Deactivate

This past week I deactivated my Facebook account. In most respects I'm not an opponent of the digital(love instagram) but I just found myself upset by it while also compulsively checking it. The world can be a cruel place, this isn't anything new, every day there are small and large scale tragedies happening and I think its important to be informed. However.

Overtime I've found the echo chamber, grandstanding, toothless nature of Facebook to be truly off putting. I agree that important information needs to be spread but posting and sharing takes so little effort and even less understanding that it lacks any real meaning. There is also this element of posturing, of narcissism about it all, cultivating a "compassionate" and "informed" digital persona, an element of "look at me I'm so enlightened" that is just exhausting. It propagates the illusion of involvement, of influence, of progress.

In my experience even if the content that is being shared is good and the sentiment accompanying it genuine it does not incite change, it is not actually participation in a political or social discourse. Petition signing, monetary donations to organizations, actual in-the-flesh protests/demonstrations, those have some actual stakes. Sharing a Huffpost article with your circle of friends who have the same beliefs as you doesn't actually do much.

Our culture is more partisan than it has ever been, beliefs more ingrained. There is little ground given in debate and discussion, minds rarely changed. This is no where more apparent then on Facebook where huge threads will develop from that one antagonistic conservative/liberal friend you have from high school/former co-worker/family member who tenaciously comments and uses incendiary language. No one is persuaded, everyone is angry. It's a zero sum game.

This all coupled with the fact that my checking Facebook had become habitual. Whenever I had downtime at work, at home, while commuting, a spare minute in line at Starbucks I'd check it even though it almost unilaterally intensified my boredom and caused me frustration. I couldn't stop I had built it into my muscle memory.

Now I don't say all this out of a sense of self-righteousness or superiority I just got tired of it, it made me feel bad. Social Media and digital technology is suppose to be helpful, make life easier, streamline communication, bring people together. At this point with it so ingrained in our day-to-day lives we have to police how successful it is for us, how much we get out of it, and decide if it is, in fact, useful.

It's important to remember that true change, inspiration, and tolerance are found in reality. Not in a What Disney Villain Are You quiz or 14 Vital Things You Don't Know About Syria article, as diverting as those things may be.