The Ultimate Online Decluttering -- Leaving Social Media Forever

In the spirit of making my life more productive and less complicated, I'm leaving social media forever. Twitter is already gone, because seriously, I have not participated there in many months. Facebook and G+ will be closed Saturday morning. I'm giving people a couple of days so those who want to stay in touch can get my personal information. I don't expect many takers.

Coming Back to the Real World

That may sound pessimistic, but social media isn't a real world. I've left Facebook twice, and gone for months without posting on G+, Twitter or Pinterest, and nobody seemed to care. Why should I want to be friends online with people who don't want to be my real friends offline?

I know it will be hard. I've read a bunch of articles on people who have done it, and it's like any addiction, you go through withdrawal. When I left FB, I went through that -- wanting to share things, wanting to know what everybody was up to. I got over it eventually as I replaced those things with more valuable things.

One article I read by Steve Pavlina, "One Year Without Social Media," says it all very well. It's a lot more difficult than you would think, but so worth it in the end.

So Many Reasons to Leave

Another reason I want to leave is because it's just a time suck I can't afford. I often find myself angry because I'm not achieving my goals financially or personally, and I realized that I spend way too much time clicking links on FB and G+, getting sucked into drama and reading meaningless, mindless crap for hours. I need to be spending that time doing things I keep saying I want to do and don't.

And then there is the anger and hatred that is everywhere on social media these days. This is an election year, and it's bringing the crazies out of the woodwork. I know who I'm voting for. I don't need to read all the other negative bullshit that is happening. Honestly, one deciding moment was this morning when Donald Trump and Sarah Palin were on the front page everywhere. I got sucked into that one too. The truth is, this stuff brings out the worst side of me, and I don't like who I become when confronted with all this negativity.

Perils That Await

Pinterest will be the hardest to give up. I get some great ideas there, but I'm bookmarking all the linked blogs and sites where that stuff comes from, so I won't lose any of it, I just won't have it in my face every day. I won't need the cute quotes, since I won't be sharing anything, and there is plenty of inspiration stuff online if i need it.

One thing I don't want to do is get sucked into joining forums and subscribing to newsletters because my online world seems empty. That will be a big challenge, but I think I can handle it. I'm thinking of starting a quarter jar, where I have to pay 25 cents for every time I post to a forum online. Since I'm usually broke, I'm pretty sure that will keep me on the straight and narrow.

So there it is -- decluttering my internet activity has begun. I even thought about cutting out comments on my blogs, but that would just be a bit too far, don't you think? Of course, nobody will be able to find my blogs anymore, since I won't be promoting them, so I probably won't get comments anyway. Or maybe I'll now have time to read some of my favorite blogs more often, and leave comments that will lead them back here. Who knows? I don't blog for a living, so it's not that important if anyone reads them.

Goodbye social media -- hello real life! I'll let you know how it goes.