Could you quit Facebook for 99 days?
By now, you’ve surely heard about the psychological experiments that Facebook was doing for “research” purposes and it’s certainly gotten them in hot water with a lot of folks.
In response to this news, a Dutch creative agency known as Just, has launched a non-profit initiative called “99 Days of Freedom.” Participants are asked to stay off of Facebook for 99 days and see if their overall mood is better afterward.
I’m not sure my job will let me try it, but I’m awfully curious.
“As we discussed it internally, we noted an interesting tendency: To a person, everyone had at least a ‘complicated’ relationship with Facebook,” Just’s art director Merijn Straathof said. “Then someone joked, ‘I guess that the real question is, ‘How do you feel when you don’t use Facebook?’ There was group laughter, followed by, ‘Wait a second. That’s a really good question!’”
It is indeed a good question. Facebook absolutely impacts our mood even if we don’t know to what degree just yet. All of our feeds are similar. We all have the friend that is just Debbie Downer all the time, complaining about his or that. That can wear on you. But, I’d argue that even some of the positive stuff can wear on you.
How many people just post pictures of the most awesome things in their life. They are at the beach! They having cocktails lakeside! Here we are in Rio! Here’s a picture of my nine-year old daughter curing cancer with the help of our new rescue puppy!
All this can create the impression that these people are absolutely living the life, while you are headed back to work tomorrow to the nine-to-five that you hate so much. Regardless of what types of information people are posting, it can be an assault on the senses and emotions and take a toll on you. It’s probably a toll that you don’t even realize.
So, could you quit Facebook for 99 days?
