[////]=I quit Facebook completely almost two years ago.
(^ Baby help. I didn’t notice it until several hours after posting.)
I created my account as a teenager because it was the cool thing to do (back when you needed to have a school e-mail address to sign up), then over the years that followed it mutated into a sense of obligation. That whole, “I need to keep people up-to-date on my life,” thang.
Facebook was never a big source of dopamine addiction for me. I was never viewed as being trendy, so instead I mostly felt the anxiety of not being ‘like’-able enough for anyone. But, you know, I was obligated, even though I grew to hate it.
Then the summer of 2017 happened. As I contemplated posting about personal events, I thought about how stupid it was to feel enslaved to people who were never going to see or talk to me again. And why was I keeping up on their lives anyway? They never cared about me before Facebook came along. You know what? Screw them all.
I haven’t looked at Facebook since.
I also highly recommend quitting social media to everyone. Doing so had a surprisingly beneficial effect on my life, even though I never considered myself much of a user in the first place.
So…
This year I published a book on Kindle. I’m not terribly concerned about making money off of my writing, I just want to connect with readers (you know, the peeps who appreciate the way I think). Since I have four small children, I don’t want to do anything that intrudes on my life too much — motherhood comes first above all else for me, and kids are time-consuming. I confess that the thought of Facebook has crossed my mind as something easy.
But I swore never again, and I meant it.
Not to mention, I’m not going to find readers on Facebook, considering that I, as myself, did not enjoy any sort of popularity on the site. Not the right crowd.
I haven’t the foggiest if I have any chance of finding anyone with my self-imposed restrictions, but hey, I’ve never been known to be conventional. The important part is, I still have time for homeschooling and baking cornbread.
At the end of my own life story, I want to say that I kept myself.
By Autumn Rain 