- People always but be asking me
why aren't you on social media?
The purpose of this video isn't to convince you
to get rid of Facebook, like I don't care what you do.
These are just my reasons, my personal reasons.
Are there any other reasons besides personal ones?
I got on Facebook my freshman year of college
and was on it for a few months before I was like,
overwhelmed with it and I had to delete it.
I couldn't stand seeing everyone's life, you know,
their highlight reel on social media.
I was, like looking too much into other people's lives
and it was making me feel really bad.
So I got rid of Facebook.
Then, a couple of years ago, I got on Twitter
and was on that for just a couple months.
I kind of feel like sick after you're on
Twitter for a while.
You're just like, this is the stupidest place ever,
I hate this place.
I hate the world.
Instagram, I've never really been on.
The most I've been on it was stalking this girl
I dated for a couple of weeks who crushed me
when she ghosted me, but I kept tabs on her,
in a creepy way.
So anyway, what are my actual reasons
for not being on social media?
(saddening music)
Why aren't I?
Why don't I just sign up now?
What are the reasons?
The first big reason that I'm not on social media
is because it's just such a time waste.
It's a huge time suck for me.
Now I'm sure lots of you probably know how to use
social media in a moderated way that is reasonable.
Not me.
If I were to get back on social media
I would waste hours a day on it.
I already experience it with YouTube.
I don't consider YouTube to be social media,
because it's a totally different dynamic.
Facebook it's like, we're friends, we're keeping in touch
on real life, on the internet.
YouTube is like, I'm creating videos
and putting it out there for an audience.
It's an actor audience relationship.
It's not a friends in real life relationship,
you understand what I mean?
Why was this the?
But I experienced this on YouTube already
where I waste so much time on YouTube.
And I mean, I can justify it
because my channel's doing okay.
I know that this is what I would do if I was
on Facebook or Twitter and it's like you get
these little dopamine hits when people,
like when I see the views, when I look at the view counts
and I read the comments on my videos,
you know, I'll admit, like, it's kind of an ego boost.
It's a dopamine hit.
And it's like addictive, I keep coming back to look at it
and see what else have people said.
And it's the same with Facebook that, you know,
I keep checking on what, "Do people like my post?
What did people comment on my photo?"
The big difference is, these videos
are a controlled kind of creation.
This isn't like my pure real life I'm showing you.
Whereas if it's Facebook or whatever,
it's sort of like my real life and so I feel
like it would be much more hurtful
and much more addictive, like the two extremes
if I had a Facebook or Twitter and people were
reacting to like, the real things in my life.
Whereas on YouTube I can sort distance myself from it
and be like "Okay, what did people
think about my creations?"
It's not really about me, except when people comment
how good looking I am.
So yeah, I'd waste a ton of time and
I would become addicted to it.
I'm not really good at moderating anything
so it's basically either be a total addict
or get off of it so that's one of the big reasons why.
Related to that secondarily, and as I mentioned before,
I just felt like crap whenever I was on social media
comparing myself to other people's lives and you know,
that's what it is basically is people,
most people, go on social media especially Facebook
and present themselves, it's their highlight reel.
Their life is great, man.
Look at all the places I've traveled,
look at my new job,
look at the fun thing I did last weekend,
look at my significant other,
look at my dog, look at my children.
Not everyone does this and
not everyone does it intentionally
but it happens a lot.
I just, I hate that.
I don't want to be a part of it.
I don't want to, I have such a low opinion of myself
that if I see other people putting on this front
of being well-adjusted and competent human beings
and contributing members of society,
it's gonna make me feel even worse, if that's possible.
Even if people are genuinely nice, I don't wanna see it.
I suppose a legitimate reason for using Facebook
is to keep in touch with family and friends
that you've moved away from or something like that.
Or you just don't get to see very often.
Okay, yeah.
The thing with showing photos though,
is before Facebook, before computers,
if you wanted to show someone photos
you had to sit down with them and show them the photos.
And you're giving them context
with what you're showing them.
So it's like an active thing, it's interactive,
you're talking to the other person,
it's a bonding experience.
With Facebook though, it's this totally passive thing
where you put up your pictures,
and people can look at 'em.
Yeah you can ask people, "Hey Uncle Joe,
look at my pictures 'cause I went to China."
But for the most part, it's sort of just like
you post it up there and hope that your 800 Facebook friends
will passively find their way to it and then comment on it
and it's just all these pictures of very little context.
Sure you can write a caption but there's no bonding.
I just got to see a few instance of your life
and got to see all the cool stuff you did
and how happy you are, great.
