Posted byThis is the final post in my Social Media Diet series this week. I’ve shared my story of committing Facebook social suicide, and then quitting Instagram, but now: how it’s going…
It’s been two years since I committed Factugebook social suicide, and a year since I bailed on Instagram. There was a while there where it was getting easier and easier to socially ignore Facebook. Yes, I have to be there for work, but I just didn’t miss it, socially.
Over the past few months though, I’ve started missing it. Part of it is realizing that even my husband uses Facebook constantly. My staff, my friends, my readers, my own spouse: all use Facebook all day, every day. My friends in LA? Facebook. My friends in NYC? Facebook. My friends in Seattle? Facebook. My friends from Seattle who move away? Facebook.
And Instagram. My staff have entire conversations on Instagram about each other’s hair and vacations and significant others. Even my friends who used to take photography super seriously now default to Instagram.
My social mediums of choice? Twitter and Flickr. Twitter feels safer to me than Facebook — no convoluted illusions of privacy, just a straightforward broadcast channel. Flickr may be a product in flux, but 10 years of my photos are there in full resolution, and you’ll tear that archive from my cold dead hands.
But it’s hard.
A few months ago when I crashed that wedding, I used Offbeat Bride’s Facebook page as my personal Facebook. I posted real-time updates, selfies, cake photos, drunken observations… and people fucking LOVED it. Not only did they love it to the tune of 600 likes on some of the posts, but all that liking meant that Offbeat Bride’s Page reach for the rest of the week was up over 30%. Basically, because I deigned to use Facebook to whore out my attention-seeking stupidity, I was rewarded by more attention. GAH. It’s so evil and insidious!
What I learned from overcoming my addiction to Facebook
November of 2007 is when I first opened a Facebook account, and I was hooked on social networking. Then, when I was engaged, things got... Read more
Of course after the wedding the bride and groom and a couple of their friends both added me as friends and not wanting to be rude I accepted the invitations (…knowing I’d do what I always do, which is quietly delete them in a month or two), and then the bride and I started chatting via Facebook, and the next thing I know I’m using it to chat with my husband when my son and I are out of town and UG! Evil! Insidious!
One of the things I’m strategizing with life right now is trying to GET OUT more. I feel so isolated and walled off in my work, and in some ways my life… there’s this flow back and forth of overexposure/exhaustion/retreat and then isolation/loneliness/stand-offishness that I seem to go through. I wrestle constantly with my own social media attention whoring neediness, and cutting myself off from Instagram and Facebook feels like the most effective way to rein in that part of myself that I don’t think needs encouragement… but the pull is CONSTANT. I put so much energy into resisting the seduction of social media and sometimes it just feels too hard.
I know in my head that when it comes to feeling less isolated, for me the solution is about GETTING OUT more… not about hitting my internet rat levers. Ideally, though, social media is a means to an end… helps you develop online relationships that translate into getting out more? But then again I think this is just something I tell myself in my sad justifications to add back all 400+ friends on Facebook and start posting pictures like this to Instagram and get 20 hearts instead of 1 star.
I realize this sounds like ridiculous flailing and faffing about, but this issue represents a pretty key intersection of my work, my social life, and my personal development goals. I want to be less of an attention-seeking whore, but my work conspires to pull me back into my old ways. I have no solutions or tidy conclusion, but only know that some times feel harder than others.
How do you feel about your use of social media? Does it make you feel fulfilled, or guilty? Connected or isolated? Do you see your social media use shifting at all this year?
I totally get it! That’s why I don’t have a smart phone. I have an ipod touch, so if I’m somewhere with wifi, I’m connected and playing on facebook, but otherwise I can disconnect. I am absolutely addicted to facebook and am on it all day at work. Me not having a smart phone is about trying to handle my addiction and save money on a data plan. Good luck managing the pull.
Same here on all counts! I got an iPhone 4 but lost interest after a few months. It just felt like it was pulling too much energy and time. So now I use my iPod which is RARELY connected and I don’t miss the Internet.
Rat levers. It’s all rat levers.
Flickr needs a “like” button, in addition to the star “Fave”. Like and favorite are two different things! I’m super judicious about starring photos on Flickr.
