A List of All the People Who Make You Want to Quit Social Media For Good

It takes a lot of work to stay social. People, on average, spend at least 50 minutes a day on Facebook. I spent nine years on the social media site, reading stories and commenting away. But then it started to get boring. I deactivated my Facebook account in 2015, and later made a second one for work purposes in 2016. It's been almost three months since I logged in.

It's a huge change from how I interacted with my first Facebook account. That one had almost 2,000 "friends" thanks, in no small part, to impulse friend requests and this urge to widen my network. But that was 2,000 strangers, or near-strangers, who weren't really the same thing as real friends, in real life. Those I can still count on two hands.

I'm not saying I feel happier without Facebook. But I do care less about what people say and do online. In the real world, I am an attentive listener. But there's something exhausting about scrolling through all these made-up internet personas and fake online "issues." It's made me realize that maybe social media just isn't for me.

So who have I lost touch with? No one who really matters. Instead, I waved goodbye to the archetypical social media personalities, the types of people that tend to clog our feeds with nonsense. Who am I talking about, exactly? Glad you asked.

This is probably 90 percent of the internet. They are up early posting articles criticizing the government or whoever is in the crosshairs of the latest "hot issue." You know this kind of person, the kind who writes stuff like "why would you pray for Paris when your brothers and sisters in Papua are being oppressed every day?" These are the people who just HAVE TO compare levels of suffering. They seem to take a perverse joy in knowing about all the injustice in the world and using their knowledge to shit all over whatever suffering is currently #trending.

The "intellectual" poster always knows better than the government. And they think their Facebook musings will inspire real, tangible change. Maybe it does? Maybe it doesn't. Maybe we all have them to thank for cheap gas and rice. Who the hell knows?

If it's just one person doing this, then no big deal. But when it's a whole crew, it's almost impossible to debate any of them. It's better to save the agitation and ignore them.

We all have problems, but not everyone wants to share everything online. Seriously, why would you share such personal information with thousands of so-called "friends" in the first place? It solves nothing and, in all likelihood, makes your situation look even bleaker.

I can't help but feel bummed myself whenever I read status updates like "so stressed because I can't find a job," or "how could she leave me?" I know, maybe I shouldn't complain about having to read other people's problems, but I'm also a bit confused about what purpose posting this kind of super-personal stuff online has in the end.

We get it, you're super proud of your kid. But that doesn't mean I want to see your children every single day of my life. There such a thing as over-sharing, and the near-constant updates about your child's life are a bit much. Plus, maybe it's a bit rude to be sharing so much of your kid's life without their consent? Maybe in the future, our culture will view all of this over-sharing as an invasion of privacy and our kids will resent us for posting all those photos.

Privacy is a luxury in today's digital era. Your kid's privacy should be your priority. It's not only because there are some seriously sick fucks out there, but also because it's crucial for your kid's development.

Everyone has at least one of these multi-level marketing pros in your social circle. They're the people using your friendship to try to sell you something or recruit you to their "company." Back in the day, MLM sellers used to go door-to-door to push their goods. Today it's all about the feed. Does it work? Who knows. But I do know that it taught me real quick where the "unfollow" button is at.

I have a friend who just can't move on from his elementary school days. Yeah, you read that right, he's stuck in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. His profile is full of photos of him dressed in his school uniform and status updates about how fun it was to be a kid.

Maybe he's a bit extreme. After all, it doesn't need to be elementary school nostalgia. Facebook feeds worldwide are full of people who just got stuck in high school, university, their old job, their life abroad, whatever. The common thread is a sense that everything was better in the past and an annoying habit of constantly asking "so when's the reunion?"

The reunion? Who the hell needs an elementary school reunion? I haven't seen any of them in like 20 years and I don't even remember most of their faces. By the end of my Facebook life, I was in a couple of these alumna groups. The admins always posted mundane shit or sad jokes and it made me feel depressed about how some people are just so afraid of the future that they choose to live in the past.

Just delete your account. No, I'm serious. A recent study found that most of your social media friends aren't actually friends, so it's probably better to limit your circle to people you can talk to, and see, in real life. After all, aren't a few real friends better than 2,000 fake ones?