Zoom's delightful reruns made me take a look at what I was doing at this time last year. Tiana also does this on her blog (Congratulations, by the way, Tiana! Nice little fellow you got there).
Last year at this time I was just becoming a Facebook user and even had a mission statement worked out for myself. My year on Facebook has left me unsatisfied. Here are some reasons I'm going to go off Facebook:
1) I'm addicted to Scrabulous in a sick kind of way and could basically spend my whole life playing it if I let myself.
2) I've stopped caring about accumulating celebrity "friends". Friending up with these people has gotten me nothing!
3) Reconnecting with some people from my past has brought out some negative feelings in me: jealousy, regret, resentment. Instead of expressing these emotions, I have to write superficial things on their "walls" like, "Oh, I'm so happy for you, living in your beautiful space with your beautiful wife with your Canada Council grant and your gigantic studio and your insanely successful career"...
4) I've discovered that Facebook is a lazy man's pick-up joint. Facebook flirting is lame, lame. Lazy. Get off your ass, fellows! Go to a bar and flirt there!
5) Fun Walls are not fun. Fuck fun walls.
6) I don't want to look at people's family photo albums.
7) I end up in conversations with people on Facebook who would never normally send me an email or contact me. What's wrong with some boundaries? No, I don't want to catch up with my childhood classmate who has become born-again and hopes to save me via Facebook.
8) I have run out of witty things to say on my "status" line.
9) I don't ever want to be superpoked again.
10) Did I mention the Scrabulous addiction?
Here is a question for y'all: How do I gracefully remove myself from Facebook? Or, should I just rip myself off, like a bandaid?
4 comments:
Hi Aggie, first-time commenter here. I had to post my two cents because I agree with most you've said. I too am addicted to Scrabulous and I too have connected to old friends only to find after the initial exchange we don't have much in common anymore which is why we are "former" friends now. And in general I find Facebook to be a big waste of time.
However, in my case one good thing came from FB. Playing Scrabulous with a mutual friend, I was introduced to Zoom. The two of us became fast Facebook friends and are now fierce Scrabulous competitors. She has also encouraged me to try my hand at blogging and although I'm no where near as talented as Zoom and the other local talent that I've been following, I'm learning and enjoying myself!
My best FB friends are ones that I've met through FB and not those that were friends first.
I deleted all the applications like "superpoke", "buy a beer", etc. and refuse to accept invitations to any of those dumb apps unless my "real" friends initiate the request.
I've thought about how I would leave Facebook if I decided to do it. I think I would give my friends some notice by announcing in my status that my intention is to leave in a few days... Of course this will probably prompt some comment. But you can ignore that and then just shut off your account. Note that if you ever decide to come back, everything returns as it was.
But before you go I'd like to whoop you Scrabulous. You can find me in Zoom's friend list. I'm the one with Logan-the-Dog in the picture.
I too am wrestling with the no-positive-outcomes of using facebook. I applaud your decision. However, i think if you cannot simply close your account (deactivate actually, its easy to find when you click "account" in the top right) because of obligations or letting people know, then you're too tightly coupled to leave. Best to just not login for a few months, then do it. This will give anyone that may be offended by your sudden departure a few months of silence on your part to understand what facebook really means to you... of course, this may be impossible considering your scrabulous addiction.
I still have my account, but the thing has become a glorified 'evite' as far as i'm concerned. Next gen web my ass, their platform has done little more than give folks addictions to flash games, something other less social sites have been doing for years. For reference though, a good friend of mine successfully deleted his account in the past few months, no incident.
Good luck, and awesome new design!!!
Ok, Skylark, but just ONE game, and then I'm going off it. Don't let me keep playing. I have a problem.
Bob, I think your plan is a good one. I guess I'll have to take up smoking or something to replace the Scrabulous problem, though.
Do you really like the design? It's just a pilot project really. I'm liking the retro feel.
Another reason right here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/329052987/
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