My love/hate relationship with Facebook
I wrote the below entry over the summer. As a brief snippet into my current life, I would like you all to know that I woke up at 2 pm today, watched Iron Chef America until 4 pm (secret ingredient: ice, super lame), had dinner with my dad, and took a nap from 7-9 pm because I ate too much at dinner. Summary: I was only awake for 5 hours today.
I had to reactivate Facebook this past week so that my future classmates wouldn't think I am a huge creeper. Things are going...not well. The first couple of days I forgot I had Facebook, so that was good, but then I wanted to look one thing up which led to looking another thing up which led to a three hour Facebook-stalking spiral of SHAME.
I hate Facebook, I really do. Nothing ever good has come out of me having it. Many a time in college I was "studying" (read: taking lengthy breaks) when I would look at Facebook momentarily and see vacation photos of someone I barely knew on my Newsfeed, which would then prompt me to fall into a misery pit where I questioned what it was that I was doing exactly, studying at 3 am and breaking out in cystic acne. Surely I too wanted to be happy on a sunny beach, right? Never mind that I hate sand and might be allergic to the sun.
Some solutions that have been proposed to my general Facebook aversion: unfriending people, hiding people from my Newsfeed. There was actually a time (roughly around the year I was taking organic chemistry) that I hid everyone who mentioned school away from my unsuspecting eyes. I never wanted to know if people were done with finals when I was in the thick of them. However, this turned into most people, and I decided my habits were slightly worrisome.
Unfriending people is maybe a little too mean. I think it sends the message of "I don't like you" when really it means something more like "I don't care about you" (which is maybe equally terrible but also true). But I don't want anyone to know that I do not care for pictures of their children! My introvert self already has a hard enough time making friends.
There are always going to be those that argue that Facebook is a great tool for "keeping in touch" but the reality of the matter is that the only people who ever used Facebook to keep in contact with me were either former roommates or close friends who kept in touch via text messages and e-mail already. So when I deactivated the first time, I didn't really feel like I was leaving anything behind. And when I remained deactivated for most of college, it was like a state of blissful ignorance because I was completely out of touch with any gossip. I had no idea about what parties I hadn't been invited to, so there was no way I could feel bad about it.
A con of not having Facebook is that it seems I don't exist to anyone who is not my Facebook friend (i.e. everyone). Deprived of the ability to read a list of my favorite books and movies from 2007, everyone must think I am not a real person because there is no page to associate with my face. The other con is that our class uses its Facebook page to exchange notes and school materials, so without Facebook I have to do without these things. However, I am already sort of drowning in the amount of material that is available already, so maybe I am better off without knowing.
To strike a happy medium, I have been deactivating and reactivating my Facebook account regularly. This way I can keep up with any notes I have missed but maintain my distance from all those photos I do not wish to see. I am running the risk of looking like a psychopath, but I think that's okay. I think this is once step above making a decoy Facebook account where I just join the Facebook group but friend no one.
I had to reactivate Facebook this past week so that my future classmates wouldn't think I am a huge creeper. Things are going...not well. The first couple of days I forgot I had Facebook, so that was good, but then I wanted to look one thing up which led to looking another thing up which led to a three hour Facebook-stalking spiral of SHAME.
I hate Facebook, I really do. Nothing ever good has come out of me having it. Many a time in college I was "studying" (read: taking lengthy breaks) when I would look at Facebook momentarily and see vacation photos of someone I barely knew on my Newsfeed, which would then prompt me to fall into a misery pit where I questioned what it was that I was doing exactly, studying at 3 am and breaking out in cystic acne. Surely I too wanted to be happy on a sunny beach, right? Never mind that I hate sand and might be allergic to the sun.
Some solutions that have been proposed to my general Facebook aversion: unfriending people, hiding people from my Newsfeed. There was actually a time (roughly around the year I was taking organic chemistry) that I hid everyone who mentioned school away from my unsuspecting eyes. I never wanted to know if people were done with finals when I was in the thick of them. However, this turned into most people, and I decided my habits were slightly worrisome.
Unfriending people is maybe a little too mean. I think it sends the message of "I don't like you" when really it means something more like "I don't care about you" (which is maybe equally terrible but also true). But I don't want anyone to know that I do not care for pictures of their children! My introvert self already has a hard enough time making friends.
There are always going to be those that argue that Facebook is a great tool for "keeping in touch" but the reality of the matter is that the only people who ever used Facebook to keep in contact with me were either former roommates or close friends who kept in touch via text messages and e-mail already. So when I deactivated the first time, I didn't really feel like I was leaving anything behind. And when I remained deactivated for most of college, it was like a state of blissful ignorance because I was completely out of touch with any gossip. I had no idea about what parties I hadn't been invited to, so there was no way I could feel bad about it.
A con of not having Facebook is that it seems I don't exist to anyone who is not my Facebook friend (i.e. everyone). Deprived of the ability to read a list of my favorite books and movies from 2007, everyone must think I am not a real person because there is no page to associate with my face. The other con is that our class uses its Facebook page to exchange notes and school materials, so without Facebook I have to do without these things. However, I am already sort of drowning in the amount of material that is available already, so maybe I am better off without knowing.
To strike a happy medium, I have been deactivating and reactivating my Facebook account regularly. This way I can keep up with any notes I have missed but maintain my distance from all those photos I do not wish to see. I am running the risk of looking like a psychopath, but I think that's okay. I think this is once step above making a decoy Facebook account where I just join the Facebook group but friend no one.