The #1 Benefit of Deactivating your Facebook account. And it’s more than just having less hours on your devices.

Around October last year, I decided to deactivate my Facebook account. I wanted to take a break. A break from the news feed I kept seeing whenever I log on to Facebook. I wasn’t really sure why but it felt like everything was too much. It was noisy and everything looked cluttered. Friends posting every minute, showing off, ranting, etc.

I needed a break.

I started to feel better the moment I clicked “Deactivate”. I swear, it was one of the right choices I’ve ever made. And the #1 benefit I was talking about in the title is this: deactivating your Facebook account actually helps you focus on yourself. Below are a couple of observations I got from my deactivation experience.

Firstly, deactivating your FB account eliminates the need or desire to log on it every time. No distractions. I observed that after leaving Facebook, I was able to do the things I needed and wanted to do. I was more productive.

Another observation is that my tendencies to compare myself and my situation with that of my friends greatly lessened. I’m not an envious person but when 90% of what you see on your news feed are posts and photos of your friends showing off the places they've been or the food they've tried, then sometimes it’s really inevitable to compare and get a little envious.

Now, I’m active on Facebook again. But I still deactivate from time to time. I noticed that I no longer feel the tendency to get a bit envious or irritated when my friends show off. Maybe it's just really nice to take some time off social media. For me, it gave me time to breathe and re-focus.