When I started my media journal, I had a hunch of what I would find: lots and lots of time on Facebook. I never really got into Twitter and Snapchat, but Facebook has become a big problem for me in recent years. It started as a convenient way to keep in touch with friends I wasn’t seeing and networking with other journalists, activists and interesting people – many stories I wrote started with my feed. It also seemed like a good way to gauge zeitgeist, which is important for a journalist.

But over the past 2-3 years, it has evolved into an addiction. Clicking on Facebook and scrolling down my feed became something I either do all the time, or want to do all the time, like the smoker who starts craving a cigarette even as she’s still smoking one. It’s not that my feed is so interesting: more often it’s either boring or depressing (Unlike other people who get depressed by seeing other people’s photogenic lives, my depression derives mainly from having so many lefty Israeli friends who are disgruntled about the way things are in Israel). Furthermore, I don’t trust Facebook. I know they’re selling me to advertisers, that they are a useful tracking and monitoring tool for governments, and that Facebook keeps me from reading and writing stuff I really want to read and write, from really being with my kids, even when I’m physically there and that it turns me into a “like” junkie.

So why do I keep at it? I think that it’s the useful distraction from anxiety, combined with a slight ADHD. And, it’s so easy. Facebook is always there. It has gotten so bad, that when I have something important to do – an assignment or just an afternoon with my children – I have taken to deleting the Facebook app from my phone. The problem is, I always re-download it.

Examining the battery percentage report on my phone revealed that my suspicions were founded: On a daily basis and also on a weekly basis, I was spending around 50% of my battery (i.e. of my time) on Facebook.

Some insights about my usage of Facebook:

Another interesting insight is that I now consume most of my media through Facebook. I rarely go to the New York Times website anymore – I just “like” them, get updates and read what I want to read through Instant Articles. It’s the same with Haaretz, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, but also silly quiz websites and slideshows. 

The defining feature of my consumption is that it is seemingly random: I don’t start out saying, “I’d like to see a slideshow about the longest-lasting celebrity marriages! where can I find that?” I am distracted into clicking on the link when it appears on my feed. Of course, there is really nothing random about it, because it is all dictated by the Facebook algorithm in ways that I will never understand. But the point is that it is not dictated by me. I’m no longer in charge of my media consumption: Mark Zuckerberg is.