Faceless

yup, it's been just over a month since i abandoned facebook. i gave no warning, no countdown to deactivation day, no hoping people would try to convince me to stay. i just left. i'm sure a lot of people haven't even noticed. i'd been thinking about doing it for a while, and finally got around to clicking the button. i haven't gone totally crazy doing the full-on shut down, just the deactivation so that i can go back any time if i so choose. but so far i haven't gone back, and i haven't really been tempted.

my dad asked me why i left, so this is all i have to offer for an answer:

i wasn't doing anything interesting on facebook. i rarely posted my own stuff anymore, and hardly ever left comments on others' pages. but on a daily basis i would scroll through the newsfeed and scan people's updates. the majority of which didn't really matter to me that much. oh, so-and-so is watching the jets game, whatsherface ate the most delicious tacos, someoneorother thinks i should watch a funny youtube vid, it's so LOL. blah blah. i'm not saying i had anything better to write, my status updates were completely mundane. but i was hooked on checking the newsfeed. not even out of interest, just out of boredom. 10 minutes with nothing to do on the bus? i'll look at facebook. commercial break? i'll open facebook.

but worse than that, my use of facebook made me feel like i was maintaining friendships and being a part of peoples' lives, even though i totally wasn't. why don't my friends' kids recognize me? i've been around since they were born and i've seen them grow up! oh, no i haven't, i've just seen photos of them growing up. i want to talk to people again! i want to catch up over a coffee or a beer, not peek in on lives through one-line updates. if you want me to come to a social or a party, tell me about it! i'm so much more likely to go than knowing you just clicked "invite all".

my niece took her first steps not long ago. it was posted on facebook, but the first time i saw her walk wasn't on an iphone video, it was in front of my very eyes. of course i watched the video later :)

now i will have to make more of an effort to stay in touch with the people that matter, and hopefully they will do the same for me. i think there's a very good chance i'll go back to facebook down the road, but for now i want to reconnect with my friends. and to do that i had to unfriend them all.