On Leaving Facebook

I am often exhorting people to try simple experiments: make a small change in your thoughts or actions about the world, and then pay close attention to whether it increases or decreases your level of happiness (i.e., be aware during zazen of what happens to the body, the mind, and the heart). I'm in the midst of one such experiment right now; I am liberating myself from Facebook. And now that I'm two months into it, I think it might be interesting to look at the results so far.

First off, this has nothing to do with the recent spate of privacy scandals at Facebook and other major social media sites. I've always been aware of the deal with Facebook: in exchange for free access to the platform and the networking benefits it provides, I have allowed them to collect all sorts of data about me (much of which could not be controlled by the "privacy" settings they allowed me to tighten) and to monetize that information in lots of subtle ways ("monetize?" - can you tell I have an MBA?). As they say, if you aren't paying for it, you are not the "customer" - you are the product.

Instead, what finally drove me away was the near constant negativity and outrage. Lots of greed, anger, and stupidity in the posts I was seeing. Some came from people that I knew. Sometimes egoposting and humblebragging (isn't it amazing that there is a need to coin words like these?). Sometimes by genuinely well-intentioned people trying to draw attention to one of the myriad injustices in the world using various types of slacktivism.

Additionally, some of the negativity and outrage came from people I didn't know, but that FB decided I needed to be exposed to. Psychology has shown that anger and fear are very powerful emotions when it comes to causing people to take actions - like clicking through ads or buying products. And so keeping users scared or outraged is an important part of a monetization strategy. If Dave isn't buying enough from FB advertisers then stir him up a bit more - show him more posts from his most outrageous friends and more disturbing ads in his newsfeed, and suppress the other nicer stuff.

And it works. I began to notice that after checking FB, I never seemed to be happier to get updates and news from my friends. I was always somehow more agitated then before I went online. Facebook wasn't making me happy by keeping in contact with friends. It was making me angry. And I didn't like that.

It turns out I am not alone in this dissatisfaction. It is now emerging that many of the Silicon Valley techies who have learned to create these highly addictive but dissatisfying features of social media are themselves dropping out of the platforms, locking down their smartphones, and more (here is an interesting article with some examples). Maybe a future post will be about social media as an addiction, a bond and fetter of our own making?

So, I tried to make my FB experience into something more positive. Knowing that FB was tracking what I liked or responded to, I would purposely click on positive items and ignore negative ones. And I tried in various ways to get some of my friends to be a bit more reflective and restrained in some of their posts - partly for my benefit, but also for their own benefit as I could see outrage and dissatisfaction building in them too. I posted a screed on the types of (mostly bogus) opinions found on FB (with the subtext: don't be like this). You can read it immediately below. Can you guess how successful this approach was?

Randall Munroe said it best

 

The Five Types of Opinion You Find on Facebook

“Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. But no one wants to look at the other guy’s”

I was going to close all my social media accounts, because I was getting increasingly distressed at all of the ill-informed and divisive bullshit that is online (I chickened out because it would mean completely losing touch with some old friends). But I would like to at least point out the problem, which is the staggering volume of ignorant postings (many of mine included). It seems that opinion posts come in five types or levels of quality:

•  LEVEL ONE: Educated and well-informed. “I have read the original material or had access to the actual data. I have reached my opinion by reviewing and considering the facts directly.”
• LEVEL TWO: Reasonably informed. “I haven’t had direct access to the original data myself. But an educated person with direct access to it has explained to me what the data shows. Or, I have had direct personal experience (although I recognize that my case might be atypical).”
• LEVEL THREE: Idiosyncratic generalization. “I don’t have any direct access, and the person who explained it to me seemed to be a wingnut (or a guru). Based on that one experience, I have concluded that the whole of the topic area is crap (is Truth).”
• LEVEL FOUR: What some guy told me. “I don’t actually know anyone (crazy or not) who has had direct experience. My opinion is based on what I’ve heard second-hand through the media, or whatever showed up on my social media feed. 'Like' if you agree!”
• LEVEL FIVE: Drank the Kool-Aid. “I don’t trust the mainstream media. I get my info solely from second-hand sources that are obviously biased with an agenda (e.g., fringe media or politicians on either side, religious leaders, private think-tanks) or are neutral but cynically stirring up controversy to make money (e.g., talk radio). No, I’ve never heard of Snopes, why do you ask?”

