For some spontaneous reason, I deleted my Facebook on Tuesday. Instead of planning to do it and making excuses not to, I just did it. Since this summer, I’ve wanted to retest my ability to stay off the site but made excuses like, “I’m going to a new place” “I need it for college” “I’ll be meeting tons of new people,” when actually I’ve been trying to limit the ways that technology negatively affects my day to day.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that Facebook is a great tool. During my travels, I posted a lot about what I was up to and caught up with friends from home on how college was going. It was a great way to share photos and experiences with the people I love from far away and was almost the only way that I kept in touch with people from home. Still, now, Facebook can be an awesome tool to make connections and to plan get togethers or events. But I want to test the experience of not having Facebook in college. I have a phone now and everyone who would contact me through Facebook has my number, as I have theirs, and any event that I should attend at such a small school like Middlebury I will hear about from friends or from other news.
Others may think that deleting Facebook is pointless. You can definitely control your use of Facebook so that it doesn’t interfere with how you interact with people one on one, but it also encourages social competitiveness when you do get online. I found myself making sure I was tagged in certain photos a couple weeks ago and then asked myself, “Why am I doing this?” The answer, though many people may try to cover it up with excuses or alternate explanations, is that Facebook brings out the materialistic side of all of us. The reason we want to share photos and get tagged is because we want other people to see what we are doing. I’m not going to lie to myself anymore. I was being superficial, and I don’t want superficiality to be one of my values.
Facebook, I think, is a tricky thing. It’s great for many, many reasons. I will miss out on those random Facebook encounters where people seek me out or vice versa due to some random connection, and then we actually share information and thoughts on which we can expand. I will miss getting random messages from people at home, but that just means I can either call them, text them, or just have a great conversation in 2 weeks when I see them next. Facebook is great for many reasons, but it also affects how we think and the things we care about. In deleting my Facebook, I want to see whether the benefits outweigh the takeaways. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I’ve promised myself to at least make it till after finals.
Sarah, I definitely agree with Nick, Madeline, and Norris that it’s impressive that you deactivated your Facebook account. However, I think you’re too focused on the competitive aspect of Facebook. When I wrote my research essay I found that there were indeed a lot of positives that could be gained through Facebook.
I can definitely relate to the story you told about going through and tagging photos of yourself from events. It may seem a little vain but Facebook does act like a digital photo album. With all the photos that will be taken of you at college, it’s going to be really hard to keep track of them for later on. If you keep up to date with tagging your photos, it allows you to just go back and Facebook stalk yourself when you feel a little nostalgic. Plus, research actually shows that this process might make you feel better when your upset!
Lastly, you said that you don’t really need Facebook because you have a phone and can reach everybody quite easily. While that might be true, your phone isn’t structurally set up to allow you to share blasts of information to your close friends and family. Research has proven that people who update their status a couple times a day actually feel happier than those who don’t! That’s because of the “Social Snacking” concept I talked about in my presentation that states that sharing information on social media makes you feel more connected with your loved ones.
I’m a firm believer in each to his/her own and if Facebook isn’t working for you, then definitely don’t go back! However, Facebook is good at a lot of things and if you give it another try, you might like it better if you use it for what it does well!
A very brave move from you Sarah. I have done this before when i was applying to colleges because I was paranoid that they would check on me. To be honest, the first week was annoying because I kept unconsciously going on facebook.com and instead of showing me the latest feed it would just show the sign up page. However, it didn’t take me long to get used to it. I have to admit I have considered many times reactivating it but decided not to.
I agree- very impressive, Sarah. I have not found the courage to do so myself, but I completely understand your reasoning. There are also some doctors, who suggest that Facebook leads to a type of depression. On Facebook, people usually only post pictures in which they look attractive and/or in which they look like they are having fun with their friends. This sometimes causes others to feel insecure about their social life and become extremely depressed. You can read more about this here: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42298789/#.UqH6MqWi7GA
I think that deleting your Facebook is an impressive move. I have thought about it a couple of times, but never gone through with it. Your point about Facebook being really materialistic is definitely true. A portion of my scholarly article was about Facebook, and an analagoy was made between Facebook and being at the mall. The author explained that being at the mall, dressed up in all your nice clothes and showing off all of your cool stuff, is essentially what Facebook is at the core. It is a site to seek recognition. Thus, I don’t blame you for wanting to take a break.