Facebook ditch?

Relatives of mine ditched their Facebook accounts last week, and it got me thinking – should I do the same?  If I’m honest, which is pretty much always, I’m a bit addicted to Facebook but particularly when I’m at work and there’s a few minutes lull in the workflow.  “I’ll just check Facebook,” I think… about 20 times a day.  And in this current climate with yet another round of redundancies around the corner at work, should I REALLY be checking Facebook at work 20 times a day?  Yeah, me either.

But it’s more than showing my bosses I’m not a slacker. 

I have 166 “friends”, some I haven’t “spoken to” since we friended each other several years ago.  That doesn’t mean I don’t like them or they don’t like me – we just don’t talk.  When I “friend” someone on Facebook or accept a friend request, it is because I genuinely like that person and would like to hear from them and keep in touch.  We all learned that lesson when Facebook was new and we friended anyone and everyone we’d ever met and ended up with 400 friends we could barely remember meeting in person!  There is one such old “friend” that I would love to hear from and reform a friendship with, but they seem content just to be number 150-something of 166 friends.  Weird.  But not unusual.  I’m not taking it personally.  Moving on!

But on throwing the question out there “What impression of me do you have from my Facebook life?” I was pleasantly surprised by the people who responded and what they had to say.  So then I think, “Hmm, perhaps I shouldn’t leave this little (massive) community just yet?  While I don’t hear from many people, there are actually people who take an interest in what I’m making for dinner or what epiphany I’ve had while hanging up the washing.  (Well, perhaps not interest so much as entertained by!)  And what if someone from 1987 wants to find me?”

And that is the dilemma – while I don’t always make contact with the 166 people on Facebook, I like knowing that I can.  If they need me for whatever reason, I know they can find me.  And if I ever need them, I know where to find them.  It’s the old fashioned equivalent of having everyone’s phone number in your old address book, though without the constantly changing numbers when people move cities!  And in those days, you didn’t rip out a page just because that person/those people hadn’t called you in two years.

But it’s more than the “friends” who aren’t actually friends.  Here is another reason to keep it. 

My life from 2007 onwards is on my Facebook account.  The milestones – meeting and falling in love with my now husband; rediscovering my faith and passion for Jesus; new jobs; moving cities; finding out I was pregnant and that whole journey; and now all the photos and stories of our beautiful girl – the ups and downs; the good, the bad, the ugly and the hilarious.  That’s all on Facebook, and if I take it down forever, I’ll lose that “family album”.  It would take me weeks to go through all my photos and save them.  But Facebook won’t be around forever so it’s probably not a bad job to start.

But it’s more than my family album.  And here’s the big reason to delete my account.

I want to focus on and add some new things into my life that are healthier and more productive – like starting to run again (but oh Lordy, that is going to hurt!), starting yoga, spending more time with friends, and no-technology-time with my husband.  And no, that’s not “code” for anything!  I mean spending time with my husband that doesn’t involve sitting in front of the TV, or sitting beside each other on the couch but each playing a game on our phones or checking Facebook for the 100^th time that day.

I don’t think I’ll go anywhere just yet – I need to get organised and save all those photos and videos first – and besides, how can I let anyone whose interested know that I’ve written another blog post??