I've been thinking a lot lately about how much time I waste on the computer. Granted I sit behind a computer for 8 hours a day for work. But with all of these Social Networking programs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, LinkedIn, Going, etc., etc., it seems the more "in communication" I am, the less "productive" and even more so, the less "creative" I feel.
Several years ago when MySpace was all the rage, a friend of mine (who has worked for one of the top Art School's in the U.S. for 20+ years, my alma mater, VA Commonwealth University), declared that "MySpace is killing Art."
About two and a half weeks ago, another friend of mine, sent me a link to this article titled, This is Your Brain on Facebook. Just the weekend before, she and I were having brunch together on the L.E.S. and were talking about our desire to be doing something more creative and interesting when she brought up her thoughts on "taking a break" from FB. She had done this once before with MySpace several years ago and eventually ended up deleting that account. (I still have mine, but rarely go on there anymore except to check out suggested bands).
Yesterday with my declarations and beginning strides in wanting to get back to the "more creative," I decided to "deactivate" my FB account for a while. Within minutes, to my surprise, I received a text message on my cell phone from a friend that read "Did you delete me?!??" Then immediately a 2nd text followed that read "From FB?"
Of course I knew she was referring to Facebook, and wrote back saying "I deleted my entire account. Taking a break." When asked why, I responded, "It's just time." Her reply, "Oh :("
As I was leaving my apartment to go meet a different friend for brunch, it occured to me, should I have sent out a preliminary "warning" that I was going to be deleting my account?
While at brunch, I discussed my recent text message and how I had decided to get rid of Facebook for a while. My friend immediately looked at me with a pouty face and said, "Noooo! Why? Does that mean all of your pictures will be gone too?"
She went on to explain that she understood why I did it, and we both discussed the why's and the why not's to keep the accounts - especially with both of us having so many friends abroad... but ultimately, she seemed genuinely sad that I had gotten rid of my account but told me that she was glad though that I had pre-warned her. [So she wouldn't have thought I had just deleted only her].
As the day progressed, not so surprisingly (because of the recent reactions), I received several more text messages from other friends (both male and female) who initially thought I had just deleted "only them" at first too. But finally figured out that I must have deleted my entire account and were texting me to ask why.
One sms conversation went like this:
Friend: "Hey did u delete your facebook account??"
Me: "Yep this morning. :)"
Friend: "Wow. What happened? You had such prolific photos!"
Me: "Just felt like it was time for a break."
Friend: "Ah yeah. I can understand that."
Friend (again): "Haha at first i was super pissed. Cos i thought u just deleted me. I was like "What!? That!.. oh wait."
Me: "Yeah I've been getting a lot of that today."
Another friend told me she noticed I was 'missing' when she was looking at another mutual friends page and didn't see me up there in the 'mutual friends' column and thought I had just deleted 'him' only. Then after checking out some other mutal friends' lists and then finally her own list, she realized I must have finally taken the plunge. I told her about several of the reactions I had gotten via text and how surprised I was that so many people seemed to be taking it "personally" at first.
Ultimately, after receiving several more "confused" text messages and having a couple long discussions that evening with other friends about my facebook account, I ultimately decided to "reactivate" my account this afternoon and just update my status to "Taking a break from FB."
I suppose this will be a real test of will to see how much self-control I have to stay obsessively off of the page and how genuinely "more productive" and "creatively focused" I will become over the next few months.
Who knew though, that deleting your Facebook account could create such a ruckus?
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