been happier.  Well, I still have my days obviously, but in general, I feel free from the comparison trap.

If you're anything like me, I would strongly encourage you to pull the FB plug.  You will thank me.  Your friends will begin to know that they have to call you to events because you're not on FB.  You'll start actually spending time with people in real life more.  You won't be moved to tears with another baby announcement.  It will be easier to not compare yourself or your life to others.  And those are just a few of the benefits of not having FB.

The other reason I don't have it, is because I want my life to be less open to the public.  I know you can have privacy settings and I know you can only share what you want to.  I don't want to post on FB when I finally conceive (God willing I do conceive someday!).  That would be like me throwing my pearls to swine.  Something I am hoping, praying, and struggling with is so precious and special to me.  How can I just broadcast it to all of FB as if it's just another "event".  Just another day, just another baby.  Because that's what it would be to those reading it.  I would get the normal congratulations and I know that I want so much more than just that.  I would want them to have understood what I've gone through and that this wasn't just another baby announcement.  Does that make any sense? 

I think it started before I got engaged.  So many people were getting engaged and I didn't want our engagement or marriage to be just another one shared on FB.  I had a lot of personal anxiety at that time and it was so much better for me to not be on FB while I was going through a huge life changing time.  Now I feel like things are no different in regards to how I feel about FB.  Maybe it's too impersonal for me, I don't know.  But now, those who know about my struggle to have a baby are close to me in real life or they are my readers on this blog.  I prefer it that way.  I think I'm better off without FB and I think if you can relate to any of what I've written you may be as well.