Deactivate your social media. NOW.

[Van Norden]

Inspired by so many likes on one of my posts at one related thread, I decided to write a whole one describing what I've witnessed so far in social networks and why do I consider that they must be cleansed from the internet now. Or, if we are unable to ask for the impossible, at least we should foster their demise and weaken their false bonds of unity between members in order to hypertrophy and create stronger REAL fibers.

 

First off, I've seen lots of threads on the incapacity to cope with a break up inspired by the seemingly endless posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you-name-it where the dumper sends breadcrumbs and generates mixed opinions that make the dumpee break NC - big mistake. As some other posters have intelligently stated, they just want to know if you're around as a backup plan. Do not give them the momentary satisfaction. If you really want them back, make them REALLY want you and miss you. Unless you are immature and just want to fix your neediness, stick to NC. Otherwise, your second part won't last much longer due to insecurities and feelings of low self-esteem/am-I-the-second-best syndrome. I do not plan this as a revenge, in fact I think it implies much more love for the dumper to make them mature their decisions and mourn your loss if you really want to engage with them in a fully restored relationship where both of you have really grow up.

 

Obviously, the healing process is there and should be most important (I mentioned the restoration possibilities first because I'd say 90% of us who register to LS and immediately post at the Second Chance-Coping sub-forums are yearning for a reconciliation). You should move on and watching those breadcrumbs, even if you do not do anything in return, will make you really sore - I've been there, and even if my ex doesn't post ANYTHING nor has a really active social life, watching a simple "like" on a friend's profile made me paranoid on anything.

 

I posted some days ago asking for the help social networks may have in triggering interest once again in a dumpee, exposing his recently-discovered-awesomeness, endless activity, new worked out six-pack and the sorts. What I've been counseled is that you should skip that approach as well. It will only transpire neediness, and you really don't want this to be perceived. Just focus on yourself instead.

 

Okay, and now for some other benefits not related with coping or possible second parts but inherent to the carcinogenic nature of social networks:

 

Have you seen how social networks are tending to weaken more and more our daily relationships? Have you seen how often do you spend your time browsing through your cell phone even DURING a date? If you deny this, let me put you this way: have you seen how often does the other part spend time browsing through the cell phone while you are talking? Seriously, this is a vomitive show of disrespect and should be punished with years of discipline learning at a Turkish prison. Stop this. Is impolite and reflects your lack of interest on the other person, which s/he more likely than not will notice.

 

Remember the effort that meant going out and meeting new people, starting a chat? The adrenaline boost that implied approaching women? Why would you settle to just send a "hi" on an OLD and wish the person choses you out of the 1000 drooling monkeys out there jerking to their semi-nude photos? Thrive for something real instead of binary codified information, it's far more rewarding.

 

As for fake friends, yeah, they have their time too. Remember those old classmates who didn't give two sh*ts of you or even bullied you? Maybe they will send you friendships requests out of nostalgia, but guess what? If you've been doing fine without them it means that they did too, so do not answer to their boredom being their "I'd rather ask x how s/he's doing than watch TV" option. This also enhances a lot coincidental meetings in which you can ask your old classmate what is s/he up today showing REAL interest and not knowing every single detail of his/her recent life through Facebook/tweets.

 

If you're a genuinely interesting and rounded person, let people know that by filtering your intelligence in short details. If you've read 5 books by different authors in your entire life and you list them all in your "interests" section you'll look a whole lot less interesting than if you mention them "by chance" on a conversation, if you know what I mean. There's no real need to post everything you're doing, and if you truly think someone gives a damn because you got plenty of "likes", think how much effort you actually put in clicking the thumbs up button too. Stop flooding the net with photos of coffee cups with dumb filters on Instagram that get plenty of "existential likes".

 

Related with the previous point, do not vent your feelings in front of EVERYONE in your social life. As I said before, chew your melancholy. Enjoy your sadness. Write a poem, a book, a haiku, you name it. Don't waste creative power posting random stuff or songs you really like and no one gives a damn. It's far more productive and rewarding than selling your feelings for a cheap price like a comment or a "like".

 

Oh, I almost forgot about it. Nowadays everyone has a social network. Be the odd one out and appear interesting and far-beyond-the-boring-norm when someone you've already met asks for your Facebook page and tell him/her that "you can try to phone or TALK TO ME IN REAL LIFE" instead.

 

Last but REALLY not least: stop feeding the system. I'm not saying this in a punkish-teenage-rebellious way. But stop feeding Zuckerberg and his marketing associates' thirsts for domination of thought. As I previously stated on another thread, do yourself a favour and watch the 7 episodes of Black Mirror - they are funny, easy to watch and really thoughtful on this. I could elaborate on this for pages, but I think you all know what I mean. Do not give them what they want.

