Saturday, June 6, 2015

Saying "Goodbye" to Facebook

In 2008 I joined the thousands of older people who joined Facebook.  In the beginning, I found it a helpful tool.  Through it, I:
  • regained contact with old friends and caught up on their lives.
  • learned of prayer requests and was able to pray with meaning and understanding.
  • quickly heard of important news in the lives of friends and family.
  • used it to reach out and encourage the hurting.
Over the years, however, I have had increasing difficulties with using Facebook.  These have been some of my concerns:
  • I met people who spent way much too much time on Facebook, and I wondered if I was adding to their temptation to misuse their precious time.
  • I even wondered if I was encouraging an addiction or participating in their sin by being on Facebook without saying anything.  Yet things written can be so easily misunderstood that I did not want to have that conversation except in person.  And how could I have an "in person" conversation with someone who lives thousands of miles away?
  • More and more people are linking articles and videos rather than sharing personal information. I joined Facebook for the personal information.  Today as I scrolled through my news feed, I counted.  The fifteenth item was finally something personal.
  • Statistics tell us that heavy social media users are less happy than those who are not.  
  • I have different levels of openness with people that I know well compared to people who are just acquaintances.  Yet Facebook links all of them together, so that I find myself sharing at a more superficial level than I would with my close friends.
  • I did not join Facebook for the private message function, but I find myself using that more than anything else. Won't email work just as well for that?
  • Most of my life is not worth sharing.  When it is worth sharing, I can put in a blog.
  • Facebook is finding more and more ways to advertise to me while I am reading the news feed.  

When I first noticed some of these issues, I decided to reduce my usage. I told people that if they wanted to be sure I saw something, they needed to tag me.  Of course, that is not the way most people operate, so I found that people assumed I had seen or read something when I had not.  Even though I have told people that I was reducing my usage, people expected that I would be there frequently.

This week, some of the issues hit home in a new way.
  • I have limited time.  I want to see if my time benefits from not being on Facebook.
  • I have limited roaming data.  This week my roaming data maxed out while I slept.  I believe that it was because Facebook was busy downloading photos that I did not request and did not even view.
  • I have a limited capacity to interact with people.  Sociologists tell us that we have a capacity to keep about 600 people active in our lives. If I am on Facebook with my 400+ friends there (and it could easily be more than that), will I neglect the needs of the people who are right outside my door?  
  • I miss the old ways of sharing information.  This week a friend asked me, "Did you hear about what happened to ______?"  I had because I had seen it on Facebook.  But when she said that, I thought, "I would have rather have heard it from you first."  Maybe if everyone knows I am not on Facebook, they will think to call me when they have important news to share.  Then again, maybe not, and maybe that is fine too.  I never used to think there was a problem with catching up after years of being apart.
So Facebook and I are going our separate ways, at least for a while.  It will give me time to listen to the sweet voice of God and see whether HE wants me to be on Facebook.  If He does not, I will not be back.  If He does, I will, though I will need His guidance on how to make it work better in the future.
 
I still want to stay in touch with people, but I am hoping that telephones, email, and mail will be enough to get the job done right.

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