How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 6: Wisdom

After many experiences that might have been a bit easier with Facebook, it's natural that I would come to doubt my decision. Was it really wise for me to exclude myself from what had become an essential communication method among my friends and family? It was beginning to seem like life without Facebook was as isolating as life without a phone: I was out of the loop, inconvenienced, having to go out of my way to find out what others knew so easily, or even forcing others to go out of their way if they did want to make sure I was informed.

My friends would make a big deal about things like sending me pictures, telling me about upcoming parties, or filling me in on important news about their lives, making it clear that they’d be saved quite a lot of trouble if only I hadn’t quit Facebook. Rather than social media making a normal life easier, it seemed that it was making life normal - much as drug users or drinkers begin by using their drug to enhance life, but later find that they need more and more of it just to feel normal.

And it wasn't just me feeling that effect. My quitting Facebook affected my friends' lives as well. Just knowing me was making my friends’ lives harder, because it was an uphill struggle for them just to keep me informed of basic social goings-on. I was dragging them down every time I so much as asked them “what’s up with you lately?” and forced them to recap what had already been communicated in several recent status updates. My dad even made some off-hand comments about how, if I was the last to find out about some important development among my friends or family - say, a birth, or a death, or some other important news - it would be my own fault, for not being on Facebook.

I bought into that philosophy, and almost gave in and rejoined Facebook for the sake of my friends and my social life. After all, who was I to turn up my nose at what was obviously an important part of modern life? Who was I to make life harder for others just for my own petty, stubborn reasons?

But soon I shook those kinds of thoughts off, because they’re not based on anything resembling fact. I’m not the only person in the world without Facebook, and I’m not exactly hard to reach. I read and respond to emails, I answer my phone, and I’m active on other social networking sites such as Twitter and Google+. Not only that, but I get out. I get together with friends and family in person as frequently as my schedule and theirs will allow. I’m not inconveniencing my friends by forcing them to communicate with me in ways other than through Facebook; in fact, if someone insisted on rejecting all forms of communication other than Facebook, they would be far more guilty than I.

In December of 2012, fourteen months after I quit Facebook, I went to a wedding. The invitations were sent out over the summer, detailing the time, date, and location of the event, and instructing guests to bring food - the reception would be potluck-style, rather than catered, and would be held at the church where the ceremony was to take place. Simple enough, but not everything goes according to plan.

Less than a month before the date of the wedding, it was decided that the reception would take place at another church, some four miles from the ceremony, because of space restrictions. This is not especially difficult, provided the information is conveyed to all the guests, especially those who would be bringing food that would need to be refrigerated or kept warm.

Here’s how the bride and her family decided to inform their guests of the change in plans: they updated the event’s Facebook page. That’s all. No mass email was sent out, not even a phone call. People would be traveling from far and wide to attend this wedding - some even from overseas. One would think that a greater effort to communicate changes in the plan would be called for in an event of this size and significance. Weddings, even low-budget, casual ones, are pretty high-tension affairs, and preparation is the key to prevent catastrophic destruction and hurt feelings.

This is my plea to all Facebook users, and anyone finding herself overly dependent on one website or one technology: don’t assume everyone has access to it. Spend some time thinking about how your friends and family members and other associates prefer to communicate, and make at least a small attempt to consider that when deciding how to spread your important news. Over-communication is preferable to under-communication when it comes to things like wedding plans, parties, births, deaths, or changes of address and phone number, and it’s better to waste some energy on redundant communications than to have someone not get the message because they happened to be paying attention to different lines of communication than you.

It’s a big, complicated world out there, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to any given problem. If you want to stay in touch with a lot of different people, the best way to do it is to use multiple methods at once - not to just stick to one and expect everyone else to use it too.

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I emerged from Facebook a little wiser, a little more jaded, perhaps even a trifle more isolated - but with a new understanding of how insidiously a social network can infect a culture, until it seems as invisible and as necessary as the air we breathe. But it’s only as necessary as we make it: I managed to escape, and so can you. All you have to do is make the break, and stick to it. It’ll be hard, especially at first, but I believe that we are greater than our technological addictions give us credit for.

And if you decide to stay, at least take the time to reflect on the other ways that you communicate with friends and family - if you have other ways - and try to create a balance. There are so many different ways to communicate in this technological world. It would be a shame to miss out.