As I'm nearly half way through, and of course it looks like this one will also be a successful, I feel I can now shed light on one of my other September experiments.
This one actually started a bit earlier, but I wasn't particularly confident in my ability to achieve it, which will kind of give you an idea of how large this habit loomed in my life.
Yes, I decided not to use Facebook. No more reading updates, checking friends profiles, 'Liking Pictures' or anything of that nature. As it is, it's not as hard as I thought it would be, although it was an automatic reflex for so long. Mouse goes to Email, Email read, Goes to Twitter, Scans Twitter, Finally to Facebook... the Unholy Trinity.
So why stop? Well other than the habit-breakingness of it I wanted to see how it would alter my own social relations. I have quite recently moved back to London. I know few people here, save a few old friends who have rather busy lives. I wondered if the cosy illusion of a close social circle that Facebook conjures might be allowing me to sit back, preventing me from making the effort at finding more real human beings to converse with (An inevitably, eventually add into my digital world)
I can't report back on that as yet, but I can say a few other interesting things that leaving Facebook throws up.
Firstly I am more keen to contact my existing friends, when on the site, reading the things they do definitely fools the brain, or my brain at least, into imagining there has been some contact, whereas nothing more personal than reading a post it note has taken place. (Of course there are message exchanges, but that's not really what I'm talking about here). Now I am off it, I want to talk to them, there is more mystery there, and as a pattern seeking creature, it means there are alluring gaps in the narrative I want to fill.
Secondly, Nobody notices. Seriously. If you are ever thinking of taking a break, even from a site that pays lip service to emulating social functions, nobody has ever asked me why I stopped broadcasting. Maybe in earlier days when it was just you and your actual friends who are a bit tech savvy... but now it's your mum and your aunty and that racist cousin who 'shares' things from the EDL quicker than you can hammer the 'Hide' button... Amidst all that, the sudden dearth of your transmissions will not even register. Unlike a party, you can just slip out quietly, without a word and nobody will wonder where you've gone. The only person who has expressed any disappointment is my mum, who enjoys reading the less sweary of my updates, but she already knew I was going...
Thirdly, Facebook REALLY want you back. I have been getting emails with increasing frequency and plaintiveness, like the 'How you doing' Texts from an ex (Not that I'd know anything about those). The amusing thing about this is the format obviously hasn't changed for some time, and so it keeps telling me about all the unacknowledged 'Pokes' I've had, many of them from years and years ago when people still used that odd, and double entendre filled, feature of the site. I now get at least three of these emails a week, and it would be more if I had more activity, but I'm not a teenager, so I get very few 'OMFG' messages these days...
Now there are things I have missed out on. Pictures of my nephews first day of school are up there. Luckily they will still be up there when I get back. I've also missed out on ignorant opinions from some long forgotten cousin you've forgotten to hide from your timeline, status updates from incredibly happy, holidaying, people that seem insufferably smug at 6:30 in the morning when you're getting up to get a tube, the same joke shared a thousand times, pictures of people's children you aren't blood related to (Who are therefore, less interesting than a tea cup ring on a sideboard) and sponsered links to things that have so little relation to you that it gives the impression that the algorithm is either broken or batshit insane..
I've also missed out on wasted hours trawling through looking for something of informational or humorous content... and I am particularly ruthless with my hide button.
(And don't worry, I'm not being smug here.. I know that I contribute more drone to the ongoing fridge-buzz of online discourse than just about anyone)
So I will almost certainly make it to the end. Subsequent to this I doubt it will ever become as automatic again. I will look, and hopefully I'll enjoy it more as I visit less.
And when I return and note that I haven't been online for a whole months, I will be slightly, shamefully, disappointed that nobody has noticed.
This one actually started a bit earlier, but I wasn't particularly confident in my ability to achieve it, which will kind of give you an idea of how large this habit loomed in my life.
Yes, I decided not to use Facebook. No more reading updates, checking friends profiles, 'Liking Pictures' or anything of that nature. As it is, it's not as hard as I thought it would be, although it was an automatic reflex for so long. Mouse goes to Email, Email read, Goes to Twitter, Scans Twitter, Finally to Facebook... the Unholy Trinity.
So why stop? Well other than the habit-breakingness of it I wanted to see how it would alter my own social relations. I have quite recently moved back to London. I know few people here, save a few old friends who have rather busy lives. I wondered if the cosy illusion of a close social circle that Facebook conjures might be allowing me to sit back, preventing me from making the effort at finding more real human beings to converse with (An inevitably, eventually add into my digital world)
I can't report back on that as yet, but I can say a few other interesting things that leaving Facebook throws up.
Firstly I am more keen to contact my existing friends, when on the site, reading the things they do definitely fools the brain, or my brain at least, into imagining there has been some contact, whereas nothing more personal than reading a post it note has taken place. (Of course there are message exchanges, but that's not really what I'm talking about here). Now I am off it, I want to talk to them, there is more mystery there, and as a pattern seeking creature, it means there are alluring gaps in the narrative I want to fill.
Secondly, Nobody notices. Seriously. If you are ever thinking of taking a break, even from a site that pays lip service to emulating social functions, nobody has ever asked me why I stopped broadcasting. Maybe in earlier days when it was just you and your actual friends who are a bit tech savvy... but now it's your mum and your aunty and that racist cousin who 'shares' things from the EDL quicker than you can hammer the 'Hide' button... Amidst all that, the sudden dearth of your transmissions will not even register. Unlike a party, you can just slip out quietly, without a word and nobody will wonder where you've gone. The only person who has expressed any disappointment is my mum, who enjoys reading the less sweary of my updates, but she already knew I was going...
Thirdly, Facebook REALLY want you back. I have been getting emails with increasing frequency and plaintiveness, like the 'How you doing' Texts from an ex (Not that I'd know anything about those). The amusing thing about this is the format obviously hasn't changed for some time, and so it keeps telling me about all the unacknowledged 'Pokes' I've had, many of them from years and years ago when people still used that odd, and double entendre filled, feature of the site. I now get at least three of these emails a week, and it would be more if I had more activity, but I'm not a teenager, so I get very few 'OMFG' messages these days...
Now there are things I have missed out on. Pictures of my nephews first day of school are up there. Luckily they will still be up there when I get back. I've also missed out on ignorant opinions from some long forgotten cousin you've forgotten to hide from your timeline, status updates from incredibly happy, holidaying, people that seem insufferably smug at 6:30 in the morning when you're getting up to get a tube, the same joke shared a thousand times, pictures of people's children you aren't blood related to (Who are therefore, less interesting than a tea cup ring on a sideboard) and sponsered links to things that have so little relation to you that it gives the impression that the algorithm is either broken or batshit insane..
I've also missed out on wasted hours trawling through looking for something of informational or humorous content... and I am particularly ruthless with my hide button.
(And don't worry, I'm not being smug here.. I know that I contribute more drone to the ongoing fridge-buzz of online discourse than just about anyone)
So I will almost certainly make it to the end. Subsequent to this I doubt it will ever become as automatic again. I will look, and hopefully I'll enjoy it more as I visit less.
And when I return and note that I haven't been online for a whole months, I will be slightly, shamefully, disappointed that nobody has noticed.
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