Colie, who is almost three years old, needs to put on his shoes so we can be ready to go out in a few minutes. The shoes are clearly visible on the living room floor, but he wanders around the room saying "I can't find it!"
"Yes you can," I say. "You're not looking hard."
"I don't know," he says, while carefully turning his back to the shoes. "Is it... behind me?"
I sigh impatiently.
Suddenly Colie spins around and flings his arm forward to point directly at the shoes. "Aha!" he shouts excitedly. "There it is!"
***
Ever since she was a kitten, Tetra has loved receipts. Crumple one up and throw it; she'll run after it like a cheetah after a gazelle. When it stops moving, she'll strike it with her paw to send it flying and resume the chase.
One day, after playing this way for a solid twenty minutes, she abruptly stops and walks nonchalantly away from the little ball of paper. Her whole demeanor seems to say "Receipt? What receipt? I didn't see any receipt."
Moments later, upon casually turning her head, she catches sight of it out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly on the alert, she crouches, tail twitching, and the hunt is on again.
***
It's not just animals and children. People love to feign ignorance in conversation, either to make a point, to prod someone into explaining their position, or just as a joke. My mother's favorite game involves deliberately misunderstanding what others are saying.
"It's almost time to start planting zucchini."
"Zucchini. Isn't that a long flat noodle?"
"No, Mom, that's linguine."
"Oh. I thought that was an expert on languages."
"That's a linguist."
"Really? Huh. I always thought that meant..."
"Shut up, Mom."
***
Why is it so fun to pretend not to know what you know? Why do we get so much pleasure from feigning ignorance? From whence comes that secret delight when the moment approaches, you turn, open your eyes up wide, and "discover" what has been obvious the whole time?
Maybe we just like to fool people, but that doesn't explain why we enjoy blatantly faking it as well as subtly deceiving. I'm more inclined to believe that the process of learning - the journey from ignorance to knowledge - is so intensely fulfilling that even play-acting the process is enjoyable enough to be a fun game. Acting and re-enacting the moment of discovery over and over again prolongs the excitement and the thrill of the chase.
Why is it so fun to pretend not to know what you know? I don't have a clue, but I'm looking forward to figuring it out. Maybe it has something to do with the pleasure we get from learning something new...
Friday, April 26, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
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.
***
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.
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.
***
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.
Monday, April 08, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 5: Disaster
In April of 2012, seven months after I quit Facebook, my fiance and I cancelled our wedding. We need not go into the details - this is about my relationship to a social networking site, not to my ex. Suffice to say that most of the arrangements had been made, and the wedding was scheduled to take place in less than a month. It was to be a relatively small event, and casual; about a hundred and thirty people had been invited (the old-fashioned way, by a card sent in the mail, thank you very much). The most urgent matter facing us once we’d decided to cancel was to make sure all these people got the memo before they’d made any irreversible preparations.
It was hard, but I didn't have to do it all on my own. I called my mom, and she sent out an email to everyone on the guest list whose email address she knew. My ex-fiance made a similar request of his own mother. Right up until the date of the wedding itself, I was still calling friends to make sure they’d personally been reminded not to show up.
When Jasen and I started dating, and we were both on Facebook, our change of status from “single” to “in a relationship" with one another started a flurry of comments. All our friends and “Facebook friends”, whether we wanted them to or not, could see and comment on our new romantic attachment. It was a little daunting, having everyone so suddenly and effortlessly know, with only a few keystrokes and a click of the “save changes” button. Jasen and I were both rather introverted, and having so much public attention on our personal relationship was awkward, although it was much more uncomfortable for him than for me. After all, his last relationship had begun and ended before he’d joined any sort of social network, whereas I’d never had a relationship that wasn’t televised over the internet.
