Tuesday, 29 September 2009

• I Don't Miss Facebook

  
  
  

  About two weeks ago, I decided to take a break from facebook and deactivate my account. While several people asked why, others were appalled at the thought that I had willingly removed myself from facebook. For those of you who don't know, deactivating your account does not mean deleting your account. Rather, you can think of it more like hibernating your account. All of your information, friends, photos, etc will remain intact and when you reactive your account, everything will be just the way you left it. Deactiving is simply a temporary way of removing yourself from facebook. Your friends will no longer be able to view your profile thus also preventing them from being able to message you, write on your wall, etc. You get the message.
  
  So many people asked why I decided to deactivate my account. Well for one, I found it very distracting. I succumbed to its beckoning to "check it quickly" or to "take a facebook break" nearly every thirty minutes. Some of you may know what I'm talking about and for those of you that do, you know that a "short" facebook break is never short. One click leads to another which leads to another which leads to viewing several albums which leads to viewing other people's profiles which may even lead to reading wall to walls. Not to mention that wall to walls are displayed on the homepage already. Before you know it, you know more about your facebook friends' personal lives than you do about the content on the biology exam tomorrow which you were supposed to be studying for.
  
  Which leads to another reason - knowing too much about people's personal lives. I mean sure, people are free to express themselves and share with others their thoughts, feelings and experiences, but sometimes I unwillingly find out more than I need to know. Some status updates reveal too much personal information. Things that the public doesn't really need to know. For instance, a particular person once shared that they felt a failure when it came to their dating life, questioning why they were such a failure in that area of their life and sounding depressed about it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for expressing feelings, but I felt that I didn't need to know that about that particular person. Not to mention that I'm not close with that person and I'm not at a place where that person and I can speak of matters at that level. That'll stick in my mind the next time I run into them.
  
  
  Some people update their status with useless information. One word, or "I went to the mall today." or "reading a book." That useless information then shows up on my homepage which then fills a spot in my mind. This in turn accumulates with all the other uselss information in my brain from seeing other people's statuses that have useless information. Before long, my brain is filled with non-important information where important information like the biology test material should take place.
  
  I've been two weeks facebook sober. And I'm still alive. I still get by. I'm not going insane. As a matter of fact, I would say the effects have been quite the opposite. I take less time to do things because 1) I'm not checking facebook every 30 mins and 2) I'm able to stay more focused and concentrated on the current task I'm doing. 3) I'm living in the "real" world. My mind isn't always in cyberspace or in the facebook world. I think more about other things I should be thinking of like my goals, tasks I should be doing, how to keep growing spiritually, etc.
  
  As for people not being able to contact me through facebook - I have an email. I have a cell phone. If it's really that important and worth my time, then you can use those methods.
  
  In conclusion, I don't miss facebook.
  
  
  • 3:46 AM
  • 8675 Views
  • 511 eProps
  • 275 Comments