Connection Without Algorithmic Participation
I've been wrestling with something as I continue my Facebook Feed Fast.
I'm 30+ days in now. No app on my phone. No longer checking the feed. It's been wonderful!
But I feel the pull. Not in an "addiction to Facebook" sense, but the feeling that if I don't eventually reconnect to the feed, I'll become irrelevant, invisible, forgotten.
I feel the unease of "cutting myself off from the world." Specifically, the immediacy of knowing what's going on in the moment while I scroll.
And I also feel the guilt of no longer participating in the algorithm culture.
As a small business owner with lots of small business owner/vendor friends, I feel guilty for not liking and interacting with their posts consistently.
There's a strong sense that this sort of interaction helps small businesses on social media.
It's not lost on me, as a GenX, that there was a time not too long ago when connection didn't rely on an algorithmic feed, where clicking an emoji wasn't the default expression of acknowledgement.
As I continue my Facebook feed fast, I find myself leaning into other ways of connecting.
I've started defaulting to using Messenger to reach out. Rather than passively hitting the "like" button, I actually type a message.
I've found myself lingering in conversation a bit longer at markets.
Honestly, it just feels better to hear someone talk about what they're up to in person instead of already knowing everything because it was shared on Facebook.
Even blogging (which I started on the same day I deleted Facebook from my phone) has felt more fulfilling than posting updates on social media.
This is slower engagement with the world, but it feels deeper and more meaningful to me.