17 Years on Facebook: Why I’m Finally Saying Goodbye

RIP Facebook

I got so bored today that I decided to visit Facebook. I rarely visit the site these days. Too many silly community standards violations over the past couple of years have turned me off from the platform entirely. I'm now afraid to post anything for fear of getting my profiles and pages taken down. But, more importantly, the site is just not engaging anymore.

For the last year or so, whenever I visited, I’d see the same posts reshared and regurgitated over and over. Very few people post anything worth reading or engaging with—perhaps for the same reasons I don’t. Facebook’s community standards wipe out most of the entertaining content.

When I visited today, though, something felt off. At first, I thought I must have been logged into one of my page feeds. I don’t follow many people through my pages, so the feed there is typically flooded with suggested content and ads. But no, I was logged into my personal account, where I have over 4,000 friends and follow numerous pages and groups. Normally, the feed is lively—though not exactly entertaining. Instead, I was bombarded with ad after ad. I refreshed the page, thinking something had to be wrong.

Nope. Facebook appears to be a graveyard. Either they’ve cranked up the ad frequency, or no one is posting anymore, so all that’s left to show me are sponsored posts. Either way, the site feels dead.

The reason I visited in the first place was that I’ve been getting daily notifications that my bans on some of my profiles and pages have been lifted. Facebook has even started suggesting the Wisedocks page to people again. Considering how my personal feed looks now, I can see why they’re desperate.

Here’s a breakdown of the first 50 posts on my personal feed. Posts from friends or groups I follow are marked in green. Ads and sponsored posts are marked in red.

Let's Scroll Through My Facebook Feed

1. Sponsored Post
2. Ad
3. Suggested Reels
4. Sponsored Post
5. Ad
6. Friend Post
7. Friend Post
8. Sponsored Post
9. Sponsored Post
10. Group Post
11. Friend Post
12. Sponsored Post
13. Friend Post
14. Friend Post
15. Friend Post
16. Sponsored Post
17. Ad
18. Sponsored Post
19. Friend Post
20. Sponsored Post
21. Friend Post
22. Ad
23. Group Post
24. Friend Post
25. Friend Post
26. Group Post
27. Ad
28. Friend Post
29. Sponsored Post
30. Sponsored Post
31. Friend Post
32. Ad
33. Friend Post
34. Sponsored Post
35. Sponsored Post
36. Sponsored Post
37. Ad
38. Group Post
39. Friend Post
40. Friend Post
41. Friend Post
42. Ad
43. Sponsored Post
44. Sponsored Post
45. Sponsored Post
46. Friend Post
47. Ad
48. Friend Post
49. Group Post
50. Friend Post 

Out of the first 50 posts, 24 were from friends or groups I follow. The other 26 were either ads or sponsored posts, which are basically just ads.

When over 50% of my feed is ads or sponsored posts, it’s no wonder the platform feels abandoned. I thought about making a new quote image to upload to the Wisedocks page—since that’s all I ever post there—but honestly, I’ll skip it. In fact, I think it’s time to step away from Facebook altogether.

I won’t delete my accounts, as bad actors could try to hijack my pages, but I don’t see a reason to visit anymore. I’ll turn off notifications to stop Meta from flooding my email and phone, and quietly remove my bookmarks to the site.

As for Messenger, everyone I need to stay in touch with has my phone number, so I won’t miss it. You had a good run, Facebook. After 17 years, it’s time to say goodbye. I bid you adieu.

Quick Update: I downloaded all of my images from Facebook and then proceeded to delete everything from my feed and nearly all of my images. It took 4 hours! But it's done. The only service I have left to contend with is Instagram but I think I'll deal with that another day.