Why no more using Facebook and many other apps
I totally quit Facebook for 2 weeks. Deactivated my account to get used to it, but reactivated it again yesterday to be able to log-in again into some apps that only support logging-in using Facebook, but not planning to use Facebook itself again.
Spending the last 2 weeks without Facebook was a first step on becoming not attached to anything. I did also go through my installed apps and removed most of them, those I don't need, and those I don't want to use again.
Facebook was on top of the list as I was very attached to it, and it was the go to place too whenever I wanted to know more about the other things I'm attached to.
I was tired. I was tired of reading all the noise generated by people around me, and myself. Everyone was competing to look smarter, more successful, more happy, more pretty, and more funny. And by the end of the day, no one really gives a damn what you ate, where you've been to, or who you met today.
We want to feel important by seeking the attention of others and making them jealous by posting the interesting aspects of our lives and hiding our disadvantages.
I removed all the apps that came with no benefit other than the benefit of bragging. I know my life isn't bad nor perfect. Your life too isn't bad or perfect. So let's act normal, and keep the bragging for those who has nothing else in their lives to care about.
Consuming more, creating less
I used to believe that Twitter was the main reason I stopped to blog. It was an easy medium to write whatever thought that came to my mind in as short sentences as possible. All the smart people were there to follow on tweets and turn them into interesting discussions.
Twitter lost its shine long time ago, and it became a place for sharing links. Facebook now is where everyone share their life. It's a perfect medium for sharing unimportant stuff. And people are not that smart, so sharing important stuff or ideas wasn't as important as sharing a photo of your dinner. And for my surprise, all that bullshit was addictive.
I felt like I'm becoming more of a consumer and less of a creator. I wanted to get back to writing, reading important things, building stuff, and exploring things I never cared about before.
Offline conversations are better
I wanted to have more offline conversations with people. I found that sharing a lot on social networks makes having conversations with people less entertaining. They know where I've been to last week, and with whom, what I ate, and my latest news. If I know everything about them too, then why would we need to talk?!
I wanted to feel connected more to the people that care about me and I care about. And wanted to be more aware of my offline life.
The number of people I communicate with now is way less than the number I used to communicate with before, but our stories and discussions are becoming better. And I now finally know who are the people I should be giving more attention to compared to everyone else.
500 Words Each Day is one of the things I'm trying to use to fill my life after removing a lot of the unimportant stuff. It fits my "write more" goal. It's a challenge to find an interesting topic to find about everyday, but hopefully that will be fun thing to think about everyday.
I crossed my 500 words target for today, so I will end this here and continue tomorrow.