Ya, I “deactivated” my Facebook account — which in Facebook’s dictionary means we’re “on a break.” I can log back in anytime and I could have chosen to continue receiving notifications by email, ostensibly because I’d come running back into Facebook’s warm, welcoming embrace, wishing I’d never left, to see the details of an upcoming party (as if I’d want to go to a party with people I couldn’t speak to anyways) or to see what I look like in a picture (as if I don’t already know that I’m gonna come out looking angly and weird).
Me and Facebook just aren’t cut out for each other. She’s suited for a large number of relationships, and I prefer a small number of relationships with much greater intensity and depth (i.e. in which people actually know each other well enough to recommend things without relying on an algorithm to figure it out).
More importantly, I like conversations – conversations about things, like ideas and current affairs – and Facebook doesn’t facilitate that kind of interaction very well. I like to be challenged, I like to learn, and as anyone who has spent time in a university library in the past few years knows, Facebook is precisely where you go not to learn.
Without even getting into some of the more common criticisms of Facebook (there’s already a whole Wikipedia page for those), I just simply never got any value from it — nor did I ever add any value to it either. I felt like I was crashing the party and spoiling the fun. I just never figured it out. (I’ve been trying to figure it out for 25 years.)
On a more technical level. I don’t like ”walled garden” platforms that prevent a lot from getting in and out. I’m loving what can be done with RSS feeds and all of the related resources. I love creating my own content. I love content created, designed, and distributed by people according to their own idiosyncrasies and tastes. I love being able to take that content and manage it according to my own idiosyncrasies and tastes, using different platforms and applications together for a more dynamic and educative online experience.
If you want to be able to sign into one single account to manage all of your messages, pictures, etc, a Google Account will accomplish that — perhaps far better than Facebook can. If you’re using Facebook and not much else, this would be the first step towards taking more ownership and control of your online existence.
I hope I didn’t leave too many people behind by leaving Facebook, but if I manage to entice a few people to come with me in developing richer, more meaningful, more vital relationships and experiences, it’ll’ve been worth it.
