Facebook Wont Let You Leave Until You Select A Reason, Why? She Is A Dangerous Lover Indeed.
I really need to quit Facebook.
It's Saturday afternoon. I have things I could be doing. I could be watching television. I could be playing a video game.
I could be volunteering at a homeless shelter, an old folks home — I don't know. I could be exercising, or cooking, or going for a walk with my kids.
or you faced with saying like, My wife. Very serious: "you spend too much time on Facebook."
Wife, throwing her head back, eye-roll: "naaaaaah."
"Facebook is making our relationship worse and you're setting a bad example for our children."
"Naaaaaaaah."
Textbook denial.
Because I work in media: "I need to use Facebook for my job."
Worse: "I am a digital native."
I say these things?
I use the words that addicts use. "I can stop any time."
So why didn't I?
It's hard to be completely honest about the reasons why I use Facebook. It requires taking a long hard look at myself and accepting hard truths that reflect poorly upon me. That I'm selfish and narcissistic. That sometimes the opinions of strangers matter more to me than those I take for granted. My family, my closest friends. My wife.
That I find it comforting to dictate conversations. Facebook allows us to determine when we communicate, what we communicate and what we have to listen to. It's the reason, I suspect, why so many people disappear into their phones during actual social situations. In comparison to Facebook real life is a chaotic mess of misread visual cues and tonal subtleties.
And crucially, one must abandon a certain level of control in order to participate.
In Facebook you are the master of your own social universe. You construct that universe meticulously.
I have no issue with that. For some that's empowering. Some need that — myself included — but your own personal endgame may be a problem.
"I was ignoring people. Friends would visit. I'd be on Facebook. My wife and I would spend time together. I'd be on Facebook.
I'd take my son to the park.
I'm on Facebook.
Yet makes you desperately unhappy to write and read those words.
You meet a girl you like on facebook, you chat her up, she refuses, you feel so bad, dejected and incomplete, its time to deactivate that account. You are taking it so personal now.
Facebook is making you unhappy and your behaviour was compulsive. It was a bizarre habit and it was making me anxious.
Facebook is stopping you from doing other things. Most importantly it is literally stealing time from your family. Well, it wont be an easy one to deactivate too.
Here is what happens when you try to deactivate your account, its not an easy choice too.
Yep, there it is. All the way at the bottom there.
But that's where the fun begins. Click through and you find this...
An incredibly manipulative, last ditch attempt to change your mind. Your friends will miss you. These very specific people (almost certainly selected based on some sort of terrifying algorithm) will miss you.
Facebook won't let you leave until you select a reason why? A dangerous, spurned lover bolting the door shut. "Why? Who is she? WHO IS SHE?"
As soon as you select a reason, another pop-up.
"I CAN CHANGE! I CAN CHANGE FOR YOU. JUST GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE!"
De-activate.
The lock unbolts, You slide through the door. Escape. Run like hell. and sefini, you are free.
And then: the relief...
Have a fulfilled day ahead.
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