Major Lessons on a Facebook-less Life.
Facebook is huge now a days.
In lieu of the new social media website Ello, I figure I should share two things I've observed by being without Facebook for over a year.
1) Facebook is everywhere!
This may not come across as a big revelation, but the behemoth that is Facebook is everywhere.
Many websites have integrated a “Join with Facebook” button, and even some (such as Medium) almost made it a requirement to join. Now I’m sure there is lots of research around the psychological effects of Facebook on the self and self-identity. (Even that controversial study published in the Scientific Journal PNAS) As someone without Facebook, I constantly find myself “out of the loop”. Facebook has made it easy to connect, not only people, but groups.
Apps that are linked with Facebook make it much easier to connect with people in your own list of “friends”. I’m not trying to complain or anything but rather state an observation, and that is our dependency on Facebook for social interactions.
2) Ability to Conscientiously Create the “Self”.
People are social and habitual creatures; we adapt to our environment, not only to survive, but to thrive socially. What is really interesting now about our culture is how we can now conscientiously create our “digital self”; by doing so, sub-conscientiously creating a self.
Now, I am not a psychologist, or in anyway an expert in this area. I am just a regular person who has been surviving without Facebook for over a year. I had in the past been a Facebook member and even for those out there who remember, I was part of Myspace when it was a thing.
When we share on Facebook, we actually share things we want people to see. (or at least I hope we do) And so by doing this, we create ourselves. We create our likes and dislikes by the click of a few buttons. And even like thing, only because others have clicked Liked. Hence, we strive to post things to match this “self” we have created — And maybe in someways loose somethings that we normally would like or not like. I don’t know.
Too bad, Facebook got sued. More research on that kind of stuff would have been interesting. (As unethical as it was, or was it?)
