Well, it has now officially begun. In the wee hours of the morning yesterday, I deactivated my account. The moment was far less ceremonious that I imagined, as I was rushing to get to work at 6:00am on a Sunday, but some things did catch me by surprise. First of all, all I have do it is just log in and blamo! Its like nothing ever happened. All of my old pictures/posts/friends are still there exactly as I left them. For all of the questions they asked me when I deactivated (Are you sure you want to deactivate? Why are you leaving? Do you still want emails?) you'd think there would be some similar rhetoric if I returned (Really, back so soon? Don't you think you should be studying instead? Why did you even deactivate in the first place?) This makes me nervous that I can easily return after making such a big deal about leaving. But I have already passed a few tests put before me! First of all, getting through yesterday was a challenge. After work, I started feeling awful and sick and wanted to do nothing more but lay on my couch and watch tv, which is usually accompanied by creeping on Facebook simultaneously. Have you ever had the power go out on your house and every time you go to use the bathroom, you end up trying to turn on the light, then like an idiot, you remember "oh right, no power". This is how I felt all day yesterday. But alas! I held strong!
Brother Bear (my youngest sibling and only Broseph) called me this morning and said "I just wanted to see how I can get a hold of you now that you're off Facebook." We both laughed at this as I gave him my email address and reminded him of my impending birthday. Seriously though. "How can I get a hold you". My own brother. Man.
So, here's a little food for thought. How do we define meaningful relationships in todays world? Disclosure, in my opinion, is the biggest asset of Facebook. Its a world where you know exactly what is going on in someones life without ever having to talk to them. But does that actually make us friends?
So, here is what I am going to do! I followed a lot of people on Facebook that I never really talked to at all. I am going to reach out to these people (via email) and send them a questionnaire about how well they know me vs how close they consider our friendship. There are 5 people that I have in mind, most of them I either went to high school with or knew in Dayton. I have not seen any of these people in 3 + years. I'll post the results of these conversations next week.
For now, time to actually STUDY communication instead of writing about it.
Signing off,
AGWOAF
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