I totally get this too. I do use Facebook, but I go through phases of narcissistic oversharing, then not sharing anything, then the occasional watered-down “love my family” sort of posts, then I won’t touch it for weeks. Then I’m on it every day again. A vicious cycle. I still refuse to get a Kindle or any one of those things that isn’t a real book, and my phone is an el-cheapo go phone that takes crappy pics and has no games, apps, or anything “smart” about it. But I’m wavering on the phone thing, so I don’t know how long I’ll continue to hold out. I say that I can’t stand when people look like zombies out and about with their faces glued to their phones, yet in my heart I know that I’d probably be like that some days too. It’s hard to maintain the whole anti-technology stance when it’s absolutely everywhere and sometimes it really is more convenient and some good comes out of it – just have to find a balance.
It’s funny how different people draw different lines… Facebook gives me hives, but my Kindle has changed my life. I’m not being hyperbolic! I know from Goodreads that I read over twice as many books now as I used to before I had my Kindle. I joined a book club. I sleep better because I’m reading books instead of the internet before bed. It’s weird, but man I love that freaking thing.
Using the Kindle app on my tablet has changed my life too. Even though it is backlit, changing the color to a black background seems to be enough to prevent the light problem, and now I read myself to a good sleep every night.
I have a Kobo (Chapters/Indigo) that is a few years old. It’s from the time before e-readers had LCD and backlit screens, (but only about 2 models before that feature was introduced), it uses the “faux-ink” display, which its absolutely lovely for reading before bed.
I hate that I’m on Facebook. It just reminds me that I’m in a room, sitting, and living vicariously through other people. It’s also cluttered with ads now that feel less like I’m supporting a blog I love and more like I’m expected to mindlessly consume. No thank you.
In 2012 I was gearing up to delete it (storing photos, collecting emails and addresses) when members of my extended family asked me not to. It was how they checked in on me, but they never wrote or let me know! So now I have this half-assed Facebook page where I only share links and and my engagement.
My goal, and fervent hope, is to share when I’m married (to collect photos), then delete the whole shebang in the dead of night. I figure at that point I’ll have collected enough addresses and initiated traditional correspondence (save-the-dates, invitations, thank yous) to get a good thing going.
This! When I see my out-of-state friends and family, they often pull me aside and sincerely say, “I love your Facebooks posts and photos. I always wonder what you will do next. Keep it up!” But they rarely every commented or “liked” so I didn’t even know they were reading!
Uggghhhhh guilt. How the heck else am I supposed to keep connected to these 50 people who I care about and who care about me? Trapped.
This is a big part of why I made my personal blog private… I got sick of real-life friends and family lurking and listening, but never responding. It was flattering that they cared, but felt like an oddly exposed, one-sided non-relationship. “I consume your life, but I don’t communicate so you have no idea, nor do I share any of my life. But I’m always watching.”
Of course it’s nice to get attention, but it just creates some really weird dynamics when people are consuming silently. I get enough of that from my publishing work… I don’t want my personal life to feel like that too.
I don’t know what to do about the uneven facebook relationships, either, but from the other side. I use facebook mainly to share articles and pet pictures, which my friends scattered about the country discuss later on the telephone. But I post very few pictures of myself and I’ve had maybe 5 status updates ever.
It’s awkward from the other side, too, when you know so much about certain people because they post all the time, but they know nothing about you. They do comment when you sometimes post, adding more information, a joke, or another link, which I like. My mind will automatically skip posts about food or babies I don’t know, but it doesn’t automatically skip over other personal things people post. So is the burden on people not to post or on people not to read? I’m honestly not sure!
This used to bother me, but I’ve come to recognize that this is often (not always) just a result of people being introverted or extroverted. And in real life, introverts are less likely to be super verbal publicly, too.
Ah, social media. I admit, I’m kinda addicted. For me, Facebook helps me keep in touch with a few people who I otherwise have issues staying in touch with. I have a few people in my life who are unreliable about replying to emails. That whole phone thing? Yeah, that’s me too. I suck at calling anyone other than my mom, dad or husband. I always assume people are too busy to answer their phones.
One thing that helps me is that my phone is getting old. My poor little iPhone 4 struggles with the new iOS. It’s so freaking slow to load up Facebook that I tend to find it more of a hassle. So I’ll wait until I’m at a computer. I’ve also recently gotten an iPad and I’m trying to use that more in the evenings. I’m more likely to set it down and do other things.
