Life without Facebook (As a Facebook user)

[jonpaul37]

I'm not sure which section to put this in but here goes...

I have been a Facebook user for at least 7 years, sometimes more avid than others but a full-time user regardless. Just recently I decided to abruptly quit (Jan 29th 2012 to be exact) to determine if it would benefit me or not and to see what effect, if any, it would have on my lifestyle.

Keep in mind that it was only Facebook and Words with friends that i cut out of my life and i still frequented Tom's Hardware and imgur and Anand quite a bit. This was not an attempt to cut myself off from the outside world, just Facebook and WWF. Also keep in mind that a couple days before I decided to deactivate Facebook I moved out of a house with two other friends into a new apartment by myself and told a girl that I had been talking to that she should lose my number as she was doing nothing but playing games.

Day 1: Said girl from paragraph above thought that I was indeed blocking her and only her from my Facebook account (It's not always about you Kim!) and took it personal until she learned a week later that I deactivated my account

Day 2: My mother and her friends were all concerned that i was in some horrific accident as they could not reach me on Facebook to ask me a question. I literally got bombarded with questions in regards to my health and well-being.

Day 3: At this point I've received at least 17 texts to my Droid (because screw Apple, that's why) by people I am close friends with and people that I never knew even had my number concerned as to why I have not made a move in WWF yet and if i was mad at them, blah blah blah...

Week 2: People I've encountered at random places, out at the bars or at work are now starting to inquire as to why they no longer see my witty quotes regarding laundry and such and express their concern.

After 1 month: I've decided that I am not going back to Facebook or WWF as I have now started working out and getting out of the house more. Quality of life has increased for the better and I'm not constantly forced to read obnoxious or irrelevant status updates from people i hardly know or try to decide whether or not the person I am playing in WWF are cheating or not.

So there you have it, in my opinion, Facebook is nothing more than a tool that people use to try and get attention. I don't need to see a status update from the same person every 5 minutes regarding their entire day and what happens over the course of it. I really don't need to see any more "duckface" pictures and now, if someone wants to get in touch with me, they'll have to actually call me or come by or text.

The End

 

[AntiZig]

Glad to hear that facebook riddance has worked out for someone else. I've done mine upon finishing university, never looked back and happy about it.

 

[jonpaul37]

The more I am away from it, the more i realize how much better things are without it. I do know that there are good things that happen on facebook but I have to say, I am also happy to not look back as well.

 

[sonexpc]

Next step is to give up you cell.....

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Welcome back jonpaul!

 

[jonpaul37]

@ sonexpc: I will never be able to give up my cell but... I don't have email synced up to it, i'm not one of those people who uses it ever 12 minutes like you see these days AND that all has to do with not having a facebook account or words with friends account... So, in other words, I use my smartphone for personal and business-related tasks, not for things like facebook, etc...

 

[sonexpc]

I try to deactive a facebook account before.... and then reactive three times again.... is to easy to active... just need to login with the same password....
so finally I sent email to facebook..... to completely remove all the things from the account.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

I've toiled with quitting as well but I think anyone can make healthy use of Facebook by following a few simple rules:

1) Limit the amount of time you're on there. Don't sit around on your computer waiting for updates to appear - don't even have the page sitting there if you're doing something else.
2) In a similar vein, don't use the mobile version!
3) Cull your "friends" list. Hard. Remove people you don't actually know. My general rule is "Could I call this person up and invite them to the pub", if not they get removed. This is just a fast and loose mechanism though. There are plenty of exclusions to the list.
4) Deactivate Facebook "applications" and games. They are useless distractions. If you want to play games then do it outside of Facebook.

I'm sure others would have other ideas too.

But well done jonpaul37!

 

[Reynod]

I don't have a facebook account jp.

Rusting in peace lists some good advice too.

 

[jonpaul37]

It's funny, Facebook used to be decent and for the most part, original and till this day is sometimes used for good deeds but lately it's been nothing more than people reposting the same mindless thing over and over again.