It’s been about 30 days since I quit Facebook, so I wanted to share an update on what that’s been like. Many others also quit the service last month, and many more are on the fence as to whether they should do the same.
Facebook communication is mostly low-priority noise.
When I dropped Facebook, I noticed that the communication volume in my life dropped significantly. However, I felt no drop in the level of significant and meaningful communication. What I seemed to lose was mostly a lot of noise.
Generally speaking, communicating via Facebook is a shallow experience. You read streams of brief messages from a variety of people, but the messages don’t contain much depth. Most are trivial and mundane. Some are clever or witty. Very little of the information you’ll digest on Facebook is memorable and life-changing. Using Facebook can still give you a feeling of connectedness, but the long-term benefits are negligible.
Saying communication via Facebook as a shallow experience is purely subjective. It is the choice of the sender to create and maintain the forms of messages he/she puts onto Facebook (i.e. comments, photos, videos, etc.) It is mentioned that these messages don't contain much depth, well, because they're not meat to be so. Joseph Walther's social information processing theory states that computer-mediated communications work four times slower than face-to-face does. Hence, the role of Facebook (and Twitter, too) in this context is to provide a space that allow users to "chop down" the length of messages, forcing them to communicate in a more concise manner by eliminating unnecessary distractions/redundancy. For example: Status like "I love U2!!" communicates the user's fascination over the U2 band, short and sweet. Unlike a blog, Facebook doesn't give the luxury to express statements like "I love the band U2 because they are awesome and they came to perform at our campus last week...my friends and I enjoyed their songs, especially..." So, when information are concise, the time required to get the message across is shorten, hence the functions of Facebook.
Impulse sharing comes with a price.
In the weeks after quitting Facebook, I still felt the urge to share certain things with my online “friends”. I’d have a clever thought and feel, I should post this.Or I’d take a really cool photo and think, I ought to share this.
In the past I’d have shared those tidbits out of habit. Then I’d check back in later and read through a few dozen comments people left. And there would be a little emotional reward in having that sense of connection.
But without the option to impulse-share during the past 30 days, I allowed those feelings to come and go without acting on them. I noticed that there was a consequence to sharing in real-time. I wasn’t being very present in the moment. While things were happening around me, I was off thinking about my online posse and what I might wish to share with them.
When I stopped acting on the desire to impulse-share, I become more present to what I was doing in the moment. Instead of being distracted by thoughts of connecting with people at a distance, I did a better job of connecting with the people right in front of me. I felt more immersed in my experiences. That was a subtle change at first, but it feels good.
Whether or not one feels "present" to what he/she was doing, it is the state of mind. One can be physically present in a classroom with his mind enjoying the sunlight in Hawaii. In fact, after using Facebook for more than two years, I find that conversations and impulse-sharing that took place on Facebook open up the platform for day-to-day interactions.
I suppose many of us agree that it is more comfortable to write (depending on seriousness of issue), than to talk vis-a-vis to another person. Therefore, Facebook is here to create that "first step" for us. It aids us to create a topic of common interest with people that we don't usually say "hi" to when we are on the way to respective classes. Let's put it in this way: if conversations are bonfire, Facebook is those tiny rocks that help create the sparkles. Using it right, Facebook is a great tool to get to know people of wider horizons. Remember, Facebook is interested in disclosure of width (putting yourself out there to know more people), not in depth (knowing each individual personally).
Friends lose their individuality and become part of a collective.
Facebook compacts so much communication into a single stream, and this can have a depersonalizing effect. As I continued to use the service to interact with people en masse, I gradually began thinking of my online friends as a network, stream, or blob, as opposed to valuing each person as a unique individual.
When I’d post a status update, who was the intended recipient? Which friend was I updating? In truth I wasn’t sharing with anyone in particular. I was simply sharing with the collective.
If I posted something on a friend’s wall, I wasn’t just communicating with that friend. I was communicating with their posse too. If I used the private messaging feature, it was just one message among dozens. Friends were becoming like interchangeable drones.
This is why Facebook is becoming prominent in the Eastern continents. Statistics show that though the United States has the most Facebook users, the most active users lay within people from the Asians and its surrounding countries. Why so? It is a cultural issue. First, let's understand the difference between a collectivistic and individualistic culture: A collective culture is "wherein people identify with a larger group that is responsible for providing care in exchange for group-loyalty, we-identity; a high context culture." While an individualistic culture is "wherein people look out for themselves and their immediate families; I-identity; a low context culture" (Griffin, 2009).
