I quit using Facebook about a month ago, and since then a few friends have written to ask why. The short story is that I don’t like seeing something in my life and then thinking, “Oh, I should post that on Facebook.” It’s like when you go to dinner with someone and you can tell that they’re itching to check their phone, or they want to take a picture of their meal so they can post it somewhere. I hate all of those feelings, and therefore I don’t use Facebook any more.
As a result of that feeling, and having been sick lately, and of having known a number of addicts during the last ten years, I appreciate what Johann Hari says in his TED Talk:
“I increasingly began to think that the connections we have are like a parody of human connection. If you have a crisis in your life you’ll notice something: It won’t be your Twitter followers or Facebook friends who come to sit with you.”
At the end he states very powerfully, and IMHO very accurately:
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection.”
Here’s his 15-minute talk:
