A Facebook friend was recently considering a permanent exit and I suggested she try a vacation instead. Back in 2016, Facebook was working my last nerve, so I decided to avoid it for a full month (except for a private group with extremely limited posts).
What happened?
I did not miss the people posting fake heartwarming quotations by Hemingway, Oscar Wilde or other famous authors who couldn’t possibly have written them.
I did not miss adorable animal videos (gerbils making friends with giraffes, etc.) which I confess I’ve often re-posted because, well, that’s what Facebook has re-programmed our DNA to make us do without thinking. It is Borg, and I have been assimilated.
I did not miss the climate change Miami-is-doomed posts, even though I had posted some.
I did not miss the Sanders fans bashing Clinton.
I did not miss the Clinton fans bashing Sanders.
I did not miss people mis-reading posts and replying with a lecture.
I did not miss the latest inflammatory quotation by some politician followed by “Well, they could have said it” after the quote was exposed as bogus.
I did not miss any of the mindless crazy anti-Obama comments that cropped up on friends’ pages no matter what they were posting about.
I did not miss embarrassing oversharing. You know what I’m talking about.
I did not miss people arguing about religion.
I did not miss people criticizing other people’s spelling when they were clearly pointing at typos, or attacking someone’s word choice when they were just plain wrong or over-zealous.
I did not miss posts inviting me to take quizzes like “What Kind of Pirate Are You?” or “Why Haven’t you Read At Least Two-Thirds of These Great Novels, You Moron?”
I did not miss people instantly disagreeing with any positive comment I made about a film, movie, book, song, video or anything else I happened to like.
I did not miss the temptation to instantly disagree with someone else’s opinion about a film, movie, book, song, video or anything else I happened to dislike.
I did not miss other writers humble bragging about how few words they wrote that day when the tally was in the thousands.
I did not miss posts that asked things like “What are the first seventeen adverbs you find in this letter scramble?”
I did not miss reports of people’s vacations in luxury Dalmation villas complete with a staff.
Though I missed some great friends, I was glad to be spared the noise and nonsense. During my month off, I had more time to read, watch movies, walk my dogs, nap, spend time with my spouse, study a new language, work on my hobby, go to the gym more often, and write.
Did I return to Facebook? Of course! I had to post about my time off.
Lev Raphael is the author of 25 boooks in many genres, including a guide to the writing life, Writer’s Block is Bunk!
Follow Lev Raphael on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LevRaphael
Lev Raphael Author, reviewer, and blo