Living in a Facebook-less world is an interesting experience. I’m certainly not alone — others have quit too, and still others never joined.
I no longer am as in touch with what family members halfway around the world are doing on a daily basis — I hear about the most important stuff through email or phones, but the little interesting details are lost. But so are the other details I’m not as interested in, and in my experience, the noise of Facebook outweighs the signal about 10-to-1.
Leo has written an interesting post here on how things have gone for him without Facebook. Like Leo, I also quit Facebook, and I have had positive results from the experience. Unlike Leo, I also eschew the other social networking platforms like Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, etc.
I don't know how to describe it, but I suppose it is how a smoker feels when they give up the cigarettes. They notice the freshness of the air and how good it feels to breathe. This is what life online feels like without Facebook.
These are the steps I have taken to simplify my online life recently:
--Went off Facebook
--Pared down to one blog
--Ended comments on the blog
--Cut my news feed on my Google Reader to whatever Google News spits out
Things are much quieter and more manageable for me as a result of these changes. I admit that I am probably missing out on some things as I don't spend time following them anymore. But I am not hermetically sealed in a chamber either.
I can't say what I have missed. What I can say is that I have never run out of things to read, and I have not missed out on the things that really mattered to me. I can also say that I have missed things because I was spending too much time on Facebook. All things considered, leaving Facebook has been a good thing for me.
0 comments:
Post a Comment