I remember how excited I was to finally get my college email address, because that was the day that I could a facebook account. Facebook! It used to be so glorious. There was a simple platform, where you had just 1 (count 'em) profile picture, where anyone could sign your wall but because it was a simple java format they could also delete other people's posts. Things such as applications were not even a glimmer on the horizon. There were hardly any advertisements, and definitely no spam. What a peaceful, simple time that was.
My love affair with facebook has to end. I have stopped getting my facebook messages forwarded to my email account, so I hope to lose track of what activity is happening at my account without me. Last I checked, I had over 180 email messages, with god knows how many unanswered event invites and un-returned wall posts. It's madness, I tell you.
And so, I have to give up facebook. I am truly sorry. I'm not ignoring you (except for a select few, which I quite possibly am consciously ignoring. But that's neither here nor there).
Do you know how many hours I've spent looking at other people's photos, once that feature became intangible to the facebook experience? I've stalked friends and foe, strangers and family: I am not proud. It's because people's lives just look so INTERESTING through photos! If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the 1,000 pictures posted to my profile must say a thing or two about me. Are they true? I'm not sure (and a small part of me hopes not, as more than a few were taken on nights that not too many memories can vouch for: hey, it's college).
So, in an effort to save both my school work time and my mental sanity, I had to give up facebook. It's for the greater good. It's lost it's allure for me, and is only a timesuck and energy waster. If I was a person with better control, maybe I could be a casual user. Even from my brief but torrid facebook romance, I already know far too much about people than I could politely use in public. How does you explain why you already know about someone's time abroad in Denmark when you have yet to actually meet them? When you can knowledgeably talk of a couple's romantic relationship based on their wall-to-wall posts and shared facebook photos? There is such a thing as knowing too much.
So aur revoir, facebook. It's not you, it's me. It's for the best, for both of us.
and so now we read each others blogs..
ReplyDeleteNo, no, it's not you, it's Facebook. Facebook is another example of how the Internet can bore a really good thing, and, within a couple years, manage to sabotage the really good thing it once fostered. Facebook was a simple program with simple capabilities. But those capabilities, while they weren't terribly sophisticated, were effective and user-friendly, and they allowed you to do one very useful thing: to keep in touch with friends as they went their respective ways to various different and far-ranging places. The great function of the Internet is that it can bring us closer no matter how physically distant we are from one another, and Facebook was a shining testament of it.
ReplyDeleteBut let's face it (ha), Facebook became to full of itself. I mean sure, I like knowing what my friends are up to just as much as anyone, and I like being able to drop them a line from time to time. And who doesn't like to stalk people and live the lives of other vicariously through their photo albums?
But do I need to be notified when they jion a group for abortion-clinic bombers? Do I need to be notified that they're eating a sandwich or that they just broke up with their sig. other of 5 years? And I'm sick of getting these notifications about people wanting me to download this or that application. I have enough useless crap saturating my harddrive without adding more useless crap that's just going to slow down my shitty Dell processor even more. I want to hear from the person, about how their life is going, not about how they want me to add "The Kissing Game" app. to my profile.
Bottom line is that Facebook has become to busy and intrusive for me. Call me old-fashioned. Call me a hater (Jacob). But it's just not my thing. I don't blame myself and you shouldn't either, Emofly.