It all started back in October 2004. At the time, I was in my fourth year at UCLA, with graduation just a few quarters away. One of my friends sent me an email invite to this website called The Facebook, and encouraged me to sign up. Since we were amongst the first dozen or so schools to gain access to FB (as it is known on the NASDAQ exchange), I used one of the earliest versions of this platform, complete with an erasable timeline (back then, referred to as a “wall”), and numerous common interest groups, for everyone from fans of former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal, to those of us who grew up playing pogs in the 1990’s.
It quickly became evident that Facebook was a powerful tool for connecting people, whether to share information (often in the form of articles and videos), stay updated on each other’s lives, or organize events. Just a few months before my June 2005 college commencement, Facebook released the first version of the Events feature, which allowed users to send out invitations to various get-togethers. My friends and I used this feature to quickly bring together our college crew for a last hurrah. Seeing how efficiently we accomplished this task, helped me appreciate just how useful Facebook could be.
Over the next two years, Facebook continued to grow in popularity, as well as the scope of features. I uploaded photos of trips to San Francisco, Las Vegas, and South America, for which several people in my circle offered a range of humorous commentary. I shared articles on a variety of topics, leading to a running dialogue on the most pressing matters (often, they really weren’t) of the day. I went from logging in perhaps once every couple of days, in early 2005, to perhaps two to three times per day, by the summer of 2007.
Then, the 2008 presidential primaries arrived. I was a first-year law student, and found myself thoroughly transfixed by the Obama-Clinton contest. This was the first presidential election to truly unfold on social media, and the Internet more broadly, as seen with the viral Obama Girl video, as well as the Emmy-winning Yes We Can montage by will.i.am. Both of these productions gained attention in no small part thanks to sharing on Facebook, as did debates around answering 3 AM phone calls, and President Obama’s association with the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Facebook was now a sort of personalized news channel, where each of us was both a reporter as well as a viewer. In various postmortems of the 2008 election, commentators described it as the “first social media election” while other observers noted that particularly amongst younger voters, Facebook was a popular medium for sharing and gathering information about the upcoming elections. At this point, I was on Facebook at least 4–5 times per day, posting, commenting, and vociferously debating numerous issues which arose during that historic election.
It was now early 2009. I had purchased a smartphone (to the extent one could consider a mid-2000s’ Blackberry “smart”), complete with the Facebook mobile app, so I no longer needed to be at my desktop, in order to peruse my news feed. Between the mobile app and my laptop sessions, I was on Facebook 8–9 times per day, sometimes for just 1 or 2 minutes, although in other instances, sessions lasted for 20 to 30 minutes, and on a a few occasions, upwards of 1 hour.
While the election was over, I still managed to find a wide range of content to both consume and share. An article from Business Insider, on 10 lessons that AOL founder Steven Case learned in his 30’s? (OK, that isn’t an actual article, but it’s precisely the sort of thing we could imagine Henry Blodget’s team conjuring up). The world needed to hear about this! My middle school classmate just took a vacation to Ecuador, and shared photos of his trip? Time to get to work on browsing and liking what I see, and, if it’s really good, commenting on individual photos. And with that, there goes 8 minutes of my life, never to return again.
The rise of check-ins and mobile photo sharing didn’t help matters.. A permanent relocation to New York City accelerated this trend, since clearly, it was of considerable importance that everyone know that I was at Babylon Hookah Lounge on Friday at 2:30 AM, or what the latest concoctions at Vanessa’s Dumpling on 14th Street looked like.
I should be fair to myself, and so many of you. A lot of us post engaging, relevant articles and videos on Facebook, ranging from in-depth articles in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, to lectures by physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, and philosopher Michael Sandel. Other people share entertaining or uplifting pieces, which help brighten one’s darker days. I’ve had several friends compliment me for helping them learn something new, broaden their perspective, or even just make them smile. I’m glad I was able to do that, and I appreciate others doing it for me.
I’ve also watched friends utilize Facebook to solicit donations for cancer research and youth mentorship projects, or to share personal experiences from which we could all learn something valuable. Others have used it to inform their friends of job and business opportunities, and of course, enjoyable places to travel, and worthwhile restaurants to check out. There’s real value in harnessing the shared power of large numbers of people who know each other.
