Facebook became popular in 2004, a year before I entered college, and was only open to those who had a college email address. The day I got my University of Washington email (GO HUSKIES!) was the day I signed up for Facebook.
It worked really well for the next few years. I interacted with my classmates, learned the relationship do’s and don’ts in the digital world, and always knew what was going on with people that I hadn’t had conversations with in years.
But things changed as I aged and entered the working world. I found that my amount of free time was reduced, with any free time being spent on chores and house projects, making dinner, and interacting with my husband. Sure, I still spent time with my friends that happened to be within a twenty mile radius. But it didn’t help me pick up the phone to maintain the relationships of people who happened to live far away. As an INFJ, I value close one-on-one time with people, not peripheral friendships.
So I deactivated my account nearly a year ago, with the caveat that anyone who wanted to contact me could do so via my other social media networks or call me. So far no one has taken me up on that challenge.
This isn’t without side effects:
- I forgot my best friend’s birthday. It wasn’t until days had passed that it dawned on me that I hadn’t even wished her a happy birthday. In my defense, I was planning her bridal shower. It wasn’t like I had forgotten about *her*, I just was focused on her as a bride, not as a person who lived another year. Solution: I reactivated my account to transfer all of the birthdays I wanted into my personal calendar, and deactivated it again.
- I don’t get to see pictures of children. Every parents’ first line of defense is going to be Facebook, since it promotes rapid sharing across extended family members and friends that happen to be far away. This also forces me to visit friends with children more often. Consider I got to hold three babies in the last three months, I think I greatly prefer that over pictures.
- I had to log in to administer my previous organization’s Facebook page, since Facebook only allows individual accounts to administer Pages. That was annoying, but not unsolvable. Note to self: Work for a company that doesn’t require me to utilize Facebook as a way to engage with customers.
However, there have been great successes associated with it:
- I talk to my closer friends more. Because I don’t know what’s going on on a day to day basis, it forces me to text or message them more, or make plans to get together on a more frequent basis.
- I actually get farther with peripheral friendships. I have friends of friends that I typically run into at social gatherings, and found my relationships with them growing stronger as a result of not having Facebook.
- I (sort of) make better efforts to email, phone or Skype my long-distance friends. This deletion of Facebook intercepted with lots going on in my personal life so it may not be an accurate depiction, but *I* feel there have been more attempts made in the last few months than in the previous years. I’m still working on the traveling to visit them, but hey, I never said it was perfect.
- I spend less time thinking and speaking negatively. I think my purpose for Facebook between 2009 and 2011 was to post about how hard graduate school was. I guess it made me feel better to read about peoples’ sick dog, stolen car, broken relationship, etc. I realized later that it wasn’t a healthy habit to engage in. Deactivating Facebook was key to my emotional well-being and my self worth.
Overall? I think I am two steps away from permanently deleting my account. I have better friendships, am more productive at work, and I quite enjoy living life without distractions. I would call this experiment a complete success.