Here are some illustrative examples of using this scale, from a couple of recent controversies I have heard people opining about.

The failings of socialism

• “I’ve read Marx and thought about his arguments. He has a good point about X. But I think he’s completely wrong about Y because he made an unreasonable assumption about...”. Level One
• “Marxists are stupid. I see them marching on campus with bullhorns demanding minimum incomes for everyone – even people too lazy to work”. Level Three
• “Being a socialist is better than being some greedy Randroid bastard on Bay St”. Level Five

The #metoo movement

• “I haven’t experienced harassment myself. But I’ve talked with people who have. And they are reasonable and intelligent people, not ‘strident man-haters’”. Level Two
• “A famous woman who complained about the extent of sexual harassment in workplaces once cheated on her taxes, so we should ignore whatever she is saying”. Level Three
• “The whole thing is a plot by strident man-haters to turn normal men into pussies”. Level Four
• “I heard on the Rush Limbaugh (John Oliver) show that...”. Level Five

I think the opinions that really count in a debate are Levels One and Two. Those are the people who have really considered the facts. And although they do not have to all agree with each other (and especially they do not have to agree with me), they should be carefully listened to. If you have a Level One or Level Two opinion about something, please speak up and share it so the rest of us can learn (thus we can develop a 'Level Two' opinion – whether or not we even agree with you). What a helpful thing to do about a pressing social issue! Wise speech, indeed.

OTOH, the opinions from levels Three to Five are pretty much worthless. In fact, Levels Four and Five are worse than worthless, as they actually harm public discourse by cluttering up the Level One and Two messages with a lot of noise. If your opinion is a Level Three or worse, perhaps you should just keep it to yourself. Maybe refrain from posting it, and just keep your eyes open for Level One or Two posts. I think this situation is where most of us are, most of the time. And the wisest speech we can make then is to shut up and listen until we are better informed.

Spreading a Level Five opinion is a socially harmful act. So, I’m going to try to live by this (and I wish others would too). If I have a Level One or Two viewpoint on the issue of the day, I’ll post it. Otherwise I’ll try to keep my opinion to myself (although I still reserve to right to call out when someone posts some L5 bullshit). No doubt I’ll fail sometimes. But I will at least try.

World-changing stuff, right? Yeah, right. At best, the effects of these efforts were very small and short-lived. The commercial interests vested in making FB polarized and outrageous (and profitable) are very strong.

So, I decided something more drastic would be needed (at least in my tiny little corner of the world). I decided to run a little experiment to see whether, on balance, using FB was conducive to more happiness or less. So, two months ago I quit Facebook cold-turkey. I downloaded all of my data, and then closed my account.

Experimental Results

At first the withdrawal symptoms are pretty strong. Imagine the horror of pressing the button for the elevator, and having nothing to entertain you for the next 30 seconds while you wait. Of wondering what your friends are up to, and not being able to see their recent posts. The Fear of Missing Out.

But there are interim crutches available. Buzzfeed and Diply have got you covered for snippets of inane humour. And Twitter lets you know your friends are still out there, but everyone is limited to 280 characters so they cannot rant too much. Instagram is even better (even as a FB company). There are a lot of joyous and inspirational photos floating around out there. And nobody is pushing other outrage-inducing crap onto your screen.

Within a couple weeks I had worked out a new modus vivendi. Quick observations or comments I'd like to make go on Twitter. Photos of moments of transcendent beauty (needing no commentary) go on Instagram. And substantive statements to share go on this blog. So it kinda works.

The goal isn't to get off of all social media per se, but just to escape the stuff that diminishes happiness. And it seems to be working. I no longer get outrage with my morning coffee, because I no longer check my FB feed. So I go into my morning commute more peacefully, and therefore tailgate one fewer fellow driver each day.

I still read the news to know what's going on in the world. And I still keep in touch with good friends (I've got this great new synchronous messaging app! It does voice-to-text conversion, sends the text stream to them, where it gets converted back through a high-quality voice synthesizer. It's called a "phone call").

So the interim results are pretty promising. The first week was unexpectedly difficult, with strong cravings at the oddest times (On the toilet? Really?). But to anyone with a regular meditation practice, this is actually good news - discovering attachments, so that they can be held in awareness, is always a productive thing. And lately I hardly even miss FB. Each day it becomes clearer and clearer what an unhealthy relationship it was.