Human Condition: How I quit Facebook and found quieter life | Entertainment/Life

I quit Facebook eight years ago.

I walked away with the solemn drama of someone abdicating an imaginary throne, like there should’ve been a tiny digital crowd gasping as I pressed “deactivate.” There wasn’t, of course; just me, my laptop and the uncomfortable realization that absolutely no one would notice.

For years, I’d been curating this strange museum of repetitive selfies, political rants, and birthday reminders for people I’m pretty sure I once met in the ’70s near a locker but couldn’t pick out of a lineup today. My feed felt less like real life and more like a reality show written by algorithms — faker than a puppy filter and somehow louder than an actual puppy.

Why did I walk away from Facebook? At some point it hit me: I couldn’t possibly have 800 friends. I can’t even keep five houseplants alive. Maintaining all those “connections” was basically emotional juggling with strangers who vaguely remembered my last name.

I couldn’t possibly have 800 friends; I can’t possibly have 80 friends — true friends. So, I left.

I walked away from the drama of two middle-aged neighbors engaging in a heated showdown over the exact height of their garage sale lawn sign. 

I walked away from my aunt’s numerous noble charitable deeds. These were largely unknown and highly questionable.

I walked away from my twice-married niece’s exuberant life in Chicago, New York City and Miami. I know she struggles to pay her bills.

Yes, I walked away from fantastic stories no one could believe.

Party after party. Perfectly made-up faces. Slender bodies and extravagant manicures. Expensive dinners and gourmet dishes. Very expensive wine. I walked away from it all.

I downsized my circle. Not in a minimalist, Scandinavian-furniture way — just in a “maybe I only need a handful of actual humans” way.

I am downsized to my cellphone and to writing to the kind who texts back with words instead of cryptic reaction GIFs.

When I stopped scrolling through other people’s lives like it was a never-ending soap opera, something weird happened.

Time appeared. Whole stretches of it. Empty and quiet and a little terrifying, like when the power goes out and you suddenly hear your own breathing.

So, I started reading again. Real books. Sentences with beginnings, middles and ends. I wandered into corners of the internet where people argued thoughtfully instead of exclusively in memes. My brain, which had been surviving on digital junk food, remembered what vegetables tasted like.

The whole exit was deeply uncinematic. No one begged me to stay. No violins were playing. Facebook didn’t send a search party. But I gained this small, miraculous thing: privacy. Silence. The blissful freedom of not knowing what my former elementary school classmate had for breakfast.

And it turns out that not knowing everything about everyone is its own kind of peace.

So yeah, I traded the digital circus for a quieter life. And honestly, it feels a lot more like mine.

— Zaid lives in Denham Springs.

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