Getting out helps. As does having hobbies that require your hands. It’s hard to sew and check Facebook at the same time! My day job also keeps me busy so there is less time to be checking Facebook.
I never got into Instagram. Twitter I’m sporadic about. I have a lot of my stuff turned off so it’s easier for me to keep it minimal.
“I suck at calling anyone other than my mom, dad or husband. I always assume people are too busy to answer their phones.”
Yup. This is me, exactly. I recently messaged an acquaintance on facebook, and she replied with her phone number, encouraging me to call. Even then, my response is, “Gaahhhh, phone!”
I have a personal “rule” to put my laptop away at least an hour to an hour and a half before bedtime to give my brain and eyes a break. I also have a rule to never bring my laptop into my bedroom, unless it’s an “emergency.” I’ve found that this makes it way easier for me to relax and go to sleep, and helps reduce my anxiety and rumination. I do have a Kindle that I read at night, but it’s the regular kind, not the Fire, so it doesn’t tweak my eyes and brain like a computer/tablet screen does. It’s definitely not a foolproof method, but it’s helped me force myself to PUT THE DEVICES DOWN!!!
See, I have a “no laptops in the bedroom” rule, but I can access email/facebook/twitter/whatever on my phone, so that ruins it.
No mobile data in the bedroom, maybe? If you turn that off you won’t be able to use the internet, but will still receive calls and texts.
Getting rid of FB would be difficult for me. I have lots of extended family I’d never have a chance to keep up with without it. With that said, I never post anything on FB I don’t mind the world knowing. That way I don’t have to worry about things such as convoluted privacy settings. I use the messinging app as a second form of text. I’m not a huge phone conversation person, so telling people to message me on FB is a great way to get in contact with me as it goes directly to my phone. If I am with a group of people or an event, my phone gets put away and I don’t touch it except to check every once in awhile for a text/call from friends I’ve lost track of at an event. It is all about balance, in my opinion. I finally got the husband on FB a couple days ago, and it has been funny having him come up to me to go “you didn’t like/comment on my post on FB”. I’d been busy doing other things and hadn’t seen the post.
I stopped using twitter years ago, it never held my interest. I recently started using Flickr as a backup for my photos.
Social media definitely sucks my time and increases anxiety for me. My strategies so far: 1) Drastically reduce the number of images I put on facebook by asking myself if I want facebook/government big brothers/random people from high school basically owning my content. Nope. 2) Change my facebook password to gibberish so that I have to find where I saved it, copy and paste to log in. Doesn’t help when I don’t log out, though. 3) Did not connect my phone to facebook. To get photos from phone to fb, I have to go through emailing, which helps with #1. 4) I got Instagram to share pics with 2 far-away friends who refuse to use facebook and want to share daily life with me. I only let myself accept followers/follow 7 other people who I really trust don’t care what I post and/or will love it all. I don’t want the anxiety of feeling dumb for posting a selfie or whatever.
These strategies keep my social media clicks pretty tame and quickly boring, so I head over to Offbeat to spend my internet time. I feel much better over here!
Also, thank you for these posts–since you first started writing them, I have employed the “actually contact your actual friend” strategy, and it is so amazing what can happen from there. I have spread the gospel to my other friends–by telling them how great it is, in real life conversations!
I love facebook. I love it with no shame, no qualifiers, no caveats – I just really love it. It’s one place where I can catch up with the day to day minutiae of everyone I love so when we see each other/speak to each other/happen to run into each other in the supermarket we can talk properly about things that matter because all of the important information is already in place. It keeps me up to date with people’s job changes and decorating plans and reading lists. I like it when people share articles from websites I might not have heard of, or a webcomic I hadn’t come across. I’m involved in people’s lives because of facebook.
I don’t have anyone on my facebook that I don’t like and I don’t have anyone who causes drama because I don’t really have anyone in my life who I don’t like or who causes drama.
I like that it reminds me about people’s birthdays, I like that it reminds me about events I wanted to go to but often forget about. I like being in touch with cousins who I wouldn’t really be in touch with otherwise, I like that it is bringing us closer. I like that my local curry house often offers facebook discounts on takeaway. I like seeing people’s low quality snapshots of their sunrises and sunsets and selfies because where else would I see these, they’re not ‘proper’ photographs worthy of flickr (which I also love) but they warm my belly when I see them. A near-daily grainy picture of someone’s kitten? Still better than no kitten picture. A over processed picture of someone’s new hairstyle? I’m glad to see their new hair. A slightly brown looking picture of someone’s dinner? Isn’t it lovely that they feel really chuffed with their cooking.
