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by samzer 2797 days ago
After using facebook for 8 years, I had reached a point where I stopped posting content but couldn't stop consuming the content posted by others and also logging into facebook without even thinking. I tried multiple times to deactivate the account but it always resulted in reactivating it. The two main reasons for it was the herd mentality and the FOMO.

I needed a new approach, I started by unfollowing people and pages that made me react. I realized the most important part of facebook for me was keeping in touch with people and not the posts that they share so decided to unfollow everyone which includes pages and groups too. The annoying part is that it is not easy to unfollow everyone and you have to do it one by one. I found a post with some js code that helped in achieving this and it worked, don't know if it will work now - https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-unfollow-everyone-on-Facebook...

After about 8 months of using facebook this way,I checked how many conversations I had using the messenger which turned out to be in the lower end of the single digit. Finally, I decided to go ahead with the deletion of facebook after backing up all my data. Once you hit delete, it gives 14 days of thinking time in case you decide to change your mind. After deleting the account, it took me almost 2 months to stop my reflex action of going to facebook login page.

Its been more than 6 months I've deleted facebook, I'm not missing it, I hardly think about it and quite happy that I'm out of it.

1 comments

> After using facebook for 8 years, I had reached a point where I stopped posting content but couldn't stop consuming the content posted by others and also logging into facebook without even thinking. I tried multiple times to deactivate the account but it always resulted in reactivating it. The two main reasons for it was the herd mentality and the FOMO.

I'd argue that deeply reflecting on this offers a huge potential for personal growth. Why the fear of missing out? To me it seems more and more clear that the only thing to miss out on is the present moment as it is for me right here and right now.

> The annoying part is that it is not easy to unfollow everyone and you have to do it one by one. I found a post with some js code that helped in achieving this and it worked, don't know if it will work now

I guess with Facebook and its siblings this is an uphill battle as they will always try to come up with new ways to prevent you from pursuing precisely those kind of goals.

> Its been more than 6 months I've deleted facebook, I'm not missing it, I hardly think about it and quite happy that I'm out of it.

Congratulations on that!