A Fifteen-Minute Visit to Facebook
What the scroll reveals about life, loss, and the strange way we stay connected.
I got a message from Facebook saying someone was trying to access my account.
There was a reset code and a link. I clicked it just to see where it went.
I deleted Facebook from my phone years ago, so I opened the app on my iPad, the only place I still have it installed.
Before doing anything else, I checked with Perplexity. I took a screenshot of the email and asked if it looked legitimate. It did. I also got instructions on how to review activity on my account. Everything appeared normal.
But since I was already there…
I started scrolling my feed.
I rarely go into Facebook anymore. The last time was on my birthday over a month ago, mostly because I knew people would send messages. That’s honestly one of the few reasons I keep the account. Once a year I hear from people who, at one time in my life, were much more present.
Within minutes of scrolling I saw that a woman I knew from a women’s business networking circle had died three days ago from cancer.
I knew she had been battling it. The last updates I had seen from her sounded hopeful. Treatment seemed to be helping. But her husband had posted that she was gone.
I visited her home studio several years ago. She was an extraordinary artist. I own a piece of her work. More importantly, she was a genuinely good human being.
Scrolling further, I saw other familiar fragments of life:
Birthdays.
Parents dying.
Dogs dying.
Trips skiing.
Photos from Florida and other warm places.
Mixed in were the same political memes—mean, cruel, and not remotely funny—shared by people I’ve been connected with since I first joined the platform seventeen years ago.
Old Facebook groups I’d forgotten I even joined were suddenly back in my feed. And for about fifteen minutes…
I was pulled into the scroll.
Then it all started to blur together.
That familiar digital haze.
Thankfully I recognized what was happening and pulled myself out. Outside of learning about the death of someone I respected and admired, the experience wasn’t serving me.
Still, it made me think.
Facebook does have a role in our hyper-connected world. It functions as a broadcast system for major life events—births, deaths, illnesses, marriages, milestones.
Maybe that’s what it’s best for now.
For people who want to stay constantly in touch with their networks, it probably still works. For others, maybe it provides those little dopamine hits of connection.
To each their own.
It’s just not my scene anymore.
I no longer feel the urge to post photos of my food, or pictures from my private life. Not photos of my grown children. Not photos of trips. Not photos of flowers I happen to notice while walking around.
I don’t feel compelled to share images that subtly say:
Look where I am. Look what I’m doing. Look how great my life is.
I’m simply not interested in performing that version of life anymore.
The whole experience turned into a small exercise in self-awareness.
And it also pushed me into a deeper reflection about something far more fundamental.
No matter how sophisticated our technology becomes, we cannot outsmart biology.
We age. We change. And every one of us is moving toward the same inevitable end.
Recently I saw an AI-generated video showing several Hollywood actresses now in their nineties holding photographs of themselves when they were young.
Dame Judi Dench.
Sophia Loren.
Carol Burnett.
Rita Moreno.
Ellen Burstyn.
They stood there holding these photos of their younger selves while the AI animation blended past and present.
It was striking.
My guess is none of them were asked whether it was okay to create that video.
Still, it caught my attention. I shared it with a women’s mastermind group I’m part of because it moved me.
And as I look at my own mother—who continues to decline every day—there’s a part of me that wishes she could stand next to those women.
Women who still have agency.
Women who still look vibrant and alive.
Women who are not, at least to my knowledge, suffering from Parkinson’s or other degenerative diseases.
Watching my mom fade reminds me of something simple and uncomfortable.
Life is not fair.
It never has been, and it never will be.
Good people are taken far too soon. And some truly terrible people seem to get more time than they deserve.
None of us gets to control that equation.
All we can do is make the best decisions we can today.
Practice gratitude for what we have.
Imagine a better future for the generations coming after us.
And try, in whatever ways we can, to be good stewards of this beautiful, fragile planet we’re lucky enough to inhabit.
And maybe that’s the real work now.
Not documenting every moment of our lives for the scroll.
But actually living them.