Unfriending and Re-Friending Facebook

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But the last straw for advertising on Facebook wasn’t lack of performance, it was Facebook’s shady billing practices. I had stopped all my campaigns. Deleted all my payment methods. Yet a few days ago, I noticed on a card I had used several times on that account 6 months ago, charged $377 by Facebook. How could they charge that card and for an account that had no campaigns running? I went to check out the ad site and several event campaigns were running but there were still no cards associated with the account. I called the bank and cancelled that card.

I’m not one to buy into the Big-Brother-has-all-your-data-you-better-beware fear mongering about Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. I call it a "hiding in plain sight" strategy. However I am now rethinking this after the Facebook billing practice where they can go after a card I had deleted off the account. That wasn’t even showing up as a card associated with the account.

But it wasn’t just the billing practices — it was also what Facebook had turned my life into. Instead of connecting with life as it was presenting itself all around me, I was connecting with people who weren’t around me via Facebook. I did enjoy getting reconnected with friends from years gone by — like my French-horn-playing buddy from the High School Band. It was fun to see his life evolve, his work travels, his new wife — it was like as my brand strategist Carey Earle used to say: "Voyeur View." But what about the view from the seat where I was sitting right here right now — living where I am breathing in the present moment?

And then there were the shocking media stories that friends posted all slanted in the way their opinions slanted. Was I becoming one of the sheeples — following whatever line of thinking the loudest voices in my friend network were expressing? I think this is what is meant by the bubble — where I started having negative thoughts about others who had ideas outside of what was in the bubble of views I had curated.

I have a great friend of over 25 years who is my neighbor — he has views that are outside of this bubble. Yet I listen to him and together we find common ground. In person, over tea, or when visiting each other’s gardens (this is literal, not metaphorical). A real connection with a real person, real time. We both leave these exchanges more uplifted rather than depressed or despondent — better able to deal with others with different ideas than our own.

That isn’t what happened for me with Facebook. I would read the threads on controversial posts and see the hate and venom about different ideas. I’d see friends get all in a lather about the "trolls" posts. My ire would be activated as well. I would unfriend or be unfriended by those whose views upset me.

Was this the way I wanted to continue living my life? What would happen if I got off of Facebook all together? There is some good stuff on there. It’s the way this small community I live in stays connected. There is the Haines Buy Sell Trade — come to think of it, I did get a plow truck off there but then I sold the plow truck as the maintenance on it was a hassle, it was just one more thing the caretaker was not taking care of (damaging it instead and using it when he needed to be using his own vehicle). I now have my neighbor plow my driveway. I can use Craigslist to unload stuff I no longer need.

I will miss seeing where my neighbors are traveling to when they are not in Haines. But then I can catch up with them at the Post Office or the hardware store or the grocery store when we are in the same town together. I can visit with them over a tea at the Mountain Market and we can share the pictures on our smartphones of our travels since we last connected. I’ve already had several people I haven’t heard from in a while reach out to me since I left Facebook. We’ve updated our phone numbers, addresses, and are having more meaningful dialog. Real connection, real time, real friends.

Update: Several months after leaving Facebook, I did return to the platform. I continue to post on Facebook messages of topics that are meaningful to me. But for you, gentle readers, wanting to read my business-oriented blogs, please visit Cheetah Learning Blog at http://www.michellelabrosseblogs.com/, and read my column here in ISE magazine at https://isemag.com/author/michellelabrosse/.