I think the thing I love about facebook is that it captures moments that wouldn’t otherwise be shared. Yeah, I talk to friends and see family and that’s really lovely, but it’s a very different thing. Facebook is a collection of the tiny moments throughout the day that we wouldn’t see. It’s people’s fleeting thoughts and ideas and pictures, and it feels really lovely to have the chance to be able to share them.
I’m so glad you said this. I too really like facebook. I like the sharing, and it doesn’t bother me that it’s one-sided. I figure if people don’t want to see my stuff, they’ll defriend or hide me or whatever. I love knowing what people are up to or what they’re going through and if I can help or be supportive in any way. (HS friends whose siblings or parents have passed away, old friends who have babies who are teething, etc). I find that it enhances my relationships more than detracts from them. I also pretty much only use FB as my social media – no pinterest, no twitter, no instagram.
I also like to think that I am really good at being present in the moment, however. I just went to Disneyworld with my family and, while I used my phone to take pictures, I didn’t post everyone one of those pictures to FB instantly. There was no “I’m waiting in line at the Pirates of the Caribbean!” posting either. Why? Because I was hanging out with my kids while waiting in line. I didn’t videotape the shows because then I would be watching this amazing water-and-fireworks thing through a tiny little screen (that would be catching a crappy picture anyway) instead of really seeing it in reality. I couldn’t believe how many people I saw riding on roller coasters with their phones out.
Anyway, sorry that got ranty. I guess what really matters is whether social media makes your “real life” better or worse. It does get hard when you feel like it has to be all or nothing, though.
Exactly! If there’s real life to experience then I’m going to be experiencing it, whether that’s at a gig or in a queue or nattering with a friend or doing housework or at work or pretty much anything. But if there is nothing going on (right now my wife is studying, my housemate is pottering around in her room, it’s too late to make plans to go and see anyone and too early to go to bed) then facebook is perfect. Catch up with everyone, see some interesting things, feel connected to my community. I love it!
I totally agree about being present. While I was watching New Year’s Eve fireworks, the entire extended family in front of me was trying to take pictures of them and themselves in front of them with phones. They took selfies and also made the kids turn their backs to the fireworks to take their pictures! And of course they kept not getting the shot and having to try again.
Meanwhile glittery fire explosions filled the sky. It was an intense reminder to live a good life rather than try to create one with images.
I’m exactly like you. I handle social media for my church (FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram) so I am all in it. I was reluctant to join in all this stuff, but now…it’s just fun.
I make myself a compromise though. When I’m out and about, even though I have a (prepaid) smartphone, I only use the social media apps when it is absolutely necessary. No mindless scrolling while waiting, etc.
“One of the things I’m strategizing with life right now is trying to GET OUT more.” — One of the reasons I love Facebook so much is that it connects me when I’m unable to get out. I’m carfree in the ‘burbs & even my “local” friends can be an hour’s drive away, so I’ve always relied on the net to connect with ppl. But more recently, I went thru cancer & chemo, & I could barely walk across my house, so FB was my lifeline to the rest of the world. OMG, it was amazing to feel so much support & connection from friends & family thru those tiny little comments & likes & chats! I’m deeply grateful that so many ppl kept in touch, from my best buds to ppl I barely know, it all helped me get thru those dark, depressing days when I felt physically & emotionally awful.
THIIIIIIIIS. I go through spells where it feels like I’m posting, liking and commenting nearly everything that happens. And it’s definitely a chartable roller coaster of emotion–I feel bored and lonely, so I start on social media, peak out with attention and social interaction, then I feel crummy, crabby, annoying or exhausted after.
What’s more, it all bounces in opposite to the ups and downs of my work deadlines. I crunch and crunch to meet deadlines, so I end up ignoring my social needs. As soon as the deadline’s passed? Social media is there for my lonely ass, with open arms when my real-life friends are sleeping, working or unavailable. So I feel like I’m recharging when I’m really just setting myself up for another really big downer.
With inspiration from this post I halved my friends list today and it feels great!! I’ve been toying with deactivating my account for a while but I was too involved in some groups and I help my husband run his small business facebook, so it seemed like a really drastic measure. Compromising by staying in my hobby-related groups (where I can still talk to people even without friending them) but limiting my friends list has taken that weird voyeuristic/exhibitionist flavor out of updating my status. Thank you for talking about this, Ariel!!
