UPDATE: Well, I do stand behind my initial premise that Facebook can water down some social interactions, I will say the end result of removing it was more detrimental than having it in the first place.
The thing I didn’t count on in removing this, is that there are a lot of acquaintances and friends that I speak to infrequently enough, that Facebook gives me a way for them to contact me, even if I don’t happen to exist in their immediate monkeysphere. So… I am back on Facebook. Experiment failed, although I do still think some of my original points stand.
I have kept my original rant in it’s entirety below, feel free to read and laugh at my naivety.
So two days ago I closed my Facebook account. I think it was probably one of the better decisions I’ve made in a while, and I really had to ponder for a while on why.
First off – I did not do this for the privacy angle that has been snagging a lot of headlines recently. I really didn’t care that they were targeting advertising at me, and it’s never bothered me that ad companies knew what movies I liked or what books I read. In fact, I almost welcome that. If I have to look at ads, I’d prefer that they are something I’m interested in.
For me it was much more about raising the difficulty for people to contact me and improving my social interactions. It was also about keeping a better boundary between things such as my work life and my personal life.
It seems counterintuitive at first to remove myself from a social site in order to improve my social life, but I really do think it is important. I think that sites like Facebook give people a false impression of connecting with each other. Old friends and neighbors get put on a list and suddenly you’ve “reconnected”. Regardless of the fact that you then promptly ignore each other.
I’m hoping that making it harder for me to reach will make it a more meaningful interaction when someone does reach me. (Look at me being all sappy and sentimental.)
Some people reading this may be aware that I’ve been working in my spare time on a social networking site of my own called RoyalAnts. This experience has made me think a lot harder about how interactions on that site should be. I think it’s really helped me focus on what is important in a social site, and something that a lot of them miss – getting people to really interact with each other. Most importantly – making these connections real, not just a friend count.
So, that’s my rant about that. Questions, comments, insights on this? Please comment below or shoot me an email.
