I did it. I pulled the plug on my Facebook account. I couldn’t handle it anymore. The whining, the vague and misdirected anger, and most importantly, the constant feed revolving around illness and stomach flu.
*Sigh.*
And so begins the season of germ-swapping fun.
Not such a great thing if you’re a freak like me. But I’ll try to make do. I just don’t really need in-your-face status updates about who is puking in which household. I think my ex-therapist would agree that this was one of my better moves in moving forward to conquering my illness.
In any event, I couldn’t delete my Facebook account completely. I actually never had any intention of doing that, because I’ve heard that it’s actually a huge pain in the ass. I put my account temporarily on hold. Seemed like the better option. Then I won’t have to go back and re-upload photos, re-enter all of my contact information, yadda, yadda, yadda, if (and when) I do decide to succumb to the dark side.
I actually had a huge fight with one of my brothers over my Facebook account and stuff I had posted. It was so ridiculous. Facebook used to be about staying in touch with friends, family and colleagues. But now it’s turned into essentially cyber-stalking. One is rarely in contact with said people except to snoop on their pages. I’m totally guilty of it myself. I look at photos, leave comments here and there, definitely add “like” to a bunch of random stuff. And then I steal other people’s links to things they have posted that were interesting to them. Of course that’s one of the enticements of Facebook in the first place. And I’m sure that’s one of the positives that Zuckerberg would boast as a huge benefit of Facebook. But to me it’s just silliness. Why do I care what other people are doing, and why do I have the compulsion to repost their awesome (or awful) links? And most importantly, why do I think that other people give a shit about what I’m doing? Why do I post things about my running, or my health or my mood? What gives me the right to invade someone else’s personal space with my random stream of consciousness? I blog, sure. But that doesn’t give me the right to pop up in someone’s newsfeed with my idiot ramblings. I have readers who are actually interested in things I have to say.
Facebook is like crack cocaine. It’s stupid, addicting and a complete waste of life. Prior to our trip over Thanksgiving, I wasted countless hours just staring blankly at my computer screen. I was completely captivated by the nuances of everyone else’s lives. It was like a worm hole. And I couldn’t turn it off. I had the Facebook application on my Blackberry, and even had email notifications going to my phone. After arriving back in the Cleve, I found myself more engaged with my son and spending much less time aimlessly wandering on the cyberscape of Facebook via Blackberry.
It was time I made the solid decision to turn it off and not look back.
Though I’m sure I’ll look back in a couple weeks. Probably a couple days. But one can hope.
*Sigh.*
What has this world become? Poverty, corrupted politics, and Facebook.
Reminds me of a piece of flair I used to have on my Facebook wall. You know, back when we had a page devoted to such silly applications such as flair, family trees, music, etc. The button read:
I had a life. But Facebook ate it.
But now I’m taking a stand. I am here to reclaim my life and my consciousness.
I hope Spotify will still work even though I don’t have an active Facebook account anymore.
Huh…
