cygnoir.net

I know this is an old and tired subject, but it has been on my mind all day, and I am participating in NaBloPoMo so I don’t have time to talk myself out of writing it.

Today I posted a note on my Facebook profile stating that while WordPress, Tumblr, and Twitter would be automatically updating my wall, I would not be present. Thus I began my Facebook vacation.

I don’t hate Facebook, but I dislike the false knowledge I glean from it, the pretense of knowing who my contacts are by reading arbitrary updates, photos, and links they post. I also wonder about the reverse: which assumptions are my contacts making about me from my blurbs?

Eventually I will return, but not without reconsidering Facebook’s importance in my life, and severely limiting the time I spend with it.

Has Facebook changed your life?

It wasn’t a compliment when an acquaintance told me that I live more of my life online than anyone else she knows. These words have been haunting me lately as I examine my life and my priorities. Then I read “Facebook Exodus” on NYTimes.com, this quote in particular:

“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us,” Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”

Facebook isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, online community to be abandoned en masse. Will we divulge even more of ourselves via the next, or will we begin to withdraw in favor of offline connection?

In this episode, Matt and I discuss Facebook and Twitter. I also misuse the word “demographic”, overuse the words “literally” and “honestly”, and make up a whole new word — “foresaw” for the past tense of “foresee”.  There, now I don’t have to tweet about it!

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[Edited to add: A kind commenter pointed out that "foresaw" is a word after all! Serves me right for using a pocket dictionary offline.]