Loveday Writing

For seven months I lived without Facebook. When I made this decision, it was because I had been through a lot in that particular time of my life—a good friend of mine died suddenly, my grandfather died which lead to a family feud which resulted in me cutting out several family members out of my life (one of them decided to use social media to talk about me behind my back) and I also found out a friend wasn’t really my friend. At the end of that year, I decided to step back and take a break from Facebook.

When I ironically announced on Facebook that I would be “going off” Facebook and asked everyone to give me their emails and phone numbers so I could stay in touch, some people did what I asked and gave me their contact details without saying a word or asking questions, some of them said I shouldn’t go off it but still gave me their contact details anyway, but most people laughed at me and said I wouldn’t last long. They also asked me how I could live without Facebook or how I think I could live without it, I reminded them that Facebook has only been around for seven years (it was 2011 at the time) and that I haven’t had a Facebook account for my entire life and I certainly don’t need Facebook to stay alive. They said that was a good point but that it didn’t change their lack of faith in me.

When I finally deleted my Facebook account nothing changed. I still talked to my friends both face to face and over the phone and there were plenty of other things on the internet to explore both for uni assessments and for fun, so I wasn’t missing anything by not going on Facebook. After a while my friends light hearted ridicule about living without Facebook died down and they got on with their lives just like I did. My friends got use to me texting them more often and they got use to texting me back. My classmates got use to texting and emailing me when we had to complete group assessments.

In July 2012 shortly after my 22^nd birthday and a few months after moving into a new university accommodation to have a fresh start after the hard period of my life, I decided to go back on Facebook. It made getting to know my new friends at this new accommodation and completing assessments a little easier. I was glad to be out of my social media/Facebook hibernation, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the seven months away from it. I personally don’t view myself as an addict as I don’t log in to Facebook in the middle of the night or during events and it’s the only social media account that I have, I can’t access it on my phone and I can easily live without it again if I want to or felt the need to. Surprisingly only one person I use to be friends with made the comment about the fact that I was now back on it even though I said I wouldn’t be and called my decision a stupid thing to do, but I didn’t care.

I have a different relationship with Facebook since going back on it after seven months of staying away from it. I’m not just friends with people I use to work with or friends of friends, my Facebook friends now are people I am actually friends with and family that I am close to. I also don’t post as many random things as I use to. I tell people great things that have happened to me such as getting a great mark on an assessment task or getting a new job, I also post links to my work on my page. I’d say that my relationship with Facebook is more restrained and refined, like it should be.

Taking a break, whether it’s permanent or not, from social media isn’t the worst thing in the world to do, in fact I highly recommend it.