An Exit Statement: Why I’m Quiet Quitting Facebook and Taking No Further Friend Requests
Dear friends,
When I first joined Facebook back in 2009, I had a few misgivings, but the platform seemed like a fun, low-stakes way to stay connected. It was good personally to be part of small groups of friends or family separated by distance – or just plain busy lives – but also to take part in communities, both local and professional/global.
Recently though, I’ve learned much more about the platform. And the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve come to believe that Facebook does more harm than good—not just to me, but to young people and our society and communities.
After much thought, I’ve decided to minimise my participation on Facebook and to no longer accept friend requests.
If you were planning on sending a friend request, or have done so recently with no response from me, this is not a rejection of you.
I’m rejecting a system that has proven itself to be fundamentally harmful. I wanted to share the reasons for my decision, so that you’ll understand my reasons, but also that some of you at least might reconsider your relationship with Meta and its flagship product.
This decision was fueled by three key concerns that have been on my mind for years:
- The lingering questions about the platform’s origins and its role in a surveillance-heavy world.
- The fact that it does not seem to pay its fair share of taxes.
- The sobering revelations from whistleblower Frances Haugen.
I have since learned that these concerns are not just feelings but are backed by a mountain of research and internal company documents.
The Hidden Psychological Cost
Facebook’s business model is built on one core principle: keeping young adults engaged for as long as possible.
The features we love—the “likes” and “comments”—are designed to provide a quick dopamine hit, making you feel good reliably and consistently, triggering an addictive feedback loop.
This is not an accident; it’s how social media is meant to work. The longer and more consistently you engage, the more likely you are to spend with their advertisers or on other Meta products.
The constant pursuit of external validation, combined with a feed full of highly curated “highlight reels,” has a measurable impact on our well-being.
Facebook’s own internal research found that it “make[s] body issues worse for one in three teenage girls“. The use of filters and editing tools creates a world that is “hard for teens to tell what’s real and what isn’t”. This constant social comparison can lead to feelings of inadequacy, dissatisfaction, and loneliness.
My view is that this monetisation of social comparison is a major factor in the deterioration of youth mental health we’ve seen over the past decade and a half. The excessive use of social media platforms contributes to this issue significantly.
The link between the platform and mental health isn’t just anecdotal. A landmark study from researchers at MIT and other universities found a causal link between the introduction of Facebook and a worsening of mental health in college students. The study found a 7% rise in severe depression and a 20% rise in anxiety disorders among students after the platform’s introduction. They even quantified the effect, finding that using Facebook had an impact on mental health equivalent to “22% of the effect of losing a job”.
An Engine of Societal Division
The algorithms that power our news feeds are not neutral. They are designed to prioritise content that generates the most engagement—likes, comments, and shares—and it turns out that sensational, divisive, and false information performs best.
A study by New York University found that during the 2020 U.S. election, news from publishers known for misinformation received six times more engagement than factual news from trustworthy sources.
Facebook’s personalised recommendation algorithms filter what we see, creating “partisan echo-chambers”. This means we’re constantly being pushed toward content that confirms our existing beliefs, leading to ideological extremism and political polarization.
Echo chambers in other words. You’re no good to them if you want to have a civil, open-minded or nuanced discussion. I don’t want to be part of that world.
The end result is a society where people live in different information worlds, creating a fertile ground for mistrust and social unrest.
That’s the opposite of what has created successful democracies – an informed and engaged public where disagreement can be vocal but respectful. I’m finding that there are other places where you can have those discussions and I’ll recommend some of them at the end of this article.
A History of Deception and Corporate Malfeasance
The most damning revelations about Facebook’s choices came from whistleblower Frances Haugen, who leaked thousands of internal documents known as the “Facebook Papers”.
Her testimony in Congress confirmed what many had long suspected: the company was aware of these harms for years but repeatedly chose to prioritise profit over public safety.
The documents showed that the company:
- Knew its platforms were harming teenage girls.
- Maintained a secret “XCheck” system that exempted high-profile users—including politicians—from its content rules.
- Knowingly rolled back safety measures after the 2020 U.S. election because they “undermined ‘virality and growth'” on its platforms.
Beyond this, there’s a documented history of corporate malfeasance.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal, for example, exposed how the personal data of up to 87 million users was harvested without their consent to create psychographic profiles for political advertising.
A long history of data breaches and security failures has shown that the platform cannot be trusted with our personal information.
Decent citizens pay their tax. What about you Facebook?
Finally, my concern about Facebook’s tax practices is well-founded. The company is currently being sued by the IRS for more than $9 billion in back taxes, interest, and penalties for allegedly “downplaying” the value of its assets to avoid higher taxes.
It has also been accused of tax evasion in Italy, where authorities are operating on a novel legal theory that the personal data users provide is a taxable asset.
One of the platform’s early investors, James Breyer, was on the board of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the CIA to invest in technologies for intelligence applications, with a key expertise in “data mining”. This fact highlights the platform’s inherent utility as a tool for mass data collection and therefore mass surveillance.
This decision is not a rejection of you or our shared experiences. It’s a choice to disengage from a system that monetises my psychological vulnerabilities, amplifies societal division, and has a proven track record of corporate deception. I am choosing a path of more intentional, non-algorithmic connection, and I hope you will join me in that.
Places for civil discussion
For me, this is a deliberate choice to prioritise authentic human connection and youth well-being. This is not the end of my connection with you all, but the beginning of a more intentional approach.
You can reach me through email, text, phone calls – and even (gasp!) in person. I warmly encourage any and all of you to do that.
If you don’t have my email address or phone number, let’s just say search engines are your friend. And if you’re looking to do good with your search, may I suggest you use ecosia.org – they plant trees from your search queries! Beats using 1/2 a litre of water on a ChatGPT search.
If you contact me through Facebook Messenger… you could be waiting a long time.
From now on, the only purpose I have in remaining on Facebook is advertising courses and workshops I run. Hypocritical? I don’t think so. I’d just prefer to use the system than have it use me.
That’s something I learned from the guy who said “If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways”
I’m also planning to explore other non-monetised private platforms for community building, such as Bettermode.com*, as well as broader social media platforms like Threads, Blue Sky and Mastodon [no link because like BlueSky it’s decentralised which appeals to the anarchist in me. Again, search engines will help you join a Mastodon server – it’s like a cult but without getting love-bombed and gaslit].
For civilised discussion of politics, economics and social issues I’m enjoying:
https://www.theguardian.com/au
medium.com Meant for readers and writers. But you just have to curate your feed a bit actively to avoid dross that attempts to sell you AI/crypto/diets etc.
The sites launched by members of the Center for Applied Rationality such as LessWrong and GreaterWrong.
There are many more I’m sure. If you find suitable sites, please recommend them to me in the comments below, but not on Facebook!
If you want to understand more about the harms of Facebook, I recommend viewing the film “The Social Dilemma“. It was produced by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin of the Center for Humane Technology. I highly recommend their podcast Your Undivided Attention, which focuses mainly on the risks of AI but also of other technological advances that risk being accepted without regard to their harms.
To understand the toxic effect of Cambridge Analytica’s work in shifting the US political debate via ‘psychographics’ of American Facebook users, try Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World by Christopher Wylie [affiliate link].