Here are the top 5 things that change when you leave Facebook.
Well I don't know what happens when you leave Facebook, but I do know what happened when I did.
For the most part, I've avoided facebook.com and its mobile app for almost the entire year.
I've had a look at it for work and I've used it to organize a party.
Otherwise I was a ghost.
Here's what happened.
At number five I liked some of my friends more.
If you aren't aware, some folks have a tendency to get political on Facebook.
Every now and then I would find a grade school buddy or someone who I thought was pretty bright sharing some interesting opinions.
Without looking at Facebook I'd pretty much forgot about that until I started running.
In the script.
At number four, I texted people happy birthday.
Facebook is great when it comes to reminding people of birthdays.
It's the day people you forgot about write on your wall.
For me, I end up just texting people happy birthday, if I remembered.
Surprisingly.
I remembered a lot of birth dates.
If you're watching this and I haven't said happy birthday to you, well, happy belated or early birthday.
At number three, a decline in fomo.
Fear of missing out is real people.
A fun thing about Facebook is that it shows off a lot of idealized lives.
Then you think, what am I doing?
Why am I not doing that?
Well, I pretty much went back in time.
I didn't know what people were doing on the regular, so I just made my own plans.
Crazy?
Number two, I read a lot more.
Facebook is a great way to kill time on a phone.
This year I managed to tap my eReader app instead of Facebook.
I wasn't reading status updates or shared links.
I was actually reading something called books with some regularity.
And at number one, more brain space.
I don't know every little detail of everybody's lives anymore.
Yes I keep up to speed with my closest friends and my family.
However, I don't know if that random person went on a vacation to cider country, or if little Timmy lost a tooth.
Who is Timmy, and why is he showing up in my feed?
I digress.
I essentially have less garbage information clogging my brain, which is quite nice.
Is leaving Facebook for everybody?
Maybe not, but I'm a weird guy.
Anyway, for more top fives, visit topfive.cnn.com.
I'm Ian [UNKNOWN] I'll see you online.
Probably on Twitter.
Books.
