I’d like to take this opportunity to invite my friends who are reading this to a party at my house on Saturday afternoon. You see, I would have texted you, but you’d probably have forgotten by then. I would have emailed you, but I don’t have half of your addresses. I would have sent you an invitation through the post, but no one does that nowadays, do they? I certainly can’t remember the last time I received one. For the past four years, invitations to parties, dinners and events have been extended to me almost exclusively via Facebook.
And now I don’t have one.
Like many seniors, I’m deeply embroiled in thesis–writing. I have interviews to conduct, hours of tape to transcribe and an argument to formulate. I don’t really have time to waste. A few weeks ago, I decided to take the plunge and go Facebook–less, reasoning that, if I’m ever going to finish this damn thesis, I can’t be spending precious minutes scrolling through my news feed or clicking through pictures of my high school friend’s spring break trip to Costa Rica.
As a fellow Street Ed pointed out to me, I’m still finding plenty of excuses for procrastination, including writing this WOTS. But my lack of Facebook access hasn’t just eliminated a useless time–suck. When people ask me why I deactivated my account, I use my thesis as the go–to excuse, but the benefits of logging off have proved more significant than increased productivity.
This month Pediatrics medical journal published a study on social media use among teens, coining a new term — “Facebook depression” — for the isolation teens experience while browsing through the site’s content. Though I’m by all legal standards a full–fledged adult, with plenty of wonderful friends in my life, I’ve nonetheless had moments when Facebooking has dampened my mood. It’s hard not to feel a pang of jealousy when Facebook makes it seem like everyone else is out and about when I’m stuck at home writing a paper.
That’s the problem; Facebook makes all the minutia of our lives front–page news, and, because we humans tend to document only the good parts of our lives, presents us with a skewed image of our social world. You can’t help but feel some emotions while perusing pictures of friends you’ve become estranged from or taking a peek at who’s posting all over your ex’s wall. Facebook distracts from the here and now, and instead makes the insignificant doings of our acquaintances compete for attention that would be better applied elsewhere.
Why do I need to concern myself with what my former roommate is doing when I’ve got piles of homework to keep me busy? I don’t. While I’ll reactivate my account next year, when my closest friends are no longer contained in a 5–mile radius, for now, I’m happy to focus on myself and not what Disney princess you most resemble.
