Why I Quit Facebook (and X/Twitter and Instagram)

I was an early adopter of Facebook, joining sometime around 2007. In its early days, I appreciated the value it brought to my life – connectivity, networking, posting pictures for friends and family, engaging in shared interest groups, finding local deals on their marketplace, etc.

But over the past several years, I discovered that though Facebook still provided a certain level of value to my everyday life, the associated costs and downsides had outweighed the value. So I quit Facebook, X, and Instagram. And when I say, ‘quit,’ I mean that I permanently deleted my accounts (after successfully downloading the files of ALL my data from those accounts).

What do I mean by costs and downsides? Before I list those, let me say a disclaimer: this is my own story and experience. Yours might be totally different. You might find more value than the costs, and that’s great. This is simply how I perceive the role of Facebook (and X and Instagram) in my life before and after quitting them. And I can say that three months in, I have no regrets. In fact, I believe my life has been more enjoyable, simple, and joyful since I quit those big three. If you’re wondering, I never had SnapChat or TikTok in the first place.

Costs and Downsides (in no particular order)

  1. Sponsored Posts – These got out of hand for me. I know the social media companies need to make money somehow to provide users with free social media. I really do get that. But we as users get to decide when the commercials are too much and can just walk if it’s not worth it to us (that’s what I chose to do).
  2. The Algorithms – This is the secret sauce that the social media companies do not want us to know. They want engagement. Why? So they can sell ads to their customers at higher prices. How do they increase engagement? They generate content feeds that they believe will keep our eyes on the screens for as long as possible. That might mean prioritizing things on our feed that really don’t interest us. Yes, I know we can toggle about with what we like and don’t like and can block people and so on. But in the end, the social media company is still dictating what I see and what I don’t see on their feeds. What if I want to simply see the most recent post that any of my friends posted? That might happen. But I can’t count on it.
  3. We Are the Product – Speaking of ads and customers, I once heard someone on a radio interview (I’m sorry I cannot recall who) say that we are not social media customers (unless you’re a business account), but rather “We are the product.” You see, everything we post, like, subscribe to, etc, the social media company harvests that data in order to create a very specific profile of us for the sake of selling targeted ads to their business customers. We are exchanging our personal information and data for the opportunity to connect with others on social media. Sorry, it’s not worth it to me anymore. I’ll just send pictures of my children and vacation highlights directly to those closest to me via text (and I’ll know that they will see them).
  4. Lost Time – When I’m 80 years old, I’m not going to look back on my life and say, “I wish I would have spent more time on social media.”
  5. Losing Our Minds – More often than not, I see posts or discussion threads that quickly descend into arguments and shouting matches where people are simply shouting past one another. When we are not in the flesh as humans (like online conversations), I believe we tend to say and do things that we would otherwise not say/do in the flesh. That means people say really crazy things online without careful thought. And oftentimes those voices are amplified in ways that are not commensurate to thoughtfulness of the conversation. You may say that is a subjective statement, and it is. Who gets to decide what gets amplified or not in these environments? The social media platform, not us.
  6. Tending to Conversations that Take Me Away From Real Life – I was tired of keeping up with conversations in the social media environment. It’s like tending a garden. It’s work to say things, listen to others, respond to others, and have fruitful conversations in life. I’d rather invest more time and energy into real-life dialogues and conversations.
  7. Fakebook – We all know the flashy photos on social media depict one slice of life of all of us. We all like to post our best and happiest. But that is a facade. I don’t want to live in a world of facades. At it’s core, I believe social media is more facade than truth. It is a lot of context-less images and sound bites. The platforms are not giving us free social connectivity online out of the goodness of their own hearts. They are in this for the money. And I have chosen to take my data elsewhere.

Have you quit/deleted social media? If so, why? Are you a big fan of social media? Do you believe it provides more value than cost to your own life?

How Many Wise Men Were There?


Merry Christmas! How many wise men (or magi, more on that below) came from the East to visit the baby Jesus? Most traditional depictions show us three. But what does the Scriptural text say?

Simply put, Scripture is ambiguous on the exact number. We know there were three gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh), so it makes narrative sense to cast the story with one wise guy per gift.

But, again, the Biblical text merely says “magi,” which is a plural noun (Matthew 2:1-16). So we know it wasn’t just one. It could have been two, it could have been five hundred, or any other multiple number (including three).

And who were they really? The Greek term is the plural of magos, the root of which can refer to magicians or sorcerers (Acts 13:6-8; see also Acts 8:9-11).

However, New Testament scholar Craig Keener describes them this way:

“‘Magi’ (not ‘wise men’ – KJV) were pagan astrologers whose divinatory skills were widely respected in the Greco-Roman world; astrology had become popular through the ‘science’ of the East, and everyone agreed that the best astrologers lived in the East.”

Craig Keener. 1993. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), p. 48.

Another “Craig” New Testament commentator (Craig Blomberg) agrees as he adds another nuance to their roles:

“The Magi were not kings but a combination of wise men and priests, probably from Persia. They combined astronomical observation with astrological speculation. They played both political and religious roles and were figures of some prominence in their land.”

Craig Blomberg. 1992. The New American Commentary: Matthew (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press), p. 62.

So these were important fellows, however many there were. I have always loved the juxtaposition between the shepherds and the magi, showing that Jesus came for the commoner and the politically powerful alike. And we haven’t even gotten into the timing of their arrival! But that’s another discussion for another time. Just don’t put them in your manger scenes next to infant Jesus and the shepherds (they couldn’t have made it there as fast as the shepherds, who were in the adjacent fields :).