Over the last few months, if not years, I have been growing increasingly tired of Facebook and what it's become. At first it was a neat way to keep up and share your life with people who you didn't see as often or wouldn't have necessarily kept up with at all. You knew what was going on in the lives of those you went to high school or college with. Or were able to see what family members across the country were up to.
Then came the privacy issues. Facebook seemed manipulative and sketchy. Trying to make everything you did public no matter how private you wanted to keep your profile and activity.
Next came the ads and games. Constantly being bombarded with who was playing what no matter how many times you opted out of game news in your feed. And the ads letting you know that your friends 'liked' everything under the sun! And that having a favorite band or movie, which Facebook suggested you list in your info, meant you 'liked' them and always wanted to know what was going with those topics.
And then at some point things really changed! No longer were people sharing their experiences, photos of their vacations or the news that they'd landed a new job or were having a baby. Now the only thing people seemed interested in sharing with their 'friends' were their opinions on who you should vote for, how you should feel about gun laws, asinine e-cards about how women can't do anything in life at all without a glass of wine and of course the posts that if you don't immediately copy and share indicate to the world that you don't care about childhood illnesses/a God/ puppies/dying people in underprivileged communities/etc.
I finally couldn't take it anymore and was over it! I decided that for the next month I was going to deactivate my account and see what life was like Facebook free. Anxious to see how I spend the extra free time at work. Curious to see if I am still in the loop with my close friend and families lives. It's going to be an interesting experiment for sure. And if all goes as planned, come March 1st I'll head back to Facebook, reactivate my account long enough to delete every last bit of my information then permanently delete my account for good.
All this said I'm not ready to drop all 'social networking' outlets. I very much enjoy the simplicity and freedom Twitter provides in 140 characters or less. And as a Google slut, of course I'm a big fan of the growing community in Google plus. I realize Google plus is ultimately the same concept as Facebook, however it's cleaner, simpler, and not preachy (yet!). And the circles are swell!
We'll see how this next month goes and what decision is made come March 1st!
Glad I can keep up with you here, then! xoxo
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