Whilst on a walk with friends last Monday, the topic of Facebook came up. My friend spoke about how a friend of hers "checks in" to pretty much everywhere she goes, even to her bed. Now to me this is totally barbaric. She is letting the entire world know (her profile is public) where she is at any given time. This is making her more prone to mugging, burgulary, maybe even bullying.
We then went on to talk about the people who we are friends with on Facebook. Awhile ago I deleted a large number of Facebook "friends," because, quite literally, I wasn't their friend, nor was I interacting with them in any way on Facebook, so I saw no point in carrying on as social networking friends. My friend mentioned that you can make people acquaintances and therefore let acquaintances and friends see different things, mainly letting acquaintances see hardly anything. Basically you stay friends with them for the sake of it.
I got all excited and couldn't wait to get home to make people acquaintances because I have a niggling feeling that people stalk me so much more than I stalk them. Quite frankly I only check out the newsfeed on my homepage and the photos and statuses that go with it. I don't just randomly hop onto peoples' pages for a nosey (I am telling the truth, I really don't). I hop on when I want to contact them and even then I usually do this by private mail so that everyone around me can't see my weekend plans etc.
I am friends with people on Facebook because they asked me, or we occasionally say hi on the street, or sometimes we've only exchanged a few words once. Yet, do I really want all of these people seeing all of my fabulous weekends I have with actual real-life friends or my exotic college trip to Cuba? I didn't, so I started to make people acquaintances and change my privacy settings. After I had completed this I just had a notion to deactivate my profile. So I did. Eight days ago. And I haven't looked back since.
However, I didn't know what type of affect my deactivation could have on the people around me, especially those who are close to me and didn't know what I had done. Cousins of mine noticed and found out I deactivated it, but were looking at themselves for the reason I had deleted it. Was is because of their ridiculous conversations that I get into? No it wasn't, because I actually find their take on everyday life with a family and kids quite entertaining and refreshing. I've heard it all from flues, to vomiting, to toe nails falling off. A male friend of mine had thought that I deleted him and eventually text me and asked me after a load of beers. I told him not to be silly, that I had just deactivated it and so he said he didn't feel stupid anymore.
It seems to me that Facebook friendship is becoming more and more real to people. People get upset if you delete them. They think they have done something wrong. I think that people are looking into it too much. I wouldn't notice if someone deleted me or deactivated their own profile, nor would I care. My statuses might have annoyed them or the glorious photos of me having a lovely time on nights out could of angered them because they are constantly sitting on the couch at the weekend, so who am I to judge?
So, yes. I deactivated my profile and saw how this affected people more than I thought it would. My friends don't have photos of themselves that I have taken and uploaded anymore too. I know that it is not the last I have seen of Facebook because there will be a time when I want to hop on to chat to someone, but I think that what I was going for was a bit more privacy, and for people to have to make a little bit more of an effort when wanting to contact me.
Yes, I am missing out on random gossips and chats and photos that people put up about this and that, but do I really care? Instead of sitting on the computer waiting for someone to upload a new status to my homepage I am being proactive writing this, I am researching things that will help me move on in the world, I am on Twitter so that I can find out information that I have chosen to and that actually interests me.
I have taken a stand and I'm wondering how long it will last.
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