A couple of months ago I installed RescueTime (http://www.rescuetime.com). After letting it run for a week it sent me an email with a summary of what I had been up to. My heart sank. I had spent about 15 hours a week actively using Facebook.com. 15 hours! That did not include all the times I would check the iPhone app. I was well-and-truly Facehooked and I decided I had to quit.
Whenever my Dad puts down the morning paper, he asks himself: What have I learnt? I started asking myself the same question after a session of Facebooking and soon realised the answer was: nothing. Facebook openly admits that it allows you to maintain more 'friendships' than should be possible. I used to think that was a good thing. Now I do not.
I also realised that the main reason I logged into Facebook was not to check up on other people, but to check up on myself. Had my status been liked? What photos had I been tagged in? Which events was I invited to? Facebook was not really about others, it was about me. It encouraged me to navel-gaze far too much. At times I felt like it was an anti-social network. Whenever I did look through other peoples’ profiles the emotions were often negative: jealousy, lust, disgust and sometimes horror. These things I want to experience less, not more.
What amazes me most about Facebook is how it has changed the way people think. I have genuinely overheard someone say: ‘Get a sick photo for Facebook!!!’ on a night out - I was that person. I was that idiot. Since leaving Facebook I have caught myself thinking: ‘I wonder how this will look on Facebook?’ - those thoughts are slowly subsiding.
I think Facebook's mission, to get everyone to relentlessly share everything with everyone goes too far. Life is about curating, about choosing, about doing millions of opportunity-cost calculations and picking what you want and rejecting what you do not. Friendships take blood, sweat and tears to maintain. They take time, they take work, they take effort on both sides. They are not easy but that is what makes them so great. For me, finding a group of real friends is about sifting through the thousands of people I meet and clutching onto a precious few who bring out my best side and who will be there when the chips are down. Every hour I sink into browsing the updates of people I do not really care about could be spent having a conversation someone I love. Facebook allowed me to attach meaningless digital tendrils to hundreds people and keep semi-acquaintances on life-support. I used to spend a ridiculous of time scrolling through these acquaintances' status-updates. That had to stop.
I like Twitter for two reasons:
1.) I know it is public - When I used Facebook I could never figure out whether I had checked the right tick-boxes or slid the right sliders or placed the right people into the right lists and so I was always wondering who could see what. At times that could make me paranoid and scared - especially when I was tagged in some annoying photos. With Twitter I know that everything is public and I shape my tweets accordingly. There is no confusion.
2.) It reflects the true asymmetry of human relationships - In the real world some people are ‘liked" or ‘followed’ more than others. When somebody follows me on Twitter who I am not particularly interested in I do not feel compelled to follow them back. With Facebook I felt so worried about rejecting friendship requests that I always accepted.
Another thing that really scared me about Facebook: it had become my address book. It took two weeks' work to get the Skype-names, email-addresses and home-addresses of some of my closest friends and greatest acquaintances - that is awful.
I think socialising through technology is great. Skype, email, SMS and phone-calls all share one commonality: they are, at their core, services that facilitate one-to-one or one-to-few communication. That is how real social interaction happen. They happen two people or just a few more. Somewhere between a pair of people and a body of a thousand, groups form; people coalesce; people choose who they like to spend time with and do so. I like choosing.
Anyway, the biggest thing I have realised since leaving Facebook is this: leaving Facebook was not a big deal.
Its been 3 months since I quit facebook. The reasons are very similar to yours, and I got some results from it.
1) I was very less popular than I thought. Even 3 months after, some people says " really, did you really quit facebook?". This shows me that maybe the 'socialization' and be friends with everybody was not true. People only care about themselves, and care if you liked their pictures and their stories.
2) I'm treated weird. "Why you don't have facebook???". And I have to come with a new story. Most of my male colleagues says that was because of my girlfriend( Here in brazil, for some reason, the man is supposed to have more than one girl).
3) I feel more free and less-overwhelmed. Man, Why do I need to know that Gabriela's Uncle in hospital? And Why do I need to know that your last trip to argentina was so amazing and you met all those beautiful girls? Well, now I don't know those things anymore, and dont miss it.
4) My friends have to reach me by the old channels. I'm receiving more email and sms messages. In facebook I had 700 friends. Now I have fewer friends ( of course!) but I'm so close to them, that I dont miss the other 680 that stayed in facebook.
Of course there are things that I miss, like when I went to a party and met new people, I think " man, I should friend them to facebook". But I don't anymore. If I got to be friends, I will met them personally. And I miss some events, people now create an facebook event, and invite all their friend list. Of course they will not remember you, they just invited everyone!
Anyway, I feel better for quitting facebook, and once and for all, twitter is still up and is a greater communication tool for me. I'm there as www.twitter.com/dudurocha
PS. Sorry for eventual bad spelling and grammar. English not my first language, and it's 2:23 AM.
This - "Twitter... It reflects the true asymmetry of human relationships."
