I was that dweeb who e-mailed your hotmail invitations to this new website called Facebook, in 2007. My decision to permanently leave Facebook for 2013, then, came as a surprise to many. “May I ask, why are you leaving?” was the number one final message my friends sent me when supplying me with their Gmail addresses, for my trek on over to email land.
The question should not be “why are you leaving?” but “what finally made you leave”? In my bag, I already took issue with its privacy (and corporate) concerns, time-wasting, inauthenticity, inefficacy as a political platform, narcissism, and so on. What finally made me leave was that, upon evaluation, I concluded that Facebook had not enriched my relationships or social life in a way in which e-mails and real life could not allow. Those friends I hung out with for a month on my trip abroad? It would be more meaningful for me to write them a long e-mail a couple times a year than watch their Saturday night photos roll in. Accepting a friendship request from an acquaintance from class, signalling a desire to maybe be on closer terms in real life? A smile on my part could have done just as well, if not better. Friends whom I chatted with near every day? One-liners on Facebook statuses will never stand up to extended conversation over coffee.
Anyway, the point of this blogpost is not to self-importantly expound upon my decision to opt out of this medium, but to share with you my experience of excessively hanging around the pointy edges of Gmail Inbox.
Lessons learned:
1. Facebook, no matter what we say about it being a beast (as Panopticon or soul-sucker), is not that big of a deal; it’s what you decide to do with your time on it, that like any other medium, makes the difference in your friendships (you can post links to pointless entertainment through either Facebook or email , just as you can post observations on love through either).
2. You will probably end up procrastinating anyway, if not on Facebook, then mid-guitar stroke; your eyes will gloss over and think of other, unimportant things.
3. People respond to e-mails much slower than to their Facebook messages.
4. You won’t really know what you ‘re missing out on Facebook if and until you hear about it through another medium…those few times might be shocking, but most of the time you are ignorant of your ignorance, so it’s not an issue.
5. You have to make modifications in your life to make new friends; smile more, take risks by explicitly asking people for their contact, go out more, and so on. At the end of a month without Facebook, I do think it would be easier, socially, to go back.
6. What I miss:
*Facebook events: I know for a fact that I have missed out on some good activist events and, while social events can be co-ordinated through e-mail, they are cumbersome.
*Facebook chat: as unreliable as this software was, it is the only socially acceptable means of instant talk available today. Indeed, I am writing this blogpost precisely because, exhibiting hermit-like tendencies today, I had an urge for chatting but no one to be with on demand.
7. Your relationships with a few close friends, and a few distant friends, will likely flourish. Your relationships with some of your acquaintances will probably suffer.
8. Sometimes you will look at your Twitter feed with such dissatisfaction.
Overall, it’s difficult. It does not surprise me that people always go back. I tend to abstain from a lot of common activities though (driving, shopping, beauty work, drinking, etc.) so I think I can handle being an outcast in yet another respect. I think. It helps that I permanently deleted, not merely deactivated, my account!
P.S. If you’re a friend seeing this and would like to be sent an e-mail occasionally, let me know at miriamsabz (@) gmail.com.
hey Miriam, FINALLY you posted. I waited for sOOOO long
I don’t know maybe i need a bit more time to miss Facebook. I deleted it a month after you.
Honestly I feel goood! real good. Yeah sure I miss the events, but I have found other methods to keep in touch. I mean ever since Facebook is no longer in my life, i have focused on my real friends and the ones who bother to email or call.
I think Facebook has created a powerful discourse of communication that makes you feel like you are missing out, but a part of this is to make you realize you can still be lonely even if you are surrounded by 100 people who are doing exactly what your doing: sitting behind their desks creeping on others instead of focusing their lives.
I mean no disrespect, some people are really using Facebook and doing positive things but frankly i wasn’t one of them and i think ever since then I have managed to realize there is a pleasure in spending the time I’d spend on Facebook on myself and my hobbies and learning about me.
Maybe Id go back to it one day and maybe I’ll change my mind next month who knows, but right now this is how I feel.
Aw!
Thanks for reading!
I agree wholeheartedly with all the benefits of quitting that you’ve listed. One of the best results is that I visit my friends much more in person now than I used to; I can’t see them virtually so I am sooner to miss them!
Hi Miriam! It’s funny — I had a sudden urge today to see what old members of UBC Blog Squad were up to these days, and dropped by your blog to read.
I completely agree with you for your reasons to leave Facebook. Between 2011-2012, I took a year’s hiatus and deactivated my account. At the time, I spent far too much time on Facebook to no productive purpose, and I was increasingly irritated with what I perceived as my various friends’ and acquaintances’ laziness in contacting me solely through Facebook.
I thought that by deactivating my account, I’d feel urges or peer pressure to go back — and while my friends certainly complained once in a while, none of that happened. I continued to procrastinate through other means (as you so astutely pointed out!), but noticeably less often than when I had a FB account.
What surprised me most, though, was that my personal relationships didn’t actually shift as much as I expected. I thought that, without FB, friends and acquaintances would seek me out more often by phone and email. What actually happened is that the friends who I *already* hung out with in-person, emailed and/or called continued to do this, while other people remained absent from my life. It was very interesting, since it really showed the differentiation between good friends and casual acquaintances, and the ways in which I communicate with them. It was also really nice just to have that year of nice, simple relationship-building without worrying about social media.
When I graduated from UBC, I made a new Facebook account with the purpose of using it as an online address book to keep in touch with the various acquaintances made over the years. I’ve realised FB really isn’t any good for me when it comes to developing or deepening friendships, but it’s a convenient tool for networking and finding out about interesting events. Let me know what kinds of events you’d like me to keep an eye out for — I’d be happy to let you know when they are if I see any of interest.
Hi Lillienne! It’s really great to hear from you again.
Thank-you for your own “Facebook story”! It’s interesting to see that our relationships with media literally sound like capital-R Relationship stories. What a time we live in.
I agree on the distinction to be made between close friends and casual acquaintances and that FB’s advantage is networking. If I ever come back, it will also be in that incarnation (although I might start a LinkedIn page instead or use Google+ more extensively).
In the meantime, thanks for your offer to keep an eye out for events! I’m always into events regarding ethics/politics/social justice
I totally just read that blog post with your voice in my head.
Guess what I’m doing right now? Procrastinating on one assignment by working on another…
MISS YOU!!!!!!!
Yes, and that’s my status update of the day, if I did post Facebook statuses about my life which does not involve promoting something or saying thank you…
Aly, I miss you too! Haha, yes I remember your Facebook habits. Good luck with your assignments. I will EMAIL you soon, we have to catch up!
I deactivated my Facebook, and then reactivated ~2 months later.
The only thing that really mattered for me was the events. My friends don’t reliably use e-mail, so it’s difficult to coordinate events without Facebook.
Besides that, though, I didn’t lose much being off Facebook.