I’d assumed that ending my relationship in private, without Facebook to spread the news faster than wildfire and faster than I could control, would make it easier - after all, nobody would know before I told them myself, and I could be spared the constant questions and curiosity of friends and “Facebook friends” alike. In retrospect, however, Facebook’s cold, impersonal, instantaneous “Oh, by they way, two years of love and commitment are now out the window” accompanied by a cute little broken-heart icon would have been preferable over the long slog of phone calls, emails, and awkward conversations needed to do what Facebook would have done in one quick, effortless status change. Even acquaintances who hadn't been invited to the wedding eventually had to find out, and because it wasn't broadcast all over the internet, the news had to come directly from one of us.
After many awkward, tedious conversations, I began to see the value of Facebook as an aid to the introverted and the socially challenged, capable of disseminating these crucial bits of news: who’s dating whom, who’s moving where, who’s got a job or is looking for one, who needs a drinking buddy for an impulsive night of celebration of commiseration - without the stress and difficulty of all that pesky “interpersonal interaction.”
Yeah, it was hard, but not impossible. I got through it relatively unscathed and only a little bit traumatized. The harder part came later.
A year ago, I was still recovering from the breakup and still unpacking from my move when more bad news struck like lightning right after getting a nice new outfit soaked in a rainstorm. I learned the news from my mom, but she had learned it from Facebook: my brother had been diagnosed with cancer.
Before I go on, let me reassure you that after six months of Chemo my brother is cancer-free and doing just fine.
But at the time of the diagnosis, our family was wracked with anxiety. And since my brother was posting updates about his condition and the results of various tests on Facebook, I felt more isolated and out-of-the-loop than ever before. I had to depend on my mother to convey any news to me after she had learned it on Facebook. For the first few weeks after the diagnosis, I seriously considered rejoining the site. Not receiving updates on his health was unacceptable to me, but so was the idea of making him go out of the way to include me in his news-dissemination when he was already dealing with so much. I was wracked with a harrowing combination of guilt, worry, uncertainty, and doubt. Could I afford to keep my pride and my relative isolation in light of this development?
Fortunately, I was saved from this dilemma when someone (or perhaps several someones) convinced my brother to revive his old blog so that he could post updates about his diagnosis and treatment processes. Apparently there are a lot of cancer blogs out there, and a lot of reasons to keep one. If you're interested you can read my brother's blog here: http://bluesmasterelf.blogspot.com/
For the next several months, I checked this blog obsessively - perhaps as obsessively as some people check Facebook. I did not feel out of the loop, and in fact sometimes it seemed that I was getting news before other people did. Some more important pieces of news were still conveyed over the phone to my mom, who would then inform other members of the family. In some situations this system was much more prompt and efficient than computer-based media. In this way, our family stayed in touch throughout the treatment process.
After these events, I felt that I had experienced the absolute worst that life outside of Facebook could mean for me. Having weathered the ordeals without succumbing to the urge to rejoin the fold, I felt stronger than ever in my conviction that I had made the correct choice. And I can say with relative certainty that should you make this choice yourself, it will not be the wrong choice for you either.
There's more! To find out what happened next, go on to The Sixth and Final Part.
It was hard, but I didn't have to do it all on my own. I called my mom, and she sent out an email to everyone on the guest list whose email address she knew. My ex-fiance made a similar request of his own mother. Right up until the date of the wedding itself, I was still calling friends to make sure they’d personally been reminded not to show up.
When Jasen and I started dating, and we were both on Facebook, our change of status from “single” to “in a relationship" with one another started a flurry of comments. All our friends and “Facebook friends”, whether we wanted them to or not, could see and comment on our new romantic attachment. It was a little daunting, having everyone so suddenly and effortlessly know, with only a few keystrokes and a click of the “save changes” button. Jasen and I were both rather introverted, and having so much public attention on our personal relationship was awkward, although it was much more uncomfortable for him than for me. After all, his last relationship had begun and ended before he’d joined any sort of social network, whereas I’d never had a relationship that wasn’t televised over the internet.
I’d assumed that ending my relationship in private, without Facebook to spread the news faster than wildfire and faster than I could control, would make it easier - after all, nobody would know before I told them myself, and I could be spared the constant questions and curiosity of friends and “Facebook friends” alike. In retrospect, however, Facebook’s cold, impersonal, instantaneous “Oh, by they way, two years of love and commitment are now out the window” accompanied by a cute little broken-heart icon would have been preferable over the long slog of phone calls, emails, and awkward conversations needed to do what Facebook would have done in one quick, effortless status change. Even acquaintances who hadn't been invited to the wedding eventually had to find out, and because it wasn't broadcast all over the internet, the news had to come directly from one of us.
