Gone. Kaput. Relationship Status: Da svedanya.
Since that happened, I have been made that much more aware of the fact that no one is ever going to read my blog again because that's the only way anyone gave a damn about it. If it's not showing up in their newsfeed, it doesn't exist. So here I am, at 2:08 in the morning, talking to myself. Good times.
I do not have a twitter nor a tumblr either. Life devoid of social media has been trying, to say the least. My primary means of communication has been texting and emaling, yet I (in my infinite wisdom) did not think to acquire the phone numbers of many of my former Facebook friends and am, therefore, slightly inconvenienced when I actually need to talk to them. In all honesty, it's been frustrating... and that annoys me. Now I'm not annoyed because I don't have a virtual farm to tend to all goddamn day but moreso because everyone else is so dependent on it and that makes it hard to reach them through any other means.
Imagine meeting someone in this day and age and exchanging anything OTHER than a Facebook url. They want something that's even MORE non-committal than a phone number. I mean, that's what texting is for, right? Not anymore. Now, you can expect to be thoroughly stalked before they even decide to ask you out for coffee. What's most infuriating about this is that it's become completely normal to rely on social media for fucking EVERYTHING. That's part of the reason I deleted it, truth be told.
In all honesty, Facebook started creeping me out. I would log in from my phone and it would sync my contacts with their profile pictures. Before I knew it, every news article I so much as skimmed was on my newsfeeds. That's some 1984 shit right there. I figured it was only a matter of time before it announced everything I'd bought online, every Skype conversation I had and everything I had for breakfast. Not cool, yo. (If it started alerting my newsfeed to every query I put into google, I would have no friends. That is a fact.)
I rarely get that impulse to check in on my nonexistent Facebook. I did for a couple days, just out of habit or muscle memory, but I got over it fairly quickly. It's a bit akin to my relationship with my phone; I used to think I needed it, all the time, no matter what. Then I started forgetting it at home once... twice... a lot. Then I went to Europe and couldn't take it at all. Now I could really give a crap about it most days. I don't bring it to the movies and I sure as hell don't need it when I'm out shopping. Facebook took significantly less weening but it was still something I had to get used to.
What I'm NOT used to, however, is the fact that I can't seem to get shit done. Everyone has yielded to the will of the Zuckerberg and forgone most other means of communication in favor of the great and all-powerful, all-knowing (and I do mean that part quite literally) Facebook. I can't seem to make simple dinner plans without someone requesting I "facebook them" the details. How about I TELL you the details? With my face? There's this brilliant new thing called talking, you should all check it out.
It's certainly a good way to help remember who your actual friends are. I still have one friend who writes to me. On PAPER. And sends it in the MAIL! (I know, right?) Seeing that someone has taken the effort to call, hell, even text me means that they pulled themselves away from their precious internets long enough to maintain some form of contact with me. (The fact that she writes 15-page letters and buys stamps for my sake makes me happy as a cl-- No, you know what? HAPPIER than a clam. And clams are pretty goddamn happy, ok?) Those are some real friends right there.
It was a bit disheartening when I told people I deleted the damn thing, only to be told, "Oh, so it was you? I was wondering why my number went down..." Ok, really? I'm not expecting to be the thing that occupies your thoughts day and night, but you really couldn't tell that I was gone? Fantastic. Way to make a girl feel special.
I'm not sure what the purpose of this particular blog entry was (though I can say the same about all the previous ones) but, looking back, it might just serve as a fair warning to anyone else who is getting fed up with the Facebook overlord watching their every keystroke. It certainly frees up your time significantly and, according to some study I'm too lazy to cite, it makes you less depressed. Just make sure to get some emails or something before you make that final click or you'll never hear from anyone ever again. Oh, and don't expect to get a date anytime soon either. Apparently, you're not datable unless you have a Facebook the person can comb through and you can be damned sure no one has the balls to call anyone and ask for a date anymore.
I still check back here manually every week or two, half for the content, half to see where the hell you disappeared to. Now I know.
ReplyDeleteWhichever way you look at it, Facebook is a platform that everyone has wanted for... forever. All their friends, all their pictures, all their updates, all their personal moments, all their notes, all in one place. It's their instant messenger, their email, their twitter feed, their flickr, their casual gaming experience, all rolled together into ONE. Suddenly, people have the capacity for tens, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of "friends" they they could have never kept up with before. It's no longer necessary to ask people what's up or how they are doing or feeling. Instead, you and hundreds of others will just read a happy/sad status update, click/don't click LIKE, type a few words, and the need to call them and keep up is eliminated.
Now, don't look at me like that. It's an explanation, so I'm not advocating it. You're absolutely right that people have latched on to this recent iteration of social networking to replace real life responsibilities. If anything, it's "acquaintancebook.com", a place for loosely connected people to meet, greet, argue, bully, harass, waste time, waste money, play shitty browser games, etc.
Facebook is a way to connect to other people, but it really doesn't show much more about the self. When you're busy keeping up with notifications of activity and messages, you realize that this is a lot like keeping up with a constant stream of email, except it's easier to hit on the "hott" girls on Facebook. What it DOESN'T do is satiate someone like myself. I don't get to hear stories, details, specifics, musings, or any of the other fun stuff that I would associate with actually getting to know someone closely. No eye contact, mannerisms, real world speech, etc. make for very, very boring relationships.
Exactly my point. It's for "casual" everything. Casual games, pointless and shallow conversations, fly-by-night friends, etc. Facebook has a nasty habit of making people feel like it's ok not to have meaningful chats with others and just put on a pretty face. The article I didn't bother to cite noted that people only post happy statuses (with the exception of "ugh shitty day" Oh, what's wrong? "I don't want to talk about it.") so everyone else feels like all of their friends have much happier lives. I have had exactly 0 thought-provoking conversations via its instant messaging system. None. Everything was small-talk.
DeleteNothing on Facebook MEANS anything.
Mmhmm. And any serious conversation quickly breaks down to exactly what you'd see on a public forum: unchanging worldview comparisons instead of people asking serious questions and trying to find answers.
Delete