B.C. mayors go Facebook-free to preserve mental health, find better ways to connect with their community

A pair of B.C. mayors have given up using Facebook for the month of February in an effort to preserve their mental health and to find better ways of communicating with their community.

Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater and Ange Qualizza of Fernie, both in B.C.'s Interior, challenged each other to get off social media after realizing they were spending too much time reading angry comments that weren't helping them do their job.

"I think it was over-amplifying a small group of people in ourcommunity," Qualizza said.

Qualizza and Blackwell spoke toDaybreak Kamloopshost Shelley Joyce about what they are learning from a Facebook-free February and whether they'll return to the social media site.

What made you decide to take a month off from Facebook?

Blackwell: Well, you know, the world's kind of crazy these daysand I kind of felt like Iwas spiraling down in a sort ofcycle of bad information,I think, or just, you know, the heaviness of the world. So, I felt that social media was one reason why that was happening. So you start looking for solutions to this.

Qualizza:I'd like to add to the fact that I think it was over-amplifying a small group of people in our community, as it tends to do.

And as mayors we're elected to represent the entire community, the people that aren't on social media and don't have those ways of yelling at city hall.

And it just really reminded me that I might be allowing myself to be unduly influenced by a small group of people because, almost always, the Facebook outreach never translates into phone calls to my office, they don't send emails for inquiry or requests for service.

And so I started becoming worried that I was kind of getting unduly influenced.

Can you explain how you were using it?

Blackwell:It's common knowledge around Clearwater that I use Facebook as a communication method,and I have for a long time, you know, [to] be part of the daily conversation about things.

It's great. I mean, you solve a lot of problems. We get a lot of misconceptions dealt with before they snowball, like they do on social media, into something much bigger than they need to be.

But it also gives people a sense that they can access the mayor, or the mayor's decision-making processes, the town's decision making process, in a way that they actually can't. I still follow internal processes.

Is this something that you would continue after February is over?

Qualizza:Oh, definitely. [Victoria] Mayor Lisa Helps famously left Facebook andpenned a really lovely essay on her blog about why she was doing it in 2018.

At that time I thought,"How could you possibly be a mayor and not be on Facebook?" But, oh my gosh, she's done a great job.

She's completely available to her constituents, throughoffice hours and emails and phone calls.And so 2022, four years later, I'm following in her footsteps, and I think it's a really good decision.

Blackwell:For me, I have a feeling that I will have to go back on to a certain degree.

So much of my community does rely on Facebook as their primary source of information. But it does seem to fire up there very rapidly and get out of hand very quickly.

I've definitely noticed the [positive] effects of not being on there, with my mental health.

I feel a lot better.

Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.