After many awkward, tedious conversations, I began to see the value of Facebook as an aid to the introverted and the socially challenged, capable of disseminating these crucial bits of news: who’s dating whom, who’s moving where, who’s got a job or is looking for one, who needs a drinking buddy for an impulsive night of celebration of commiseration - without the stress and difficulty of all that pesky “interpersonal interaction.”
Yeah, it was hard, but not impossible. I got through it relatively unscathed and only a little bit traumatized. The harder part came later.
A year ago, I was still recovering from the breakup and still unpacking from my move when more bad news struck like lightning right after getting a nice new outfit soaked in a rainstorm. I learned the news from my mom, but she had learned it from Facebook: my brother had been diagnosed with cancer.
Before I go on, let me reassure you that after six months of Chemo my brother is cancer-free and doing just fine.
But at the time of the diagnosis, our family was wracked with anxiety. And since my brother was posting updates about his condition and the results of various tests on Facebook, I felt more isolated and out-of-the-loop than ever before. I had to depend on my mother to convey any news to me after she had learned it on Facebook. For the first few weeks after the diagnosis, I seriously considered rejoining the site. Not receiving updates on his health was unacceptable to me, but so was the idea of making him go out of the way to include me in his news-dissemination when he was already dealing with so much. I was wracked with a harrowing combination of guilt, worry, uncertainty, and doubt. Could I afford to keep my pride and my relative isolation in light of this development?
Fortunately, I was saved from this dilemma when someone (or perhaps several someones) convinced my brother to revive his old blog so that he could post updates about his diagnosis and treatment processes. Apparently there are a lot of cancer blogs out there, and a lot of reasons to keep one. If you're interested you can read my brother's blog here: http://bluesmasterelf.blogspot.com/
For the next several months, I checked this blog obsessively - perhaps as obsessively as some people check Facebook. I did not feel out of the loop, and in fact sometimes it seemed that I was getting news before other people did. Some more important pieces of news were still conveyed over the phone to my mom, who would then inform other members of the family. In some situations this system was much more prompt and efficient than computer-based media. In this way, our family stayed in touch throughout the treatment process.
After these events, I felt that I had experienced the absolute worst that life outside of Facebook could mean for me. Having weathered the ordeals without succumbing to the urge to rejoin the fold, I felt stronger than ever in my conviction that I had made the correct choice. And I can say with relative certainty that should you make this choice yourself, it will not be the wrong choice for you either.
There's more! To find out what happened next, go on to The Sixth and Final Part.
Friday, April 05, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 4: Separation Angst
The changes were subtle, at first, and mostly positive. When I went online, I found myself getting bored much more easily. There simply wasn't as much to do with the many idle moments of the day. This gave me more of an impetus to do some exploring and find new regions of the vast internet to enjoy, or even to get out of my chair and find something useful to do. I also found myself less likely to get irritated, possibly owing to my lack of exposure to irritating things. Overall, life became ever so slightly more interesting and less stressful. Ever so slightly.
Meanwhile, Google+, the young up-and-coming, was not taking off as spectacularly as I’d hoped. Sure, it had plenty of cool-sounding features, but very few of my friends had leapt onto that particular wagon yet. Why should they, when they still had Facebook? The few friends I did have on Google+ tended to post things on it as an afterthought, if at all; they were already posting to Facebook, and using one more network would be more hassle to them, not less. More than once I logged onto Google+, started a hangout, sighed, and logged out, having made no soulful connections energized by clever, streamlined technology.
Something else was happening that I had not anticipated. When I first joined Facebook in 2007, it was growing in popularity but not even close to the memetic leviathon that it is today. Until then, it had been restricted to those with email addresses affiliated with approved schools and companies, and had only just changed that policy. This made Facebook the elite, non-trashy, intellectual alternative to Myspace, which was fast becoming a breeding ground for glittery backgrounds and instantly-playing pop music videos. Not being on Facebook in 2007 was a nonissue, unlikely to have much effect on one's social life.
