It's really hard to not be on Facebook. But if you can last, you might just learn a little bit about how social media messes with your brain.

I used to really like Facebook. I'd go on there to tell stupid jokes and share links in a setting that felt at least a little more intimate than Twitter. I mean, they're your "friends," right?

But after the umpteenth thread derailed by people wanting to have their own conversations in my own feed and ruining the fun for everybody else, I decided it was easier to just stay quiet. Those few things I did post, I would anxiously check every so often in fear that everything had jumped off the rails. It became a source of some anxiety.

My hiatus wasn't part of a grand personal statement on the role of social media in our lives. I didn't write a dramatic manifesto on how I was quitting, or delete the app from my phone in a grand gesture. I just realized I wasn't enjoying it anymore, and so I started checking it less until I stopped looking at it at all.