In the rainy Sunday night, March 21 at 21.59h the heart of my facebook account stopped beating!
When deactivating your account you have to click on one of the fallowing options:
a) I am losing to much time on the web site
b) I have another facebook account
c)It is just temporary- I will be back
d) It is too complicated I don't know how to use it
e)…
I was struggling between a) and c), unfortunately I couldn't choose both.
And here are my motivations for this huge step against society: I have a thesis for uni to write and I need to stay focused rather than checking every 30 minutes who is where doing what with whom on what occasion. I started getting a bit lost in this facebook world. All the news I recently got was first from my friends' status updates facebook: Earthquake in Haiti, Alexander Mc'Qeen's dead...Since I am in Hamburg for a while, having all this information would not really "enrich" my social life in anyway.
Besides, each of my closest friends has my mobile number, my email, my skype and msn. So if anybody needs me for something more than a "poke", they are more than welcome to call, email, skype me anytime! Furthermore, I was convinced that nobody will ever notice my "absence". And this is how this 10 days social experiment started:
22 March Monday, Day 1
Without occasional facebook sessions and nonsense chats I manage to read a lot more for my thesis than the days before. In the evening my bike gets stolen in front of the yoga studio. I miss facebook because I can't share this with the whole wide world and I get no compassion from any of my 365 friends.
23 March Tuesday, Day 2
I wake up. My agency is calling me- 3 days trip to Barcelona coming up. Damn! I have a few friends there. I could have facebooked them and we could meet up. I will try to organise this via texting and email though.See if it works.And again I can't share with the whole wide fb community: Shooting for Vogue in Barcelona!
I check my emails- 2 emails in this spirit:
" hey miss whats happening with you??? you went out of facebook!!! jajajaja tell me why!!! im really interested to know…."
"Hi. Is everything ok? I was gonna write you on facebook but you deleted me…"
and skypeing with a friend later on saying: "WHY AREN'T YOU ON FACEBOOK. I subscribed for your blog to keep in touch"
18.02h a good friend I didn' t have any news from since she moved to Cape town a year ago CALLED ME: " Why aren't you on facebook, bulgarianprincess. I am worried. Just calling to make sure everything is ok!"
24 March Wednesday Day 3
Barcelonaaa! Well, no more "Are you ok?!?" emails. Everybody I emailed to catch up in Barcelona emailed back, but everybody is either out of town or busy. After a short walk at La Rambla sitting in my room. Life without facebook is boring. But I gotta sleep anyway.
25 March Thursday Day 4
Shooting on the beach in Barcelona with two more girls. "Why did you delete your facebook?!" Urgh, models, they won't get it. Well, anyway, I started getting used to it. We just exchanged emails, which we probably won't ever use, but who knows. Plus I will go back on facebook one day. I'm just trying to be "cool" and different from anybody else for the moment. I'm really eager to show off that I shot spanish VOGUE today…but I'll keep some decency and won't share it with anybody out there in the virtual world…Shhht, just my few blog followers know it. Plus experiences shows, better don't show off. Sometimes pictures don't come out as nice as expected.
26 March Friday Day 5
Too tired to be bothered with anything.
27 March Saturday Day 6
Sleep till noon. Shower. Tidy up. Do washing. Groceries. Read. Skype a bit. Go to a Birthday party…Wer hat schon Zeit fur FB bullshit tra-la-la. Und wer braucht so was…Skype ist viel besser.
28,29,30 March Days 7,8,9
I stopped counting days without facebook. Live seems perfectly normal without it. I don't have the feeling of missing any gossips.
31 March Wednesday, Day 10
Erm I don't even remember what I did but I don't recall missing facebook either.
Results and Conclusion:
I am still alive. I can concentrate on my studies spending hours in the library without disturbing facebook sessions in-between, that normally lasted longer than planned. I email and skype more though, but interaction in this way always has a particular purpose, it's not just "like" buttons, commenting on pictures or statuses. I realised I didn't have the emails of some people I wanted to keep in touch with, but those weren't hard to find. I came to the conclusion that facebook isn't that irreplaceable (whereas google absolutely is).
I was actually surprised by the fact that some people noticed I wasn't there. And I was shocked by the fact that some of them even thought that not being on facebook equals not being on this earth and therefore is a reason to panic. I am sure though that most of my friends haven't even noticed the missing "friend", for which I don't blame them either.
And now the question that everybody has been asking me during those 10 days: WHY?
If you feel that you are losing time- then don't go on it anymore! If you feel that someone is stalking you- then block them! Don't answer them! Don't add them! If you have "friends" that you don't wanna keep in touch with- then delete them! Yes but No. It is not the same. I am bothered by the fact that facebook becomes more "real" than real life, that people believe more to what is happening "in there" than what is happening around them. That people go out with their cameras/mobile phones hunting for facebook materials. At some point you don't enjoy where are you but rather the fact that you can take pictures of it and put them up. I was never like that though...
But to answer the question WHY. Actually none of those reasons. I will be back on facebook…dunno when…but eventually one day.
I did this because I like "testing" and "questioning" everything (it is very healthy) and seeing if something happens, or nothing happens or if I'd lost a lot that could have happened, or I didn't lose anything.
I am happier or unhappier?
I have more real life friends or less friends…
If I could enjoy a sunset without having to take a picture…
And the answers are YES. NO. NO. YES. YES much happier. THE SAME. YES I can.
Besides, I believe that the time when we will be texting instead of talking, twittering instead of sharing, poking instead of either previously mentioned IS already THERE! I am not trying to go against it or fight it in anyway. If not my generation, than the one coming after surely wouldn't be able to imagine social life organised in a different way.
I don't wanna be like one of those doctors who, when the first steam trains in the 19th century came out, said, that the high speed of those trains (which was something like 30km/h) is dangerous for our health. I am just saying that if in this process of "evolution" in communication, besides all the benefits that we get out of it, losing some of the positive factors of personal communication goes along with it, than we'd better think about how do we wanna use it.
And this is how bulgarianprincess disappeared from facebook but continued living happily ever after with her current location unknown (for the rest of the facebook world), but surely easy to find out if you only kindly asked.