When I quit Facebook four years later, I naively assumed my life would return to something like its previous facebookless state (apart from the unrelated changes my life had taken since then). Unfortunately, the Facebook I left was the not the Facebook I had joined in the first place. It had not only grown and mutated like a fast-adapting alien life form introduced to the lush and unsuspecting ecosystem of Earth, but it had infiltrated the rest of my world behind my back, snaking its tendrils into every facet of the media and culture around me. I did not see the extent of the invasion until I myself was free of its grasp, and could look upon it with untainted vision.
Ads not only online but on TV and in printed media always contained the phrase "like us on Facebook!" along with a promise of better deals or special updates for those who did. Some even included a link to a Facebook page in lieu of an email address or even a phone number - meaning that without Facebook, I had no way to contact them. And it wasn't just advertisers who had been infected - everyone seemed obsessed. Hanging out with friends (in person, of course; I have yet to successfully attend a “hang out” of the Google+ variety) often devolved into a discussion of “Did you see what so-and-so posted on my wall?” Facebook was referenced on other websites, on TV, on the streets, everywhere. Everywhere I looked it was Facebook this, Facebook that, Facebook Facebook Facebook!
It got a little grating at times.
I wish I could say that the great Facebook invasion (turning all my friends and family eerily like-minded, almost turning them into a hive mind connected through an invisible newsfeed) was simply a matter of superficial annoyance, but the truth is the effects ran much deeper. Slightly more serious consequences began when my best friend, whom I knew was planning a Christmas party, neglected to invite me. As the date of the party approached, I began to worry. I was secure enough in our friendship to assume I was welcome, but at least wanted a notification of the start time, and part of me was still old-fashioned enough to be more comfortable with a formal invitation. Eventually, with only a few days left, I broached the topic.
“Have you sent out invitations?” I asked.
“Yeah, I set up an event on Facebook,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Facebook.”
“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you quit."
One might assume that such omissions were simply part of the adjustment process, a transitional situation in which people were still getting used to the idea of me not being on Facebook. But as the months went by, I kept finding myself left out of important social interactions, and it didn't seem to be getting any better.
In September, eleven months after I quit Facebook, I wanted to talk to a friend with whom I hadn’t been in touch for a little while. I gave him a call, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Knowing that he works an odd schedule sometimes, I assumed that he was at work, so I left him a message so he could get back to me.
A week went by.
Thinking he perhaps had been planning to get back to me, but then forgotten, I called again. Again, his phone went straight to voicemail. I called a few more times over the course of a weekend, wondering at my bad luck that he just happened to be at work each time I called. If it had been any other friend, I might have shot him an email, but I knew that this friend preferred not to use email. I gave him another week to get back to me, and by the end of that week I had begun to get nervous. Had I somehow offended him? Or had something happened that was keeping him from returning my calls?
I was talking on the phone to another friend, the same friend who had neglected to invite me to her party the year before. I mentioned my difficulties getting in touch with our mutual acquaintance. “Wait,” she said. “How long has it been since you talked with him?”
“About a month or so. Why?”
“I think he changed his phone number.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. I read about it on Facebook. Hang on, I’ll see if I can find the post.” I heard the sound of her typing fingers over the speaker of my phone. “Ah, I found it. He changed it about a month ago. Ready to write this down?” I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down the numbers she read to me, then we said our goodbyes and I dialed the new number into my phone.
He promptly answered. “Hello?”
“You changed your phone number,” I said accusingly, but also lovingly.
“... Yes.” He clearly didn’t think this was cause for alarm.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
There was a pause. “But I posted it on... Oh yeah! I’m sorry.”