 

Fine enough. That's all for the moment. I really hope this enlightens someone there and helps you all without a social network to feel less awkward. If someone reads this and convinces him/her to deactivate some of those controlling tools, I'm more than happy on my moral crusade. Sorry for my grammar, for English is not my native tongue. Thanks for your time and patience and best regards to everyone - you're truly not alone in your pain.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Van Norden

[lumberjac]

I've enjoyed your post very much, thanks for spending time writing it.

 

It's funny I actually wanted to delete my facebook ages ago, the reason I still had it was because of the "University groups" on it that share the groupwork, and facebook messenger is the main way people communicate here. So I kept it but not really posted anything in a long time. To be fair the main facebook is getting worse and worse, it used to be big, but people starting to post less stuff now.

 

Then when my gf broke up with me in late Jan, that just gave me a big reason to stay off it. I'm proud to say I've not touch facebook since then so thats over 6 weeks now! I don't miss it at all, and by not going on it every now and then gives me so much extra time to do something else!!

 

And here's something funny: facebook know when you've not been on it for awhile, and it will start sending you an email with the title "you have notifications pending" ONCE EVERY TWO DAYS. Whenever I see it I always chuckled to myself and think "you dont have any dignity fb, I left you, its over! lol" Then I apply that back to my situation, and I'm just glad I've not stay contact with my ex.

 

I would recommend anyone to try living a few days without social media, its something different

[loveweary11]

Mine are long gone! Years ago.

 

Though I'm very tempted to fire up an instagram and snapchat. That's where the ladies are these days.

[lumberjac]

Mine are long gone! Years ago.

 

Though I'm very tempted to fire up an instagram and snapchat. That's where the ladies are these days.

 

yeh youre right.

dont think I can go back to snapchat in awhile though, me and my ex used that a lot..

[Michelle ma Belle]

Couldn't agree more.

 

As I've said in previous threads, although I technically still have a Facebook account, I rarely use it especially for revealing any private matters. I've become quite greedy about my privacy anymore and Facebook or any form of social media are no different.

 

I have been seriously thinking of deleting my account altogether. My brother, sister-in-law and my 19 year old niece all deleted their accounts just recently! I was shocked (especially my teenage niece) but so impressed.

 

The two main reason I still have it is because of family that live overseas and for my job where I have to manage multiple FB accounts for events I run and can't seem to do it without having a personal account. If someone knows a way around this, I'm all ears.

 

As for other social media channels, I no longer have nor participate in any of them anymore. Facebook seems to be the last man standing at the moment and I'm hoping that I'll be free of it soon as well.

 

Thanks for the post!

[Van Norden]

The two main reason I still have it is because of family that live overseas and for my job where I have to manage multiple FB accounts for events I run and can't seem to do it without having a personal account. If someone knows a way around this, I'm all ears.

I'm really fond of the good ol' email. Much more personal, intimate and rewarding to read. As for job and uni, yeah, sometimes it's necessary to keep track of some events and deadlines. I would suggest a "fake profile" with no real info on age, interests or name, just to avoid filling the statistics for ulterior brain control But then, again, only if you can. As always, to each his/her own. I guess social media could be used for good purposes - bad thing is that drawbacks are vastly superior. So it's your choice and your own choice only!

[AaronSG]

Van Nordan, awesome post, very entertaining, very insightful and informative!

 

For me personally, I wasn't to concerned about the marketing machine and anyone behind it and the brain control marketing ploys when it came to Facebook. I'm happy to say that I have now been 6 months "clean and sober" from Facebook!

 

In my opinion, and only speaking for myself, yeah....you brought up the word control, but mentioning the social media industry controlling us! For me, there was another form of control that ultimately made me drop Facebook, and that was my own lack of "self control" when it came to losing the battle with temptations to take occasional "peeks" at my ex-fiancé's Facebook page.

 

It wasn't Zuckerberg doing it to me, I was doing just fine doing it to myself!

 

It's was bad enough breaking up with her, but it was making me feel 10 times worse bring my ex-fiancé back into the house..."virtually" through Facebook! About a month after the breakup I had to face the hard cold fact that Facebook was no longer serving me, it wasn't fun anymore, it wasn't being used what it was made for anymore, it had turned convoluted, it had turned twisted and it turned basically against me.

