A Year without Facebook?

Recently, as some of you may have noticed I have deleted my Facebook profile and also the pages I maintained. The reasoning behind this was rational and not because of what anyone did or say to me on this “social network” and I will attempt to explain the reasons in this blog post. To be honest, Facebook has been a bit of a pain to use and it became a bit of chore to maintain over the years.

With these so called “social networks” it is easier than ever to reconnect with your old High School friends as well as people you used to know in College and also where you used to work. That is fine and for many people this is exactly how you are using this website. However, over time you may begin to realize that if you are using a free website then as the user of that website you become a product of the company that is using your free account.

What do I mean by that? Well if you are using anything free on the Internet you will be subject to various forms of advertisements. There is nothing wrong with this and if Facebook really becomes efficient at delivering the right ads for you then these will become something you look forward and not dread.

However, when you are the product of someone else your privacy goes out the window. There is absolutely nothing stopping any of these companies from selling your data to other businesses and later on you may get harassed by telemarketers as well as receive non-relevant pieces of mail. Would you agree to this willingly? Do you know the full extent of how your data is being used by this company or any other government? If you don’t know and you feel you can’t trust a website then why would you voluntarily use it? This doesn’t seem very logical to me.

Now, since you are on my personal blog I am sharing this reasoning with you and you are reading it voluntarily. This is a mutual social contract. I have purposely put this information on the web for all to see, it was completely voluntary and no-one can really own this piece of information except me, as I own the copyright to it.

Over time using Facebook became a chore because I always felt I needed to “perform” for my friends. This meant I had to find funny stories to share, or moving movies to show how “human” I was and honestly it became nauseating that I felt I needed to do this, was this really my job for the right to use Facebook?

As well, I found that over the same period of time I would follow people who consistently bragged about themselves and people would fall over themselves trying to “friend” these same people. It was like reliving a bad portion of my High School days all over again. If you have to brag about how wonderful you are and how great you are at establishing various charities and what not then you should really do some self-reflection and see if your motives need some adjustments.

Why people would constantly brag about their charities is beyond me, charitable work should be done in private and not for the entire world to see unless it is public fundraiser meant to call attention to a particular problem. Now, if you are reading this and think you are the subject of this particular piece than that is your right to do so, however, this is not directed at any one person. In fact, if I get any response from this article in regards to what is said here I will do a follow up post with any correspondence that may occur. Basically if you criticize me for stating something so obvious then you will get called out on it.

One very poignant video that I kept watching on YouTube was that people really needed to stop using “social networks” and actually need to socialize. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. Social networks seem to actually hinder real life interactions with your friends and instead force you to be behind a computer for your socializing.

Here is a link to the video to which I am referring:

So my experiment for 2015 is to not use Facebook at all for one entire year. Am I going to be able to stick to this goal? Furthermore, will I be better off as a result of not using this website? That is all to be determined.

Personally, I believe that I will get more control over my time and my own mental energy and be far more productive as a result. Already, I have accomplished more in the past couple days then I have in the first part of last year, so that is something to be somewhat proud of.

Since one of the main reasons for starting this website was to be a bit of an experiment in regards to the Four Hour Work Week actually getting control over how I spend my time on a daily basis has been a struggle. I firmly believe the more control I can get over my day the better my days will be in the end. After all, I am not getting any younger and I would like to spend more quality time doing things I enjoy instead of just treading water.