I decided to finally remove myself from Facebook and deactivate my account. My last day will be August 3, the same day that I joined FB 7 years ago. I'm not sure what exactly is compelling me to leave other than a general wish for a simple life. It has been a huge distraction but also a great blessing, and I know I will miss seeing what friends are up to and being inspired by their comments and posted links. Part of me thinks that I'm just isolating myself for no good reason, and that - though of course FB is no substitute for real relationships - I will abandon the last lifeline of many of my old friendships.
It's hard to explain my thought processes without appearing to totally contradict myself on several points. So let me say right at the beginning that I am aware that I am of two minds, and as much as the romantic in me is hamming it up, if I find that the decision I have come to is wrong for me, I will simply reactivate FB in the future. I am preparing as if these are my final weeks on FB, because it is an important decision and shouldn't be taken lightly. I want to give this part of my life an appropriate end.
Being who I am, though I have long thought about leaving the FB world, I never could because in my mind, the things I might gain weren't as important as what I would lose. I already have realized that while nothing is wrong with waxing nostalgic about old times, friends lose touch and drift apart. This is natural and good. Time spent dwelling on the past, or even worse, the 'what-ifs?' take you away from the present. I didn't ever talk with at over half my friends list (I had close to 700 friends at one time on FB) but I didn't want to unfriend them out of respect for our former friendships. I hoped that maybe one day things might continue just as they had been. But given enough time, both parties change into new people who are at different parts of their lives.
So I let people go. My newsfeed (I can actually remember when FB didn't have any feeds. I always regret not documenting all the evolutionary stages of FB) became much less cluttered. And I found out that, though it should come as no surprise, I cannot remember most of the people I unfriended. I had simply accepted what had already happened in real life.
I thought that with a much more manageable group of friends FB would become more meaningful. It would remain the easiest way to stay in touch with those friends I would actually take the time to communicate with. FB was (and is) all about sharing funny and serious stories, thoughts, and life events. And pictures really are worth a thousand words! I would show my support or amusement or admiration by liking statuses. I could read interesting articles friends would post to actually learn something about the world I lived in. I tried to be as snarky as I could be in every comment I wrote.
Not to say that all the little comments we leave each other on posts and pictures are insignificant, but I began to think that they weren't what the great friendships in my life had been based on. Ironically, being constantly 'in touch' makes it harder to sit down and communicate on a deeper level than bite sized remarks.
People make choices every day as to what they will do with their time and energy. If my friends want to talk with me, there are several other ways they can contact me: e-mail, text, skype, and even through this blog. I want to start writing letters again. But my final point for this post is simply the fact that we hear from people who choose to put effort into the relationship. When I deactivate, how many messages and wall posts will I miss out on? That's the real cost I have to consider. Though honestly, what I will likely miss the most is seeing pictures.
Actually, that's not quite true. The real cost is the entire group of friends I care enough about to want to see how their lives are going, but who I don't / can't e-mail, text, or skype with on a regular basis. When I wonder about them, I will regret deactivating.
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