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Why Taking Social Media Breaks May Not Be Enough

How do you cure the incurable?

It’s been more than a decade since most of us began the long-awaited relationship with the primary tools of engagement that provide the level of connectivity that’s nothing short of revolutionary.

For me, it was the seductiveness of Facebook and the seamlessness of accessibility that revived old friendships, reignited existing ones, and secured the path for new contacts to blossom.

It was exhilarating to watch the graph light up with affirmations of successful connections with familiar faces that were no longer out of reach. The icing on the cake was the second chance at proving my worth to former schoolmates from boarding school, after an extended period of awkwardness that forced me out of the loop.

But it didn’t take very long for the sinking feeling to creep in, as I began to lose control of my carefully curated page. The assault of nonstop notifications, aggressively demanding the acknowledgment that would certify updated numerical prowess, that new users are swiftly enslaved to accomplish, was the dreaded assignment I had to reject.

Thanks to the systemic coercion of LinkedIn, which was apparent almost immediately, with the flashing notifications that creepily assemble a collage of contacts, that are pulled from your various logins at places of work, who allegedly want to join your network — I became acutely aware of how those bloody algorithms relentlessly play tricks on our wearied psyches.

When something trends, it sets off the avalanche of the same shit, coming at you faster than you can effectively handle.

Facebook definitely schooled me on the illusion of “friendships” and how damn easy it is to believe that those impressive numbers equate to how many “friends” you have, when in reality, most of those faces don’t represent anything dependable in the realm of acceptability and intimacy.

I took the necessary steps to first deactivate and then eventually shut down Mark Zuckerberg’s once-revered and now notoriously scandalous creation, out of the need to reprogram my instincts as well as to decongest many of the contacts that…