Monday, April 26, 2010

Need advice! What are your thoughts?

I read on a friend's blog tonight that she deactivated her Facebook account, which is something I've been debating doing for a while now. Here are my reasons:
  1. I waste way too much time on it.
  2. Being friends on Facebook is not the same thing as keeping in touch with someone.
  3. People who I actually like and want to keep in touch with, more often than not, also have blogs, so I'm getting the same info from two different sources.
  4. If you are one of these people, odds are I value you enough to keep in touch with you in "real life" and not just through Facebook. Or at least I should, which is not to say that I do. Maybe if I didn't know your every move through Facebook, I would actually keep in touch. Like in a person-to-person manner, which has become an oddly foreign concept.
  5. It's so much more fun to get together with people when you don't already know everything that's been going on in their lives. It kind of limits conversational topics when you do.
Here are my concerns:
  1. No one will remember my birthday ever again.
  2. I'll never remember anyone else's birthday ever again.
  3. How will I procrastinate?
  4. I won't know big news instantaneously.
  5. If someone asks me if I'm on Facebook, what am I supposed to say that doesn't make me sound like a loser? But then again, maybe NOT being on Facebook will be the new cool thing, and I'll be ahead of the curve.
  6. There are actually several people who I keep in touch with solely through Facebook, like my cousin's friend in Georgia who I need to also be my friend if I do move to Georgia. (I also like her as a person, I'm not just using her!) And also friends from childhood. I suppose I could just get their e-mail addresses, but that's so 2005.
  7. I won't ever see anyone's pictures.
So what does everyone think? If you aren't currently on Facebook (Em and Betsy), why not and how do you survive without knowing what everyone is doing every second of every day? If you are on Facebook, do you think you could survive without it? Does anyone want to try like a week-long Facebook fast with me, just to see if we can do it? Is this just pure insanity? I mean how many years did we survive without Facebook, blogs, etc.? I don't recall having any problems and thinking to myself, you know, I would really like to know every thought and feeling of everyone I have ever been acquainted with. So . . . what do you think? Thoughts, comments, criticisms?

9 comments:

Cary said...

You should just alienate all of your friends until they all hate you and delete you from facebook. That way, your newsfeed will be blissfully empty but you could still stalk your high school crushes ;)

P.S. I don't have a blog

Kim said...

And what does it say about you, that you don't have a blog?

Look at your life. Look at your choices.

And I talk to you all the time, so I'm not hugely concerned about losing contact with you. I am, however, concerned about not seeing all of your hilarious videos and stuff.

Kim said...

And don't think for a second that the high school crush factor didn't cross my mind!

affinity said...

I'm sure it's harder to quit facebook than to never have facebooked before. I don't really get the point, so I think you would survive!
...and I think your right. I've been hearing this exact question from a lot of people. Not being on Facebook will soon be the cool thing. :)

Kim said...

I still don't understand how you've never gotten sucked in by FB. What do you do with all your spare time? Are you actually (GASP!) productive?!?

Traci said...

My vote is keep fb. If you get off...then that will take me from 252 to 251 friends. I don't know if I can handle that. So please don't drop me.

I think if you drop FB you will have an empty void in your life, and you will feel lost.

That said...I think our world would probably be better without FB or blogs. Sometimes too much information can be a bad thing. Except for my blog. NO ONE could live without my blog. NO ONE.

Beth said...

Hey Happy Birthday to you too! If you quit facebook I will ALWAYS remember your birthday :) Thanks for the comments on the blog, I think I may need to email you from time to time with questions if that's okay :)

Traci said...

so what have you decided??? i think we're all waiting to know!

Wendy said...

i honestly think you need both. some people aren't great about updating blogs and some people aren't on facebook.