But, there’s another side to this story, and it isn’t quite so rosy. As I spent more time on Facebook, I increasingly began comparing myself to others, often in a rather negative manner. When a law school classmate announced that he was accepting a position at a top law firm, I felt genuinely happy for him, while chastising myself for my inferior levels of accomplishment. Reading another person’s status update about how much he’d been working the past few weeks, made me feel like I was lazy or unproductive (which is rather absurd, considering my daily schedule). Yet, oddly enough, viewing a former colleague’s photos of her vacation to Southeast Asia, triggered feelings of fatigue and disappointment, as I had done nothing but work at an exhausting pace, for the entire summer.
Facebook came to feel like a massive online slate of social competition, where so many users offered up (often, cherry picked) moments of their lives which, in my mind, consistently exceeded anything that was happening in my world.
This behavior pattern began in early 2009, and grew progressively worse over time. While it rarely interfered with my work (an inexplicable fear of poverty and homelessness due to unemployment prevented that), by late 2013, as I was preparing to start the new year, I knew that something had to change.
There wasn’t one particular incident which triggered this epiphany, but rather, an overall sense of dissatisfaction, which, after some quiet reflection, I understood was driven in part by Facebook, specifically, the perceived worth of my choices and lifestyle, as compared to others whom I knew. If Facebook was a major source of my personal angst, then there was only one thing to do: Stem the problem at it’s source, by using it less.
I wasn’t sure what an optimal Facebook usage pattern might look like, but after giving it some thought, I decided that logging in just every four hours, for only a few minutes per session, during standard business hours ( 8 AM until around 8 PM) ought to make some sort of difference. After work hours, I’d allow myself to browse a bit more, though that was to be avoided where possible. Soon, I began to see results.
First, I noticed that, within just a few months, by perusing other people’s lives less often, I was more present in and focused on myself, and how I might make myself happier. That is, rather than wondering why someone else was taking seemingly incredible vacations abroad, or had a job which he or she appeared to absolutely love, I asked myself what I might do, to put myself in a position to obtain those things which I truly desired in my life. My focus began shifting towards personal improvement and growth, rather than downgrading myself through external comparison.
Of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day. I still used to beat myself up on occasion, convinced that I was a disappointment and bitter failure, as compared to much of the world’s population (or at least that sliver whom I know personally). Yet, at the end of 2014, I felt a stronger sense of gratitude and empowerment. I had a lot of wonderful things to be thankful for. What’s more, my life was in my own hands, and I saw that I could mold it in the manner I desired.
At the start of 2015, I again slashed my Facebook consumption. Now, on weekdays I would only allow myself to log in to Facebook twice per day, once at or just after 8 AM, and the other time around 8 PM. On weekends, I might be on Facebook somewhat more often, but not a whole lot. Within a few months, I decided to limit these sessions to just 10 minutes per login. Also, during each session, I would allow myself to post no more than two items to Facebook.
There was a bit more progress in terms of avoiding negative comparisons, and focusing on personal growth. However, as in so many other matters of life, the law of diminishing returns applies, and so the progress of 2014 was considerably more transformative, than steps taken in 2015.
On the other hand, I became a better Facebook user; that is, I contributed more positively. How? Over the past year or so, I have focused on posting (mostly) relevant content, whether articles, videos, or my own thoughts, to Facebook. With just 20 minutes per day on the platform, (and no more than 4 items to post daily, my other stricture), I had to be more efficient in my approach. When putting an item on Facebook, I began to stop and ask myself “What’s the real reason that I want to share this with 1000+ people? What will they gain from it?”
Facebook has impacted countless lives, in a way that few products could ever hope to accomplish. It has tied so many of us together, weaving together the stories of our collective existence, while providing each of us with a voice that can be widely heard. Truly, Facebook is a vehicle which permits each of us to act as both consumers and curators of the world around us.
Yet, almost 12 years after that first login, I am glad that I don’t use Facebook quite as often as I once did. Simply put, I was consuming it in a harmful manner, viewing snapshots of other people’s lives, which I was juxtaposing with my own existence, to make myself feel wanting, unhappy, and somehow inferior. Reducing my daily dosage has helped me to focus inwards, and really consider how I might shape and guide my own life, while experiencing gratitude for that which I already enjoy.
