new solar eclipse

It’s been a little over 2 weeks now that I’ve cut both Facebook and Myspace out of my life, and I didn’t realize how much of a role the two social networks, primarily Facebook, played in my life. I used to log into Facebook at least once an hour, if not more, whether it was from a computer or my iPhone (the Facebook application is really nice).  I’d always be informed about almost every aspect of my friends’ lives.  The break-ups/make-ups, events, birthdays, gatherings, big news announcements, etc etc.  But now, it feels like I’m outside of the circle looking in.  Take the other day for example, one of my good friends calls me and asks if I saw who one of our other friends is now going out with, I said I have no idea, he replies “well you would if you had Facebook…”  And this got me thinking, has social networking and the digital world really taken a hold of our real lives to the point where without the digital then the real feels incomplete?

If you’re a frequent user of social networking sites, such as a Myspace or a Facebook then you know what I’m referring to.  However, it’s hard to really realize the impact of cutting something out of your life that has been a staple for a long period of time.  I’ve been a member of Facebook since October 2004, during my first couple months in college.  A friend had told me if I had an account at this site called TheFacebook.com (the original Facebook before the “The” was dropped).  I said no but checked out the site and saw it being fairly basic at the time, with only a few schools supported.  Luckily I was attending a major university in Massachusetts (Facebook was founded by a Harvard student) so I was eligible to register.  Though at the time I didn’t think much of it, over the years I started to use the site more and more, and with each feature they rolled out my engagement grew.  Myspace is a slightly different story as I registered for that in 2006 and never really got into, just keeping it around and checking it here and there.

Fast forward to today, it’s been 4 years since I’ve registered for Facebook only to make a random, though slightly thought-out decision to deactivate my account and take a break from the site.  What led me to this point you may ask?  Well, it wasn’t a matter of an event or two that triggered this decision, rather it was a realization that too much of my time and attention was devoted to something that provided no real tangible value to my life.  Sure it was great to talk to friends, organize the weekend events, be filled in on the latest news concerning my inner circle, but in the grand scheme of things none of that really matters.  I realized that about 80-90% of my Facebook “friends” are ones that I rarely talk to on a regular basis, and those that were close friends I can either talk to in person, or over the phone/text-message.  Moreover, the amount of drama that occurs on that site is absurd, it’s like a high school dance, only its 24/7.  So you can see that the site left a lot to be desired, which made deactivating my account that much easier.

There is also the incredibile amount of time wasted on these social networking sites which really cuts down on one’s productivity.  It’s impossible to sign-on for just a few minutes a day because you find yourself losing track of time when viewing photos, interacting with applications, socializing with friends, etc.  Now, from the perspective of the site owners, this is amazing news because the user engagement is through the roof, which (they hope) will eventually lead to revenue flows from ad deals.  Social networking monetization is a whole different topic that I will be writing a post about soon, but you can see the point being made.

So for now I will try to avoid the temptation of logging back into Facebook in hopes that I can use the extra time towards something a lot more productive, such as building the next killer web application =).  I’ll most likely be back on Facebook in a few months (Myspace not so much), but in the mean time I’m enjoying life outside of social networking sites.