There's like the really human element that's missing
and I also think it's weird that it's so passive.
And, you know, so many people have friends on Facebook
who are people that aren't really even in their life.
Why do I need to see what some person
I knew in high school is doing now?
Why do I need to see the photos of someone I met
at a party and we, you know, had a good conversation
and we friended each other,
why do I now need to look through their album
of their cousin's bar mitzvah?
Now you can say "Yeah, Frank you don't have
to look through it."
Yeah right.
But I also just think it's weird, why would you want them
to look through your stuff,
why would you want to make it available for them
to have a window into your life?
Maybe that's just me.
I don't like people having windows into my lives.
Except for the 13,000 of you subscribed to this channel.
That brings me to my next point is,
I don't like being available.
I don't like being connected.
I like my life to be very separate from everyone else
and for me to have, like, control over when
I interact with other people.
And the thing about social media is that you're
constantly connected with other people.
Even if you're not actively connected,
you know, you friended someone and now they have this
constant window into your life.
And they can look back on your whole life, you know.
Your pictures from, you know, 2012 when you were dating
that guy you haven't talked to in years.
Now I can go and look at that
because you haven't taken it down for some reason.
Why would you keep it up?
I don't know.
And the thing is, so many people,
you see people with all these Facebook friends.
It seems like most people that I know
when I've looked at their profiles, they have like,
between 800 and 1000 friends.
Sure, you can have that many acquaintances or whatever
and I understand, like, maybe you meet someone
who can become a good business contact later and whatever.
But this has taken so much of the work out of being sociable
that's it's really cheapening all relationships.
If we didn't have Facebook and I wanted to possibly
get in contact with you in the future,
I would have to make the effort to like,
write down your phone number or get your email address
or something.
Now it's just like, I'll friend you
and I'll keep you on reserve if I ever need
to get in contact with you.
Meanwhile you can look at all the pictures of my
Cinco del Mayo party.
I don't want to be closely connected
with a bunch of acquaintances like that.
The way the world is supposed to work
is you pass in and out of other people's lives.
And if you wanna stay in someone else's life,
you make the effort.
But now we have this thing where you're never really
fully passed out of someone's life
but that's the thing, is there's this natural thing
of okay, well, we went to high school together
now we have no reason to come in contact anymore.
That's gone.
A lot of my friends from high school
are still friends on Facebook even though they never talk.
Why? What's the point?
And then that makes it that much more special
when you run into each other in person
because you're not, you know,
you haven't thought of them,
they're not on your friend list.
Now I know not all your--
Even if you have a thousand friends
that doesn't mean you're checking all their profiles
but, you know what I'm saying.
What really bugs me about not being on social media though
is that so many people they don't think about you
when you're not on it.
I can't count how many times there's been
like an event or a party of something
where they're like, "Oh well, you're invited
but you're not on Facebook so that's why
you didn't get the invitation."
It's like, no, I wasn't invited.
If you didn't reach out to me then I wasn't invited.
Sure, maybe you thought about it,
but if you didn't take that next step of calling me
or something, then I wasn't invited.
And, "Oh, you weren't on Facebook"
is kind of a, that's such a dumb excuse.
Yeah I'm not on Facebook but I still have a phone number,
and email address, and I exist in the real world.
You could have told me any of those ways.
One of the big things that came up a couple years ago
during the presidential election
and I'm so glad I wasn't on social media then,
is people decide that, okay, I'm going to spout
my political opinions.
It's like, I don't care.
People who in real life never expressed
any political opinion will suddenly like
stand on a soapbox and start to wax poetical
about their beliefs and how, you know,
the injustices of the world and what we've gotta do
and how could you vote for this person.
It kind of makes you not like your friend
who in real life never would have said these things.
But with a keyboard and the platform of their wall.
And it doesn't matter if your political opinion
agrees or disagrees with me, I just find it
like not tasteful to get on a soapbox
and say to your friends you know,
this is what I think and you're wrong
if you don't think what I think.
You know, a lot of people during that election
were like, you're immoral if you don't
believe what I believe.
Which is like, dude, come on.
You don't know anything, really?
Like I don't know anything either
which is why I'm not posting about it.
It's what you might call virtue signaling.
There's a lot of virtue signaling on social media.
A lot of humble brags too where it's like, you know,
"Just coming back from my day of volunteering
and my model photo shoot."
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Are you on social media?
Do you find some value in it?
What do you think about what are my reasons
for not being on it?
I mean honestly, I don't see the value in it.
But I'm not here to tell you to get off of it.
I don't care.
Thank you so much for watching.
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Until next time stay cool and attractive.
(vibrant music)