My Facebook Vacation

I am no longer on Facebook, and I am actually pretty glad about it.

During the lead up to the election in 2016, I was very active on Facebook, posting the funny memes, making fun of Shillary Clinton, and generally having a good time annoying the crap out of my more liberal friends and family.

I have never let a person’s political stance affect my view of them. If someone was a liberal Democrat or a right-wing Republican, I did not treat them any differently when I disagreed with them, and I disagreed politely. Some people posted such awful stuff that I “unfollowed” them. “Unfollow” means you retain as a friend but don’t have to be assaulted with their litany of abuses.

I assumed, silly me, that everyone else understood how Facebook worked. Then, after the election, someone who was a family member, someone I have helped financially and done my best to assist, unfriended me.

I am not normally reactionary, but I have since stopped logging on to Facebook. I am still on line, and I still get Messenger messages, but I do not actively post material any more.

I can’t tell you what a wonderful thing this has been for my blood pressure. I have found that Twitter demands a lot less attention, and can be used much more easily than Facebook. But the really wonderful part of it is that I have more time. I must have wasted 20 hours a week on Facebook, trying, in vain, to educate and inform those who know nothing about guns, gun laws, crime, criminal law, and most especially, common sense.

My wife still shows me things on there from time to time. I still chuckle at the videos people post. But I don’t go on there and waste time looking at stuff that just irritates the hell out of me.

Here’s what I have learned from all this.

If Facebook offends you, turn it off.

If all it can be is a source of irritation, and if you are viewed as a source of irritation, then by and large, you’re wasting your time.

I get all the political discussion I want on Twitter, and I don’t have to see more than 140 characters of bullshit at a time.