Facebook Made Me a Bad Friend

About six weeks ago, I stopped using Facebook.

The decision was a reactive response to the Wired article that tracks the company's increasingly authoritarian leanings. When I did more searching, I found how Facebook has propped up the Duterte regime in the Philippines and been used to encourage Rohingya massacres in Myanmar. Since then, the story of how Facebook stayed silent during the Cambridge Analytica data harvest broke as well. 

I went back this week to launch the free Rape Crisis Counseling app I created, and because the network effects are strong and Facebook remains, for now, the only way I keep in touch with some of my older friends. 

I wrote on Twitter that I don't want to participate in their social experiments. I don't consent to how they share my data. My relationships are not an algorithm.

Also, they stole really good words, like Sharing and Friend, that no longer mean what they used to mean.

Before I stopped, I noticed a sense of isolation in my life. Instead of reaching out to real people, I'd open Facebook and scroll through my "Feed", getting fed avatars and digested-for-the-public pieces from the people I love.

Instead of emailing or texting or calling, one-on-one, I took the all-you-can-eat group buffet option and wondered why I didn't feel so good.

I stopped emailing them long rants and sharing the personal, private details of my life. I started looking at my sister's baby feed instead of texting her on WhatsApp. I forgot to tell my mother about significant work achievements and then got angry when she didn't notice them on Facebook.

For the last month or so, when I think of someone I care about, I reach out to them on email or text them a photo of me instead of Liking their latest status update on Facebook.

I'm writing emails to friends again, which are fun and kind of retro, like listening to an old mix-tape. I'm following up with emails to people who give me their business cards and relishing more in-depth conversation. I'm really enjoying the new connections and my Inbox never looked so good.

If there was a version of Facebook that let me own my own data, I'd be more comfortable sharing, but the fact of the matter is, it's a public forum. The illusion that the public can't see what you're doing is false and you know it. We can't even pretend that Facebook doesn't share and sell our private data with companies and all kinds of governments, and uses it for ways we don’t – and won’t – ever know.

From where I sit, it's good to feel uncomfortable with that.

It's also okay not to delete your Facebook.

The cognitive dissonance of holding two opposing ideas in our minds at the same time is good for us. It creates discomfort and encourages action. It allows us to decide for ourselves what is true.

At the SingularityU Summit in Sydney last month, I was inspired by the spoken word of Max Stossel from the Center for Humane Technology. "I don’t want these alerts to completely command me," he said.

Me neither.

I'm in transition now to using tech more consciously. I've seen the impact it's had on my well-being and negotiating this relationship more proactively is now a major factor in my self-care.

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