Life without Facebook

Remember the days of telephone calls, conversation over coffee and thoughtful compliments?

I don’t either, but am discovering the lost joy in actual human interaction.

Two weeks ago I deleted my Facebook profile. After much deliberation, I realized that the social networking site was not connecting me to people, as it promises on its log-in, but rather disconnecting me from having real interaction with the people I care about.

Does Facebook make you lonely, even though it explicitly informs you that you have 528 friends? How can you count people you never formally talk to as friends? How can you feel social in a setting that is merely you and a computer screen?

In my time with Facebook, we had our ups and downs. There were times I would comment extensively on friends’ walls and in turn have many comments on mine. There were also harder times, with me never logging on, or being tagged in embarrassing photos.

Facebook tries really hard to keep you. Once you press the deactivate account button, Facebook pulls up pictures of you and friends (thanks to tagging technology) with captions that say, “Dave will miss you,” or “Kimberly will miss you.” Reminding you that Facebook wasn’t so bad.

But Facebook knows you. It knows you like reading Kurt Vonnegut (or Twilight, in some cases), it knows you like to watch LA Ink and listen to The Doors.

But what does Facebook REALLY know about you? Further, what do your 528 friends know about you if they only interact with you on FB? Just the simple “About Me” section.

That is why life without Facebook is wonderful. You can be a full-fledged person, with an actual identity. Hell, it even makes you mysterious because people can’t stalk you. Instead, they must talk to you. Cool concept.

What I honestly like about not having Facebook anymore is that I don’t spend my time lurking around on other people’s lives that I knew in the third grade and haven’t seen since, because if I really care to know, I call or write or see the person. I feel like the real relationships are more solidified and the ones that just made me feel lonely dissipated and it’s a great feeling.