laurengo.ca

I was recently banned off of Meta platforms. No more Instragram, Snapchat, WhatsApp.

No more Facebook.

About five years ago, I joined a small Facebook group of like-minded leftists. These people grew into being my friends, and the group was my community. In time I became admin and spent a great deal of time posting to the group and my personal page.

I don’t what I posted that got me banned. Facebook was very vague on details. The truth is I likely didn’t break any rules at all and Facebook’s auto filters went haywire on me. So, now I’m kicked out of my digital home. The first day of my ban was spent figuring out how to get my account back. But quickly that gave way to a tepid optimism. Maybe being banned off Meta was a blessing in disguise. We know social media is bad for us, with its bottomless doom-scroll and algorithms that pushed covetousness. It’s a black box of time designed to be addictive, anger and fear inducing, and as of late it pushes right wing extremism.

A few more days pass without Facebook and I find that I’m adapting quicker than expected. I still have contact with my friends through other means and sometimes they even check up on me, lonesome exile that I am. I found that I began reading and writing more with my newfound time. Curious to push this idea further, I deleted my other socials off my devices. And so far, everything’s alright. I still get the urge to check social media almost like a phantom limb sort of thing, but I find I’m on my phone less. I listen to new music more. I pay more attention to things when I’m outside.

Maybe I’ll try to get back on later, but for now I feel alright. The hard part now is making an in person community, away from social media. But I’m putting my best foot forward and trying.