After a lovely Friday evening of dinner and live orchestral music, Austin and I returned to my apartment. After musing about the quality of service at The Swamp and the grand works of Gustav Holst, the conversation shifted to a topic we had been throwing around over the past few weeks: quitting facebook. We often discussed our frustrations with frequent changes in privacy policies and our distaste for the depth of information our "friends" were so willing to share with the world.
"I told you, I'm ready to quit if you are." I said, something I had told him several times before. "Okay then, let's do it." He replied. I knew he meant it this time. With our plan of action already concocted, he commenced deleting his account: first removing all his information, deleting wall posts, then finally navigating through the website and officially deleting his entire account-all posts, comments, photo tags, and everything else associated with his profile.
While watching Austin finally do what we had been only talking about for weeks on end, I became a bit anxious at actually completing the task at hand. Thoughts of all my photo albums and notes to friends disappearing, missing out on everyone's updates, becoming the only two people my age who didn't have facebook...was this really what I wanted to do?
A more logical reflection on the matter, however, made things clear. The photo albums and messages would disappear, yes, but the memories made with the friends tagged in those pictures and the musings shared through notes and messages never would. I would always be in contact with the friends who really mattered, and there was no reason to constantly know what my other "friends" (high school acquaintances or college class-mates) were doing if I never really talked to them.
And isn't that how life should work? The people who you talk to, interact with on a personal level, and who mean more to you than your average acquaintance should know more about you than someone who-without seeing their daily status updates or wall posts-is more or less a stranger.
Once Austin was done, I didn't hesitate at following his lead. I think he was a bit surprised at first. "You don't HAVE to do this" he said repeatedly, but I journeyed on through deleting photo albums, wall posts, and eventually my entire account without a second thought.
The next morning I woke up and pondered my first move on such a lovely Saturday. Glancing at my computer, I realized that I had no reason to even turn it on. I brewed a cup of coffee, ate some cereal, and read a few chapters from Ivanhoe in the morning sun as it made its way into my living room. It was so peaceful and liberating to not feel obliged to log onto facebook and see what everyone had done since I last logged on. This feeling was not what I expected I would experience after quitting something that I had done every day for nearly five years.
What seems the most amazing to me upon further reflection is how little I actually needed facebook. Somehow our entire generation has become convinced that we need tell all of our friends and acquaintances every thought that comes to mind and everything that we engage in, significant or not, appropriate or not, and that if we don't do as such we'll become unconnected. What our generation hasn't realized is that being unconnected is the greatest feeling one can achieve: to keep our most intimate thoughts to ourselves and only revealing our deepest insights to those whom we care about most.
I doubt many of our friends will follow our lead, and most will probably think that we're crazy. But that's probably because now THEY won't be able to follow our every move without talking to us. Because now THEY will have to undertake effort towards communicating with us about how we are doing and what we are up to. Not that it even takes that much effort in this day and age, though: between gmail chat, blogging, text messages, and email, I doubt that I'll fall completely out of my social circle that easily.
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