Photo taken in Buffalo on the harbor over Labor Day Weekend 2009

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Facebook

Now Playing Hey, Soul Sister by Train via iTunes

So a few people have been shocked (as I am) that I deleted facebook. There wasn't a real, official reason. It is extremely out of character for me to get rid of something like that.

I deleted on a whim yesterday. I hand't even thought of doing it before. As recently as a week ago (during Quit Facebook Day) I thought the idea of not having facebook was ridiculous and could never imagine it. Then in the shower... random I know... yesterday I kind of decided that I didn't need or want it anymore. Even then I acknowledged I'd be back in a while. But not now... or too soon. So yesterday I spent my only twenty minutes at the computer deactivating my facebook. WHAT?! Shocking :o But there were a few things behind it that I only realized after doing it.

First, a few times a year I filter facebook friends. I usually do it during the biggest vacations of the year when I have time: winter and summer breaks. I did it a week-or-so ago. But I barely removed anyone... I realized that anyone I want to keep in touch with I usually do via chat or phone calls or just in person. Everyone else doesn't really matter enough to bother with.

Second, it's main purpose has become wasting time. My time spent on facebook completely depends on the amount of free time I have. For this reason I'm barely on it during school but summer vacation drastically changes this. This summer has been an exception and I've been too busy to spend very much time on facebook because I've been at Babson.

Third, facebook has changed a ton since I started using it during sophomore year of HS. It was a people's social network then. A few friends, status updates and pictures. Then applications came along. And for anyone who has seen "Unforgivable" on Youtube you'll recognize this... PISSING ME OFF. I hated applications only used one or two of them ever. Then came the marketing. Companies invaded facebook and I was forced to LIKE things that I didn't really give a shit about. Just because I'm interested in something doesn't mean I LIKE it or want to BE A FAN of it on facebook. My interests are too broad and large in number to keep up with all of them via newsfeed.

These changes have rendered it annoying and much less useful. I never thought I would say this but Twitter has taken a lot of what I liked about Facebook, simplified and compressed it and put it into a more useful package. The only thing Twitter is missing is Photo Albums. If Twitter had albums I would never go back to facebook.

That said, for all of you who want to know why I left facebook... I left planning to go back. That doesn't guarantee I will but I never thought I could just quit cold turkey, even if I can do things like that.

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