Now, which culture do you think Facebook wants to promote? The American culture is mainly a collectivistic culture, "marching to a different drummer is the rule in the United States, not the exception" (Griffin, 2009). Hence, we cannot judge the pros and cons of using Facebook based on a single lens used by a possibly American-made author. There is nothing "creepy" about interacting collective, maybe some are just not used to it. In many tribes we say, "Sharing is caring." While people are not comfortable speaking their problems with others, Facebook may be one channel to shout their thoughts aloud and others may be of great help!
The feeling that I was interacting with a collective began to feel rather creepy, as you might imagine. I’m glad to be off of Facebook, since I really don’t wish to be assimilated. It’s nice not to feel like there’s an endless stream of other people’s thoughts flowing through my mind all the time. I can hear my own thoughts once again, and they’re a lot more relaxed and coherent.
Facebook creates a false and unsatisfying sense of socializing.
... Being active on Facebook had the effect of filling my social bucket. But it was essentially a false fill, like drinking salt water instead of fresh water. Instead of providing a real sense of connection that satisfies, it made me think I was out there being social, but I’d still be “hungry” afterwards. Facebook activity could never recharge my batteries in the way that face to face interaction could.
Nope, one should not let online interaction overlaps with physical interactions, though I see both as actual interactions (there isn't anything as fake or unreal conversation, there are just being communicated differently). Like I've mentioned, Facebook provides the pebbles that sparkles the fire, it helps physical interactions even more when people don't feel too shy to start socializing with others in social events, since they may already comment about the new Lady Gaga music via Facebook. It is, again, subjective to tell if one's connection with others is "satisfying" or not.
Facebook is computer interaction, not human interaction.
The reality of using Facebook is that you’re just typing and viewing insignificant bits of information on a digital device (computer, cell phone, iStuff, etc).
The next time you use such a service, pause for a moment and do a reality check. What are you actually doing? Who’s with you? How is this advancing your life? What if you do this for 20 more years? What do you expect to gain from it?
You can call it social networking, but it’s not really a social experience if you’re actually alone sitting at a computer. Real socialization is face to face.
There’s a tremendous richness to in-person socialization that just doesn’t translate over the Internet, at least not yet.
Technology develops to assist communications, not create communications. Through scientific research, Walther's hyperpersonal perspective that was mentioned in his SIP theory also proved that interpersonal relationships (family, friends, romantic ties) develop just as well as do face-to-face provided sufficient verbal cues and extended time. Because you don't a person, doesn't mean you can't tell how he/she looks, feels, or experiences. The use of verbal descriptions and "emoticons" are human nature to add to the richness of the messages sent. Think about long distance relationships, they exist, they are real - with the help of technology. If done right, richness of in-person socialization do translate over the internet.
A friend isn’t necessarily a “friend”.
I can be friendly with people from all walks of life, but when it comes to which people are most compatible as my long-term friends, the Facebook pool isn’t a good fit for the kinds of lasting friendships I really wish to cultivate.
The main issue is the age difference. Most of my Facebook friends were in their 20s. I’m sure that’s a big part of the service’s demographic. It’s also a big part of my blog’s readership, and many of my articles are targeted to the needs of that age group. I already have many friends in their 20s, but if I draw too many of my friends from this pool, it comes with a price...
You're right, until you take the first step out to shake the person's hand, a Facebook friend may not necessarily be your "friend." But, know that Facebook opens door the world filled with possibilities. How many people I have come across that has landed on a wonderful job because of the connection to someone they met on Facebook. Your brother's wife's dad may be hiring a junior art director; if you are not there, that position may be quickly filled up by somebody who is willing to spend the time hunting. So, it all comes down to the mentality of Facebook usage. No one forces anyone to use Facebook as the sole resource to meet people, it is just one of the thousands. However, I cannot deny how this resource has become (and still becoming) one greatest way to secure a promising future. It begins with that "like" button.
The problem with Facebook is that it greatly unbalanced the social part of my life, skewing it in the direction of spending lots of time with people nearly half my age. This dragged my thinking backwards in terms of maturity. When I dropped Facebook, my social life began to rebalance itself automatically. This is causing other positive ripples as well. Many problems are easier to solve when you approach them with a 40-something’s discipline or a 50-something’s patience as opposed to a 20-something’s youthful energy.
Ask yourself what your life would be like if 80-90% of your social interactions were with people roughly half your age. Can you see how that might unbalance your social life?
No, you don't have to stay on Facebook all the time. Go get a life, go take a bite on Big Mac with a long-lost grade school friend you have just met on Facebook. Facebook users are also not restricted to befriend only the youngsters. If you don't want to, you don't have to.
