Starting from May 18, I will deactivate my Facebook account indefinitely.
Throughout high school and university, oftentimes I have observed how people interact - or rather, choose not to - on Facebook, and this has led me to think how my life would be like without the social networking site. Ever since I began deactivating my account temporarily during exam times and high-stress situations in my third year, I've begun to realize how much more sanity I've managed to retain when I was off the social networking site, even though I was out of the loop with certain events. It sometimes sucked for getting people together, mostly because traditionally it was done on Facebook (or rather, traditionally since Facebook was launched).
Looking back on my high school years, when email communication was still used, I remembered it mostly just focusing on the communication between me and my contact. It didn't matter what they thought of me, or what my social life was like, as long as we stayed connected...most because they weren't visible. With Facebook, on the other hand, I was bombarded with pictures of my classmates and peers having fun going out while I was stuck in school studying. It made me feel awful to see that many of them still manage to do well in school even when they seem to be going out all the time, while I have to spend hours studying to actually stay on top.
Also, how much care the contacts on Facebook give about certain events and situations is painfully visible on how much response (likes, comments, messages) the photos and statuses which illustrate them will get, especially when compared to similar/same posts posted by other people. By email communication, it's not as easy to find out how little attention the problems are getting as opposed to Facebook.
I also have an issue with unfriending - though I have unfriended people myself on rare occasions, I only do it when I am having serious problems with the person in question. Lack of contact is not a sufficient reason to sever online ties with that person. It's not like removing phone numbers and emails from your address book; you wouldn't know immediately if they've removed your contact info from an address book. Unfriending on the other hand is pretty obvious and in-your-face painful. I honestly still don't get how people who say they perform 'regular Facebook friend cleanups' do it. I'd rather just 'unsubscribe' from their updates, which is a less obvious move.
I know a lot of you will think that I'm too much of a sensitive person, and this post is very much on the whiny side. Well, it is true that I tend to take things a little too seriously and personally at times, and this may well illustrate the fact that Facebook just isn't the site for me. But hey, it's always good to be aware of a different perspective on the social networking site and what happens there, right?
I am potentially going to start a blog during the Facebook break, which will show how things have progressed since getting off the site. I'll link you to it on this blog once it's up and running.