What I loved about Twitter is that it gave me the onus of choice to include or ignore people that may have attended school with me, may have worked with me at one point, etc... but for one reason or another I no longer wanted involved in my personal lives. (Yes, I know Facebook has privacy walls but we all know how permeable they haven proven to be, nevermind their disconcerting rewording of the Terms of Service).
Twitter is also more inclusive and consistent with the 'whole character' of a person. On Facebook it is easy to be typecast or become monofocused among one group.. family, college classmates, frat buddies, whatever.
On Twitter I can lament my horrible Redskins every Sunday and talk affiliate marketing, code, or fishing in Alaska without breaking a stride.
Not to mention, I think the barrier to communicating with people we identify as 'out of reach' is much lower on Twitter than any other medium. Name an author and with effort you can probably exchange with them on Twitter.
Getting them to friend you back on Facebook? Probably not.
I completely agree. I am lots of things. I am different things to different people. I love hanging out with kiters and coders and sometimes those two groups of people overlap and sometimes they do not.
>> It took two weeks' work to get the Skype-names, email-addresses and home-addresses of some of my closest friends and greatest acquaintances - that is awful
Could you not have used the 'Sync' feature in the mobile app to sync everything to your phones address book?
That was great for all the information that my friends had on Facebook. However, it was not great for all the stuff they did not have on there. The information I really wanted was their Skype names.
I quit fb long ago, but for different reasons. I was never into this 'my' thing (I hate posing for photos etc). My problem was scrabble. I was spending hours playing scrabble every day, and it was much easier to find people to play scrabble with, on FB than elsewhere.
In any case, FB doesn't add any real value to life, that much I am convinced. I wonder how long before FB fatigue catches up with people, and they start using it less, if not quit outright?
I was out with friends for lunch and almost everyone was saying "Someone check us in on Facebook!!!"
It also removes the mystery in interactions and makes friendship cheap. I'll meet new people and one of us would say "Yeah, just add me on Facebook" and then both of you just become Facebook friends to each other, nothing more, nothing less.
Whenever my Dad puts down the morning paper, he asks himself: What have I learnt? I started asking myself the same question after a session of Facebooking and soon realised the answer was: nothing. Facebook openly admits that it allows you to maintain more 'friendships' than should be possible. I used to think that was a good thing. Now I do not.
I also realised that the main reason I logged into Facebook was not to check up on other people, but to check up on myself. Had my status been liked? What photos had I been tagged in? Which events was I invited to? Facebook was not really about others, it was about me. It encouraged me to navel-gaze far too much. At times I felt like it was an anti-social network. Whenever I did look through other peoples’ profiles the emotions were often negative: jealousy, lust, disgust and sometimes horror. These things I want to experience less, not more.
What amazes me most about Facebook is how it has changed the way people think. I have genuinely overheard someone say: ‘Get a sick photo for Facebook!!!’ on a night out - I was that person. I was that idiot. Since leaving Facebook I have caught myself thinking: ‘I wonder how this will look on Facebook?’ - those thoughts are slowly subsiding.
I think Facebook's mission, to get everyone to relentlessly share everything with everyone goes too far. Life is about curating, about choosing, about doing millions of opportunity-cost calculations and picking what you want and rejecting what you do not. Friendships take blood, sweat and tears to maintain. They take time, they take work, they take effort on both sides. They are not easy but that is what makes them so great. For me, finding a group of real friends is about sifting through the thousands of people I meet and clutching onto a precious few who bring out my best side and who will be there when the chips are down. Every hour I sink into browsing the updates of people I do not really care about could be spent having a conversation someone I love. Facebook allowed me to attach meaningless digital tendrils to hundreds people and keep semi-acquaintances on life-support. I used to spend a ridiculous of time scrolling through these acquaintances' status-updates. That had to stop.
I like Twitter for two reasons:
1.) I know it is public - When I used Facebook I could never figure out whether I had checked the right tick-boxes or slid the right sliders or placed the right people into the right lists and so I was always wondering who could see what. At times that could make me paranoid and scared - especially when I was tagged in some annoying photos. With Twitter I know that everything is public and I shape my tweets accordingly. There is no confusion.
2.) It reflects the true asymmetry of human relationships - In the real world some people are ‘liked" or ‘followed’ more than others. When somebody follows me on Twitter who I am not particularly interested in I do not feel compelled to follow them back. With Facebook I felt so worried about rejecting friendship requests that I always accepted.
Another thing that really scared me about Facebook: it had become my address book. It took two weeks' work to get the Skype-names, email-addresses and home-addresses of some of my closest friends and greatest acquaintances - that is awful.
I think socialising through technology is great. Skype, email, SMS and phone-calls all share one commonality: they are, at their core, services that facilitate one-to-one or one-to-few communication. That is how real social interaction happen. They happen two people or just a few more. Somewhere between a pair of people and a body of a thousand, groups form; people coalesce; people choose who they like to spend time with and do so. I like choosing.
Anyway, the biggest thing I have realised since leaving Facebook is this: leaving Facebook was not a big deal.
PS - If you would like to follow me on Twitter I am: http://www.twitter.com/ricburton ;)