It wouldn’t be the last time that I missed out on some important social newsbit that had been disseminated on Facebook, and nowhere else. I would have thought that any important information would come to me by other avenues. Most people knew my phone number, and I was readily available by email and on Twitter and Google+ (which I still had not given up on), so I did not anticipate being so out of the loop. After all, if you have an important bit of information you want to share with as many people as possible - say a party, the results of an ultrasound, or some crucial gossip - it’s in your best interests to distribute it in as many ways possible, just in case not everyone is paying attention to the same channels. At least, that is what I had assumed based on many years of experience. It turns out, this is no longer the wisest course of action. These days it's far more effective to restrict all your communications to a single channel, because all you friends and family, without exception, are using Facebook.
Quitting meant that my friends would have to go out of their way to keep me in the loop, and it really wasn’t worth it to them. Once I realized this, I could have been offended, but instead I felt humbled, even ashamed. My decision to quit Facebook had been engineered to convenience me, not to inconvenience others.
But this did not cause me to reconsider my decision. I was out, and overall, I enjoyed it. Over the months I grew accustomed to being sometimes out of the loop, and to having to make a little extra effort to communicate with the people I care about - after all, I could hardly expect them to go out of their way to include me if I wasn’t willing to go a little out of my way to be included. I was soon to learn, however, that the practice in assertive self-inclusion I got from those first few forgotten invitations and misfired communications would soon be tested with some truly harrowing disasters.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 5.
Meanwhile, Google+, the young up-and-coming, was not taking off as spectacularly as I’d hoped. Sure, it had plenty of cool-sounding features, but very few of my friends had leapt onto that particular wagon yet. Why should they, when they still had Facebook? The few friends I did have on Google+ tended to post things on it as an afterthought, if at all; they were already posting to Facebook, and using one more network would be more hassle to them, not less. More than once I logged onto Google+, started a hangout, sighed, and logged out, having made no soulful connections energized by clever, streamlined technology.
Something else was happening that I had not anticipated. When I first joined Facebook in 2007, it was growing in popularity but not even close to the memetic leviathon that it is today. Until then, it had been restricted to those with email addresses affiliated with approved schools and companies, and had only just changed that policy. This made Facebook the elite, non-trashy, intellectual alternative to Myspace, which was fast becoming a breeding ground for glittery backgrounds and instantly-playing pop music videos. Not being on Facebook in 2007 was a nonissue, unlikely to have much effect on one's social life.
When I quit Facebook four years later, I naively assumed my life would return to something like its previous facebookless state (apart from the unrelated changes my life had taken since then). Unfortunately, the Facebook I left was the not the Facebook I had joined in the first place. It had not only grown and mutated like a fast-adapting alien life form introduced to the lush and unsuspecting ecosystem of Earth, but it had infiltrated the rest of my world behind my back, snaking its tendrils into every facet of the media and culture around me. I did not see the extent of the invasion until I myself was free of its grasp, and could look upon it with untainted vision.
Ads not only online but on TV and in printed media always contained the phrase "like us on Facebook!" along with a promise of better deals or special updates for those who did. Some even included a link to a Facebook page in lieu of an email address or even a phone number - meaning that without Facebook, I had no way to contact them. And it wasn't just advertisers who had been infected - everyone seemed obsessed. Hanging out with friends (in person, of course; I have yet to successfully attend a “hang out” of the Google+ variety) often devolved into a discussion of “Did you see what so-and-so posted on my wall?” Facebook was referenced on other websites, on TV, on the streets, everywhere. Everywhere I looked it was Facebook this, Facebook that, Facebook Facebook Facebook!
It got a little grating at times.
I wish I could say that the great Facebook invasion (turning all my friends and family eerily like-minded, almost turning them into a hive mind connected through an invisible newsfeed) was simply a matter of superficial annoyance, but the truth is the effects ran much deeper. Slightly more serious consequences began when my best friend, whom I knew was planning a Christmas party, neglected to invite me. As the date of the party approached, I began to worry. I was secure enough in our friendship to assume I was welcome, but at least wanted a notification of the start time, and part of me was still old-fashioned enough to be more comfortable with a formal invitation. Eventually, with only a few days left, I broached the topic.
“Have you sent out invitations?” I asked.
