Just over six years ago (Geez, has it really already been six??), college students around the country began flocking to a social-networking website that would redefine the phrase called "Facebook". Old friends were rediscovered, new friendships blossomed, and relationship hearts either swelled, cracked, or became complicated, depending on one's romantic situation. A utopian virtual world straight out of "Tron" was forged and the beauty was in its simplicity; one was only a boring afternoon away from setting up a profile, friending a bunch of old acquaintances, and listing Dave Matthews Band (Read: "Dave") or Jack Johnson (Read: "Jack") under favorite music from being an official Facebook user.
Then things took an unexpected turn.
The first few years were relatively harmless. Sure, a few of us became a little overzealous with our pursuit of "friends". We "friended" people who were in no way even remotely qualified for holding such a title; after all "friend" is a concept defined explicitly and solely by every single individual of modern humanity who has ever lived. But certainly no harm could come from broadening the definition of a word associated with so many good tidings and blessings. Who is he who is not mine enemy, but a friend? And the process of taking on so many "friends" did wonders for one's sense of popularity (this writer definitely became an addict to it). Thus, Facebook grew and with this expanion, businessmen realized that there was a not inconsiderable amount of money to be made through social-networking.
As Facebook expanded, Facebook saw fit to convince its users that Facebook was their most important "friend" of all. Indeed, Facebook itself would become the one friend shared by each and every user and oh, tits, what a friend. Why, who else among your friends has the capacity to entertain you literally until Rapture? Mafia Wars. Farmville. These were among the first "apps" to begin reeling people deeper into the mire of this digital universe. Time spent on Facebook and interacting with these different applications and competing with your different "friends" became the most important investment through which the site would flourish. Unfortunately, time is something that most people love to spend but not something that people like to feel like they have wasted (even when they do). Some of us have been expanding and elaborating our Facebook profiles for nearly six years. To leave Facebook would be to forfeit this commitment.
And this has defined Facebook's ideology since its creation. In order for Facebook to survive, it has to adapt to changing social trends and constantly redefine itself. It needs more and more users and it needs them to connect in ways that will benefit its commercial partners and obligations. Like a parasite, it feeds on your time and your submissive ideology that you need Facebook. In fact, the opposite is true. Facebook needs you; it just doesn't want you to realize that.
Let's look at the pros, first. It is possible to do virtually anything on Facebook. It is possible to entertain absolutely any interest or fancy that would could possibly have, whether it be "liking" a favorite TV show or movie (no matter how obscure) or following a favorite celebrity. However, the same can be said of the Internet itself. There is nothing that you can find on Facebook that you cannot find in literally one-hundred other places. Secondly, Facebook is truly a groundbreaking way to reconnect with people you knew years earlier that you may have lost contact with. This is where I would address the people who have been using the website for five to six years, as I have. By this point, you have already reached out to those people who were most important to you! Take an afternoon and save all their contact information so that you can get in touch with them whenever you want and LEAVE FACEBOOK. You can always log back in absolutely whenever you might want to reactivate your account and look into whether or not their information may have changed.
I could go on and on, of course, but there's little point. Facebook does have tons of cool stuff. It kept me as an avid, though not obsessive, user for more than half a decade. Approximately a fourth of my life by my estimate. However, it is the tone of Facebook after its several years of evolution that has driven me away. I hope others will follow my lead and abandon their profiles, as well, if only for a little while.
Facebook offers a service that any other tool or device of its kind can provide. It knows this. That is why it caters and panders to you like the slimiest used-car salesman picking on the dimmest customer in the lot. Every day, it invades some aspect of your online privacy (let's face it; no matter how carefully you adjust your settings). It tries to tell you who your friends should be and all the while seems bent on further corrupting your definition of the term. Most of your "friends" are simply not your friends, people; some of them don't even like you (I, for one, had begun to cease to even like myself). Facebook used to be a place where college students could convene and keep in touch with each other; something intended to make college orientation less painful. Today, Facebook is constantly peeking over your shoulder and telling you what you should be doing, who you should be friending, even what you should be buying, and recently who you should be voting/not voting for.
Hence, the classic Apple advertisement above of a woman about to throw a hammer through the face of Big Brother, which seems all too ironic now given the smug social persona that Apple has adopted in recent years (go to any Apple store and you will see what I mean).
Facebook does not want you to realize how much it needs you. It needs to divert your attention from the fact that you can easily do without it. You can easily show your allegiance to any of your most earnest causes in a million other places without joining a Facebook group. You can easily e-mail a friend through G-mail and a million other free Internet mail-providers rather than using Facebook messaging. You can even Twitter (I can't believe I'm endorsing Twitter) if you absolutely have to know what all of your friends are doing 24/7 and need to let them know that you are "L'ing ur AO". Some of you are fortunate enough to barely use Facebook as it is. So I ask you, consider the reasons for why you do use it and ponder the steps you would have to take to eliminate them. Concerned about keeping in touch? Start an address book and ask each person for everything you need from them. They'll probably be flattered that you actually care enough about them to want to ensure you stay in touch. Bored all the time? Well, Facebook clearly is not the answer, but why not do a little exploring on your own? Every dilemma that Facebook wants you to think it can solve can be more adequately solved somewhere else.
Why did I leave Facebook? Because it has become a vehicle for hate groups around the world to broadcast their messages, free of accountability. It has become a forum for people with uninformed opinions to conceive that their voices somehow matter just as much as experts in their respective fields. It has become an obsessive tool of vanity and egoism to which I have not infrequently been susceptible and Facebook has worked tirelessly to convince me that I simply won't abandon it (The Gollum to my Smeagol...if you didn't get that watch "The Two Towers" scene where the two confront each other in a rather schizo exchange).
Have you ever tried to close your account? Go to your "Account Settings" and hit "Deactivate" just to experience how stupid Facebook believes you are. Come on, do it. You will be informed of four or five randomly generated "close friends" (one of mine which included an ex-girlfriend with whom I rarely even speak nowadays) who will "Miss You", while showing you pictures of yourself and them together. Seriously. Facebook literally wants you to believe that without it, all of your relationships are null and void. You have no friends except for those whom Facebook has given you and they're all just thrilled to still be on Facebook. You will also have to choose a reason (and you cannot exit Facebook without giving them a reason) for leaving from a list of predetermined problems. Upon clicking any bullet in this list, Facebook will then confront you with a prompt explaining how said problem was not actually Facebook's but yours for being too stupid to use the site properly.
I would recommend going to town on that "Other" option, so that you can tell them in your own words why you are leaving it. Don't worry; your account will automatically reactivate the next time you log in. Drink that in for a second. All you have to do is return to Facebook and do what you have always done in the past and your deactivation will be void. You don't even have to re-register. Facebook gets to hold onto all your information for you. In fact, Facebook is so confident that you won't stay off Facebook that they even tell you they'll "see you soon" once you shut down your account.
Mark my words: You can do it. Some of you won't, of course, and that's fine. If Facebook is truly what makes you happy then stay on Facebook. That would be a shallow existence for me, but if it works for you then that is your right. But there are some of you who could easily leave Facebook with little difficulty and I think you'll be shocked just how minutely it impacts your life. You can even ween yourself off by making Wednesday's Facebook Day or something, but I can't even imagine what would happen if everyone made up their minds to simply deactivate their profiles for a month. Let's say August 2010. I think we would be startled to see how much extra time we suddenly have and maybe...just maybe...Facebook would belong to us again, if we even still want it.
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