 

So one day sitting with Facebook open for the last time, I had to grab myself by the balls, tell myself this isn't working anymore, it kept hurting me to see my ex-fiancé posting about all kinds of wonderful "I'm so glad to be home stuff" and "my life is so much better without him" stuff and "look what I bought today" stuff! So this grown man, with tears in his eye's, weeping, opened up the user control panel and went through the motions of deleting the account.........In that moment I might of had a slight understanding what a heroin addict feels like when thinking about putting down the needle!

 

So here we are, 6 months later and I'm still here to talk about it! Dropping fakebook didn't kill me! Needless to say I learned that Facebook can truly be the "fakebook" that a lot of people talk about. Because I learned a couple months back from a common friend that all that crap my ex-fiancé was posting about being happy to be back home, posting about how life was better without me stuff.....I was told that was all lies! She wasn't happy by any stretch of the word and was even talking about how she was at the point slightly resenting her own Father for allowing him to talk her into dropping me and coming back home to help her family out money wise.

 

But in closing I'll say one thing..........sure feels nice not telling the world what I'm having for breakfast every day of the week, what a waste of time all those breakfast posts were!

[Cinnamonstix]

This inspired me to immediately delete my Instagram account. Posting photos of your self/life/plate of tacos seems a little narcissistic to me. The narcissism is precisely what I hate about FB, so why would this be any different?

 

Maybe I will delete FB and Twitter later. I rationalize that FB has kept me in contact with some old friends, I've always deleted exes immediately after breakups, I don't go on it very much and I don't post anything. It's just a way to keep on the invite to events list, really. I keep Twitter because I actually like the posts a lot of the people/groups I follow, and also for "professional" reasons, as it looks good to have an account for the industry I'm in.

[lumberjac]

This inspired me to immediately delete my Instagram account. Posting photos of your self/life/plate of tacos seems a little narcissistic to me. The narcissism is precisely what I hate about FB, so why would this be any different?

 

Maybe I will delete FB and Twitter later. I rationalize that FB has kept me in contact with some old friends, I've always deleted exes immediately after breakups, I don't go on it very much and I don't post anything. It's just a way to keep on the invite to events list, really. I keep Twitter because I actually like the posts a lot of the people/groups I follow, and also for "professional" reasons, as it looks good to have an account for the industry I'm in.

 

Can I ask what industry are you in?

You don't have to tell if you dont want to, I'm just curious

[Van Norden]

This inspired me to immediately delete my Instagram account. Posting photos of your self/life/plate of tacos seems a little narcissistic to me. The narcissism is precisely what I hate about FB, so why would this be any different?

As I told before, each social media deactivated due to my post is a small victory against Kali-Iuga for me. Kudos to you for your actions and keep on bumping this for the benefit of REAL relationships.

[MyEvilTwin]

I'm *weird*. I have a fb account but I have posted 5 things in my lifetime on it.

I'm not with the times I suppose. It can be isolating to not be on fb too though.

 

Some people are lonely or far away from their loved ones and friends and fb works great for them.

 

I think the answer here is simple--if something causes you pain stop doing it.

[fishstar]

Van Norden, excellent post. The 'false bonds of unity' will be, I fear, prevalent for a long time, and only feeding the existence of Kali-Yuga on earth today. For a complete paradigm shift, more people need to come to senses, I believe.

 

It just didn't add anything to my life, left a long time ago. It was very easy to do and I don't miss it one bit. It is a like a parallel universe to me, and an unhealthy one at that. Believe me, you can survive without, and life will be even better. Research on toxicity to health and negative psychology were the main reasons for my shift. I read two very interesting articles on the subject, and can provide links if anybody is interested. Social media constantly triggers the limbic system, the area of the brain involved with emotions. Glucocorticoids are released, meaning you are always in a state of stress, even if you think you're happy. It can leave you wanting more and more, and then feeling emotionally starved. It is a place of popularity contests, mindgames, perversion, information overload; it misleads and causes social tension, feeds low self-esteem, and leaves nothing, or the wrong things to the imagination. It can have negative effects on cognition, concentration, thinking, memory, creativity, and a whole lot more. Why do this damage to your body and mind.

 

Why be part of that where then there is the natural world around you? Keep things close to your heart, as OP says. Have boundaries. Love yourself. If you can, forget your ex and their world, or the world you think you see. Just focus on yourself, going for a bike ride, walk, swim or gym. Do cross stitch, read a book, learn to play a musical instrument, travel, meet a friend, go shopping, or just sit in a cafe and have a coffee, go home and cook something, immerse yourself in the natural world and love yourself. You don't need social media, you just think you do. Day by day it will slowly but surely get better.