5 reasons you would want to quit Facebook

The internet, coupled with social media, has completely transformed the way we interact with each other. The world has shrunk and become a small place where everybody seems to know everybody. If you do not believe us, you might want to check the 3 and half degree of separation theory on Facebook.

Celebrities are no longer unapproachable and the information that earlier took months to spread now goes viral in milliseconds. From your highschool classmates to people you met last week for dinner, you know what everybody is up to thanks to the fact that you are connected with them online. There’s no doubt social media, and Facebook in particular, has become a significant part of our daily lives. 

We emphasize more on Facebook is because it is the most popular social networking website in the world and is responsible for getting a major chunk of the world’s population online. While we don’t think there is nothing wrong in using Facebook, since it is an effective communication tool, we also feel that people should know how to do without it. 

Most people forgot long back that at the end of the day, Facebook is just a website. So instead of posting things they did online, they do things to post online. If you think about it, even you may have done something sometime just so that you could post it on Facebook. 

And if you have, then this is exactly the kind of addiction we are talking about. You need to disconnect. And here is why:

1.

You'll learn to live in the moment

It's common these days to go out for dinner with a bunch of people who have their phones glued to their hands. A few of them can't live without sharing a picture of the meal with their friends, and others want to post a check-in on Facebook to let everyone know where they were out on a Saturday and who all were with them. Apparently if it isn't announced to the world, it didn't happen right? And obviously the dish doesn't taste as good if it doesn't score a 100 likes.

The sad fact is that most people would actually relate to these statements. We have become so obsessed with monitoring our online personalities that we no longer live in the moment and enjoy what's happening here and now. By deactivating our accounts, we can learn how to be in moment, once again, just like we used to be before Facebook started ruling our lives.

2.

You will stop comparing yourself to others

This is somewhat an extension of point one. We never question ourselves that why do we need everyone to know about the tiniest of details of our lives. Most of us might find ourselves saying "because everybody else does…." and that reveals a lot about what Facebook is doing to us on a deeper psychological level.

We constantly post about ourselves to tell everybody how good our life really is. And we do this because everyone else is telling us how perfect their lives are. This façade of perfection on Facebook-like social networking sites has made competing with others as natural a thing to do as breathing.

But we forget that the way we aren't posting about the imperfect things in our lives, others aren't too. So basically, we are judging ourselves on a distorted version of reality. Besides this, we might be cheese while the people we are comparing ourselves to are chalk. The two just happen to have a similar (unreal) digital personality. But is it really fair to compare the two?

3.

Your interactions with your friends will get more substantial

Facebook just creates a façade of you being in touch with your friends. If you think of it, there's a lot more to being friends with someone than liking their pictures and congratulating them on their achievements.

You may be aware of all that's happening in their lives, but you don't actually talk to them. Any interaction that you do on Facebook, if you ask us, is a bit superficial.

Try getting off Facebook for a month and use other mediums like Face Time and Skype with your close friends. You'll realize how distant you actually have been from them without even knowing it. And also, you'll realize you only care about 20 people out of the 1,000's of friends you have on Facebook.

4.

You will stop believing that you need to be 'liked'

So you just posted a picture on Facebook and no one hit the like button below it. Even the thought of this happening is bound to give jitters to so many of us. Obviously there has to be something wrong with the picture that nobody likes it.

This is what Facebook has done to us. We constantly try to see ourselves through other people's eyes and evaluate ourselves on basis of how many likes our posts and profile pictures can gather.

So if we come to think of it, we are clicking pictures to post on Facebook and not to preserve memories. And further, we begin disliking them if our friends don't give them a validation.

5.

Most importantly, it is a waste of time

At the end of the day, Facebook is just a website. Needless to say, a website that barely has anything useful on it (for most). And most of us still spend at least an hour or two on it every day, religiously.

Take a week and monitor the amount of time you spend on Facebook, waiting for something interesting to appear on your News Feed. You’ll realize on your own how much time you are actually wasting.

If you ask us, you can actually utilize this time doing something else. Maybe learning something new or hitting the gym to get into shape or reading a new book. The options of doing things offline are endless. You just need to get yourself offline to consider them.