“Yeah, I set up an event on Facebook,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Facebook.”
“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you quit."
One might assume that such omissions were simply part of the adjustment process, a transitional situation in which people were still getting used to the idea of me not being on Facebook. But as the months went by, I kept finding myself left out of important social interactions, and it didn't seem to be getting any better.
In September, eleven months after I quit Facebook, I wanted to talk to a friend with whom I hadn’t been in touch for a little while. I gave him a call, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Knowing that he works an odd schedule sometimes, I assumed that he was at work, so I left him a message so he could get back to me.
A week went by.
Thinking he perhaps had been planning to get back to me, but then forgotten, I called again. Again, his phone went straight to voicemail. I called a few more times over the course of a weekend, wondering at my bad luck that he just happened to be at work each time I called. If it had been any other friend, I might have shot him an email, but I knew that this friend preferred not to use email. I gave him another week to get back to me, and by the end of that week I had begun to get nervous. Had I somehow offended him? Or had something happened that was keeping him from returning my calls?
I was talking on the phone to another friend, the same friend who had neglected to invite me to her party the year before. I mentioned my difficulties getting in touch with our mutual acquaintance. “Wait,” she said. “How long has it been since you talked with him?”
“About a month or so. Why?”
“I think he changed his phone number.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. I read about it on Facebook. Hang on, I’ll see if I can find the post.” I heard the sound of her typing fingers over the speaker of my phone. “Ah, I found it. He changed it about a month ago. Ready to write this down?” I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down the numbers she read to me, then we said our goodbyes and I dialed the new number into my phone.
He promptly answered. “Hello?”
“You changed your phone number,” I said accusingly, but also lovingly.
“... Yes.” He clearly didn’t think this was cause for alarm.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
There was a pause. “But I posted it on... Oh yeah! I’m sorry.”
It wouldn’t be the last time that I missed out on some important social newsbit that had been disseminated on Facebook, and nowhere else. I would have thought that any important information would come to me by other avenues. Most people knew my phone number, and I was readily available by email and on Twitter and Google+ (which I still had not given up on), so I did not anticipate being so out of the loop. After all, if you have an important bit of information you want to share with as many people as possible - say a party, the results of an ultrasound, or some crucial gossip - it’s in your best interests to distribute it in as many ways possible, just in case not everyone is paying attention to the same channels. At least, that is what I had assumed based on many years of experience. It turns out, this is no longer the wisest course of action. These days it's far more effective to restrict all your communications to a single channel, because all you friends and family, without exception, are using Facebook.
Quitting meant that my friends would have to go out of their way to keep me in the loop, and it really wasn’t worth it to them. Once I realized this, I could have been offended, but instead I felt humbled, even ashamed. My decision to quit Facebook had been engineered to convenience me, not to inconvenience others.
But this did not cause me to reconsider my decision. I was out, and overall, I enjoyed it. Over the months I grew accustomed to being sometimes out of the loop, and to having to make a little extra effort to communicate with the people I care about - after all, I could hardly expect them to go out of their way to include me if I wasn’t willing to go a little out of my way to be included. I was soon to learn, however, that the practice in assertive self-inclusion I got from those first few forgotten invitations and misfired communications would soon be tested with some truly harrowing disasters.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 5.
Monday, April 01, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 3: The Momentary Lapse
Unfortunately, a “clean break” isn’t always as clean as you’d like it to be. Habits, even dangerous ones, can be very hard to overcome. Your mind lets its guard down just for a moment, and your body goes on autopilot, as when you’re on your way down a familiar stretch of road, you zone out on the highway screaming along to your favorite song, end up taking the wrong exit, and are now on your way to your old job - or your ex’s house.
So it was with me, mere hours after quitting Facebook. Later that same day, after checking my email and scrolling through several pages of lolcats, I became hypnotized, just as if I were on a familiar highway. I went on autopilot; I began tapping the keys absent-mindedly. When one, by chance, turned out to be the F key, in a flash my other hand shot over to the mouse and selected the autofilled URL of Facebook. It loaded immediately, and with a swiftness born of years of practice, my fingers hammered out the six-to-twelve characters of my password, reactivating my account. I had already scrolled through several posts before I realized, with horror, what I’d done. I threw aside the mouse as if it were something the cat had left me, and I shrank away from the desk, hissing faintly and guarding my vital organs.
