My Chanukah Gift - Unplugging Facebook
Logging off of Facebook December 1-14.
The second week of November, I participated in a four day “protest” of Facebook by logging off the app and website that have been a daily part of my life for over 17 years. The national protest was against many of the policies, lack of safety measures, and politics that Facebook has fostered on its website. For me, it was more of a spur of the moment thing where I saw a friend post about the protest and I jumped on the experience because I needed to make a change.
I don’t know about anyone else but Facebook during the last 20 months has truly been a life suck and a negative force in my own life. From the uncertainty of COVID, to the 2020 presidential election, to the mask mandates, the vaccine “experts”, the 2021 school board races, and just the downright hateful posts, Facebook has helped foster a lot of misinformation and anger towards each other.
The four day reprieve from Facebook was amazing as I was actually able to be present. Present at work, present at home, and present with my kids. It was also a much needed mental health break. I was actually living my life versus living a digital life.
As November began drawing to a close and I was looking ahead to December (Chanukah, my birthday, and the end of 2021), I knew that I wanted to give myself a gift. A gift of unplugging from Facebook. However, I also knew that there were some questions that I needed to answer.
How long could I unplug? What about a week? Seemed like this wasn’t really a challenge after the four days in November. A month? A challenge for sure but could I really cut this out cold turkey. Two weeks? This seemed like a happy medium and something that would be both a challenge and achievable.
When would be the right time? Is there truly ever a good time? There is always going to be the idea that I have a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). What would I do without seeing all of the pictures of events taking place or a funny meme or video? If this is truly a gift to myself, why not start it in the middle of Chanukah? The Festival of Lights seems like a great time to get out from the darkness of Facebook and add light back to my life.
What about Colorado Gives Day? For the last 15 years, I have worked in the nonprofit sector and December is a huge time of supporting the causes that are close to me and my family. This is especially true for an event called Colorado Gives Day. It has been my tradition of sharing which organizations our family is supporting each year and why. How could I do this during my Facebook break? The answer is that I won’t do it on my personal Facebook page this year. I will do it through a blog post which will be shared to my professional Facebook page. But isn’t that cheating? No because I will not be logging onto my personal or professional pages from December 1 - 14. It will just be cross posted from the blog post.
What about other social media? Facebook is truly the one that has been most toxic over the last twenty months and who knows in the future, I may try another challenge.
While this gift is very selfish, I need it to reframe my mindset as I prepare for changes in my professional life and for the sake of my mental health. I hope that you too are giving yourself a gift this holiday season.