I went through the Facebook addiction phase. But then, at some point, the relationship evolved into a healthier one. I open my account maybe once a day – generally only early morning or in the evening. I’m not on it enough to obsess about how many likes or comments I get. I have a “drama free commenting policy” like that of the Empire – except any drama-mongerers are unfriended, or get hidden from my feed and go on a special list I use to limit what they see of my account. (Drama mongerers tend not to remain in my life for long anyway.) I keep my friend list at around 250. Maybe that’s just a less drastic version of a Facebook diet.
Now, it’s actually become a valuable tool. Sometimes even for truly meaningful communication and discussions ! (particularly with geographically distant friends and family, scattered across North America, Europe, and Latin America). Sometimes for planning a night out with friends, sometimes for planning co-writing projects, sometimes the usual fleeting communication.
But never for following news (unless it’s a small organization without an RSS feed), and always with my adblocker on.
Very interesting series! I’d say my relationship with social media is not love/hate as much as it’s love/obsession/indifference.
Twitter? I signed up pretty much to claim my name, and have had a couple sessions where I browse an old friend’s feed because they post more there than Facebook, but otherwise I let it be. I never signed up for Instagram, though that’s easy because my friends don’t really use it. On LinkedIn I accept connections from people I know, and update when something career-wise has changed, but don’t visit much. It could be useful someday for finding a job, but right now it’s not necessary. Google+ was funny because it’s only really one very particular friend group–the ones who work at Google or are otherwise Silicon Valley types! I used it a lot when it first rolled out, and now I hardly ever visit. Flickr I’m just getting into as a way to store and share my own photos as I get more into photography. I signed up once I realized they offer a free terrabyte. I actually mostly love browsing my own pictures, since it’s only nice ones and my hard drive is a bit overwhelming, but also look at Offbeat Empire things sometimes. Pinterest is more a way for me to bookmark things; I hardly look at other people’s boards except when I was looking for ways to dress better.
Then there’s Facebook, which is the crux of my love/obsession/indifference cycle. I don’t make a lot of posts myself, and pretty much stopped sharing pictures there halfway through college. So there is a weird one-sided sharing dynamic, though I’m on the voyeur side. But things I love are keeping up with friends who post things like links to really interesting articles, great pictures, funny statuses. I like being able to check on who still lives where and message them without needing their email address, if I’m traveling and going to be in their town–that’s happened several times, and without Facebook I would have missed the chance to actually see an old friend in person!
The obsession bit is a huge downside, though. Sometimes I get sucked into clicking through all of an acquaintance’s pictures, and start getting jealous of their seemingly perfect and glamorous life, and waste a lot of time. And right now at 25 I’m going through the friends-having-huge-milestones phase—every week it seems like there’s someone else getting engaged, married, getting pregnant or having their first kid. I will let myself indulge for a while, but at some point I have to say “enough” and click away. Offbeat Home is actually a great antidote for making me feel better, or I’ve even clicked through my own Facebook photos and imagined what my life would look like to an outsider if that were all they saw. It’s strange, but that one actually does work for me. Sometimes if I’ve binged a lot I don’t visit Facebook again for a while–it’s not too intentional, but more like if you overeat a bunch of cookies and then don’t feel like having cookies again for a bit.
I think I’m mostly okay with how I use social media. I could probably do with more strategies for heading off those obsession sessions, and I know I’m sometimes terrible at keeping up with faraway friends whatever the medium. But it’s been nice through this article series to reassess.
Edited to add: long comment is long! If you got here, thanks for reading my ramblings!
I think I am using social media in all the wrong ways. I’m totally addicted to it but I rarely post anything. I use it as an easy way to hide from real interactions. I want to make the move to it being a work tool but the trouble for me is that I work in sales and that’s tricky… With Facebook you have to be posting and interactive in order for people to pay attention to your page and I just don’t have that much to say to my clients/the world. How do you guys handle networking on Facebook?