I would guess that this is the social-networking equivolent of waking up next to your recently-dumped ex. In addition to the shame of realizing just how weak your self-control is, there’s the matter of dealing with the aftermath. You must reiterate once again the entire breaking-up process, except this time, your words lack the strength of finality due to your having demonstrated, in painfully explicit detail, just how precisely “no” means “no.”
And so, once again, I had to de-reactivate my account, with all the same whys and are-you-sures and confirmations and verifications. I may have imagined it, but this time, Facebook seemed less in shock and more gleeful, now that it knew that my every “yes I’m sure” could still mean “we’ll see.” I closed the tab with a grimace of shame, vowing never again.
If only it were that simple. Over the course of the following week, it happened more times than I’d ever like to recall. It got so that the process of de-re-de-re-deactivating my account became almost as automatic as that first inadvertent sign-in. After several days, tired of playing out the same tragic dance again and again, I tried to think of a way to force myself to stop. I needed help.
It occurred to me that, even with my account deactivated, Chrome remembered to fill in my username on the sign-in page, even if I’d managed to keep it from remembering my password. If I could get it to forget my username as well, would the extra step involved in signing in help break the cycle? It was worth a try. I cleared my browser history, something we all need to start doing more regularly, and checked back; the username field was now blank.
That did it. That one tiny change was enough. The next time I went on autopilot and typed in the Facebook URL, the blank username field gave me just enough of a pause to break the spell, shake me out of my trance, and bring me back into my senses. Then I could close the tab and make my escape. Finally, I was free. For real this time.
Promise.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 4.
So it was with me, mere hours after quitting Facebook. Later that same day, after checking my email and scrolling through several pages of lolcats, I became hypnotized, just as if I were on a familiar highway. I went on autopilot; I began tapping the keys absent-mindedly. When one, by chance, turned out to be the F key, in a flash my other hand shot over to the mouse and selected the autofilled URL of Facebook. It loaded immediately, and with a swiftness born of years of practice, my fingers hammered out the six-to-twelve characters of my password, reactivating my account. I had already scrolled through several posts before I realized, with horror, what I’d done. I threw aside the mouse as if it were something the cat had left me, and I shrank away from the desk, hissing faintly and guarding my vital organs.
I would guess that this is the social-networking equivolent of waking up next to your recently-dumped ex. In addition to the shame of realizing just how weak your self-control is, there’s the matter of dealing with the aftermath. You must reiterate once again the entire breaking-up process, except this time, your words lack the strength of finality due to your having demonstrated, in painfully explicit detail, just how precisely “no” means “no.”
And so, once again, I had to de-reactivate my account, with all the same whys and are-you-sures and confirmations and verifications. I may have imagined it, but this time, Facebook seemed less in shock and more gleeful, now that it knew that my every “yes I’m sure” could still mean “we’ll see.” I closed the tab with a grimace of shame, vowing never again.
If only it were that simple. Over the course of the following week, it happened more times than I’d ever like to recall. It got so that the process of de-re-de-re-deactivating my account became almost as automatic as that first inadvertent sign-in. After several days, tired of playing out the same tragic dance again and again, I tried to think of a way to force myself to stop. I needed help.
It occurred to me that, even with my account deactivated, Chrome remembered to fill in my username on the sign-in page, even if I’d managed to keep it from remembering my password. If I could get it to forget my username as well, would the extra step involved in signing in help break the cycle? It was worth a try. I cleared my browser history, something we all need to start doing more regularly, and checked back; the username field was now blank.
That did it. That one tiny change was enough. The next time I went on autopilot and typed in the Facebook URL, the blank username field gave me just enough of a pause to break the spell, shake me out of my trance, and bring me back into my senses. Then I could close the tab and make my escape. Finally, I was free. For real this time.
Promise.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 4.
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