I am cautious when it comes to social ventures. I am slow to join, and I am slow to quit. Maybe too much so on both ends.
Sometime around 2004 my high school students semi-dragged me onto the Myspace social media platform and then onto Facebook. I did not see the point, but I went along after they pressured me. My students seemed to think it hilarious. And for a time Facebook was fun. I was able to see my students in a different, non-school light; I was able to see them more fully as human beings, not only as students. I also over time was able to connect with so many of my own high school and college friends. Those were in the halcyon days when Facebook was an up and coming thing and people saw the possibilities. They realized the upside to Facebook in being connected to family and friends. I even announced the imminent birth of my second child on Facebook, getting replies of support even thought it was 5:30 am. That was cool! Facebook was kind of cool.
But after a few years Facebook was no longer so cool. In fact, it started to smell a bit bad. People posted the meaningless quotidian details of their lives — and they did it continuously. Others ranted about politics. Complainers and complaints. Creepy ads showed up that seemed to imply Facebook was following me around the Internet, snooping on my Google searches and noting my online purchases. And then after a number of years my newer students fled Facebook (which by then was for old people) for Instagram or some other new social media I barely knew about (and did not follow them to). Foreign governments used contrived Facebook (and Twitter) accounts to foster dissension and disagreement among Americans. People I barely knew and had not talked to in years presumed to suggest to me on Facebook that I donate money online to their chosen charity instead of giving them a physical present. Virtue signaling by the “wokescenti” was all too present. Political “discussions” in realty were echo chambers supplemented by occasional online sucker punching and mob pilings. There was so often this mean tone of outrage and contempt. Hostility singed the air. It was an ugly place, all too often.
Why was I on Facebook again? Why did I give it attention? My precious time and energy?
True, by 2018 I posted to it about once per year. I posted family photos from the previous 12 months for family and friends to see. I posted nothing else; I remained conspicuously quiet. In doing so I kind of hoped others would forget I was there. In reality, I was mostly off Facebook already. Why not take that final step and delete my account?
But did I want to lose contact with some 1,165 “friends” I had on Facebook? Cut myself off from the online street corner where we could gather to connect?
That was a complicated question. I thought about it, in my deliberate and cautious way, for months.
And I came to a decision.
First of all, I am going to ruthlessly pare down my “friends” to mostly those I grew up around. Just my family and those I went to high school and college with. Most of my work contacts are going to go. It is not that I don’t care about or wish the best to these people — I do. But I need to pare things down. This is not about them; it is about me. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
Secondly, I am “deactivating” my Facebook account. Not “deleting” it but “deactivating” it. I am going to re-activate my account once or twice a year to post some family photos for family and friends to see. And I will cruise around and check out how distant family and those ran cross country with me in high school or drank beer with me in college are doing. When I contemplated permanently deleting my Facebook account, I reflected that I would very much miss having online contact with these people I had known for decades. We might not speak in person often — or at all. But it means an enormous amount to me to see photos of their growing families once every year or two, and to know they are alive and doing well. Before Facebook, I would wonder where they were, how they were doing. Facebook allowed me to connect. It still allows me to stay in the loop. I don’t want to throw that away in a moment of pique against what Facebook has been allowed to become. In particular, I treasure being allowed to see that a few old girlfriends are alive and well. They married other men and made separate lives apart from me and that is fine, but knowing they are ok through Facebook is important to me. Before Facebook I would sometimes wonder and search about them to no avail. Just to know they are alive and hanging in there. To check in once every twelve months or so.
And so I will post family photos once or twice a year so that others might see I am hanging in there, too. This is who I am now. Yes, my daughters are growing tall. Yes, I look older. And I will check in with them. I will keep my Facebook account active for a week or so before I deactivate it for another twelve months. Like a submarine I will remain submerged under the water and then very occasionally come up to the surface and raise my periscope to view what is happening in Facebook-land before I submerge again.
But I am excited to emerge into this new land without social media in my life. I left the toxicity of the piranha pool which is Twitter over a year ago. It led to a renewal of my reading books en masse. It was as if I were returning to an earlier, better mode of living; I would do it again in a second. I should have done it earlier, but I was cautious. But with my imminent departure from Facebook I am entirely absent from any social media for the first time since 2004. Over 14 years of social media: at first it was fresh and new, then it was ok, and finally it was stale and smelled a bit bad. For too long I endured it before finally I ended it. Again, I should have done it sooner, but I was cautious. I planned my departure carefully so as to preserve what was worth preserving.
And now I am enacting my plan.
I am excited! For too long I have carried the emotional burden of social media on my shoulders, like a turtle carrying its heavy shell wherever it travels. The opinions and, all too often, the complaints of approximately 1,065 “friends.” Now I feel leaner and have a new spring in my step. I am less encumbered, like a snake that has shed its old skin in preparation for a new one. Delete the Twitter account permanently and “deactivate” the Facebook account. I feel free. As Uncle Walt sang —
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
GOOD RIDDANCE!