I LUV not having facebook. I completely deleted it from my life in September after realizing that it was feeding my depression in various ways. I have replaced it with Pinterest and Twitter, both platforms allow me to be incognito, but still have access to the happy hour specials and memes and pretty stylized pictures of stuff. Plus it’s helping me put together inspiration boards for working out and making the full switch to vegan. 😀
If it’s free and you’re not buying a product, you’re the product being sold. Especially looking at facebook. I don’t like being a product, and I don’t give 2 shits about your baby pictures or new job… especially when I have neither of those things.
one of my facebook friends- a lad I was seeing a few years ago- died last April and I didn’t know ubtil August. I check Facebook daily, often dozens of times and I still didn’t know. we had a few mutual friends but noone thought to get in touch with me- they assumed I knew. so yeah, I stayed on FB to keep in touch with people, that it would be hard to stay in touch without it, and still missed something huge. maybe if FB didn’t exist someone would have called me? or maybe he would just be dead and I still wouldn’t know? lots of feels, sorry.
I agree with Ariel almost 100%. The only difference is that my work is unrelated to online things.
I deleted my fb almost 2 years ago, sick of passive aggressive one sided drama one too many gatherings where 60 people RSVPed and three showed up. I didn’t miss it AT ALL. I got back into texting from my phone an away from broadcasting.
Then this year I moved to the other side of the world. I maintained my fb free status. People whinged that they wouldn’t get to see my photos. After about two months of my Mum not being able to read my lovely typed group emails with photos, oddly reminiscent of livejournal posts…. I caved and got FB again.
I still hate it. I get nothing from it. Hardly anyone comments on my photos, tho I know people do look at them. Way too many friends of friends want to add me, and people again whinge that I’m not up to date on their life news, because I should be checking it more often.
I like Instagram because it can just be pretty. No witty comment required. But I even feel my patience for that fading. Yes people moved away and I sometimes wonder what colour their hair is now. But is it really going to add to my life? For me, no.
So I will kill fb again soon I think, cull Instagram, and when I move back to Oz, perhaps kill the lot. I want to default to quality over quantity with my social connections.
Great article Ariel! I’d be interested to see what other people in other industries that do and don’t involve social media, have to say too.
Honestly, I originally signed up with Facebook years ago to keep track of family, because I’m socially awkward and online contact is preferred. Then friends started to join. Eventually, most people I know turned to FB as the only way they stay connected with friends (which burns me up). Long story short, I just left FB over two months ago–for a variety of reasons. I noticed that I started becoming addicted to that little dopamine rush you get when you see a little red “look I noticed you” flag popped up on the dashboard. After a falling out with some friends on FB, which is literally physical torture for someone like me that has chronic pain and crippling anxiety, I was advised by a health professional to lessen social media. Finally, I wanted to wean myself away from “the online place to be.” I needed to sincerely disconnect. If anyone wants to contact me, they are going to have to remember what my bloody phone number is, because phones and regular old text messages still exist. So far, so good. I don’t feel dragged into anyone’s high school drama, and I don’t feel compelled to mindlessly click “like” anymore. Nowadays, I stick to my myriad of geeky news sites, NPR, Jezebel, and Tumblr for the laughs/fun imagery.
Eventually, I will learn to lessen time on the internet in general, but for now–this is good for me.
I finally, exceedingly reluctantly, signed up for FB again this year after years away, purely for the purpose of talking to relatives far away, and have refused to friend anyone else, which has annoyed a few acquantainces but oh well. I do have the problem of remembering to check it, though, and the interface confuses me. Mostly I’m just posting pictures of the kids for relatives to see, though. (Most real family news comes via the family listserv, which pleases me no end.)
Of course, I’m still on livejournal every day, and used to be a Usenet newsadmin so maybe I’m just an old fogey. Twitter is my water-cooler/lifeline as someone who works from home, Google+ is where all my photographer friends went to from fb and lj, and tumblr is for funsies, so I don’t check it often unless I have scheduled “go down the rabbit-hole” time.
I am trying to quit instagram because I started feeling bad about how my life was so much less photogenic than everyone I follow (who are artists, wedding photographers and kpop stars. Um.)
I love social media!! I love chatting to my friends on facebook chat, or sharing pictures of my trips on instagram, or sharing funny things on twitter. I’ve made several friends on twitter who I now socialise with in person. I don’t feel addicted to it – if I’m on holiday I’ll usually check it once or twice a day, but I feel like it definitely enriches my life.
My husband and I left Facebook in 2011 and haven’t looked back. It was liberating for us.