Until a few days back,I was one of those specimens who would rather check my Facebook than having lunch at my favourite restaurant.Did someone like my photos,did someone comment on the silly links i posted?? Life without Facebook?? no way!!!
But a few disputes at home over my over indulgence and a self realisation that I might be peeping into my FB account a bit more than I do into my sales accounts and excel sheets at work threw a stone somewhere at the back of my brain. Maybe its time to kill my account!!
The new year was approaching fast and I did not have any fresh resolutions than the usual ones that I have been making and breaking for the past 35 years ;skip those few budding years off. Narrowed them down to one usual and one quite new and adventurous!!
Stop smoking again and deactivate my FB.Deactivate my FB!!!!yes you read it right!! I was confused which is going to be more difficult,quitting the stick or killing FB? . Will the urge to check for notifications tickle my nerves while the craving for nicotine is killing me?
A day after the new year bash,ineberiated,opened my FB on my android,put all my courage to not look at the notifications and messages glowing in red,went to the account settings,scrolled quickly through the menu and to the deactivate your account tab.
''click'' and the clever FB popped open a page of options on why i want to quit. The easiest was ''I think I am spending too much time on FB'' something like that..And there it went..But Mark isnt a fool. Deactivating FB is only as good as logging out. If you want to reactivate it,you just have to login again!!So much for a deactivation. I dont even know why they have to call it as deactivate. So now its tempting!!you know its just a click away!!
Well to be honest,I did not think that I could stay away from FB for more than a few days;so just to console myself,I said let me go in solitude for a few days and see if people are missing me,and then on public demand I will re- surface again.
And so I waited!!
Day one- I guess no one noticed
Day two- I guess people are still under the new years hangover;none noticed yet
I was waiting for PMs on Gtalk or Yahoo or SMSs or phone calls from people curious to know where I am gone?
Day three- Thank God!!my sweet little brother noticed
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Day 11-- Oh my god!!!am I so invisible???All these days and just one person has noticed that I have been missing from action for almost 10 days??
And then the reality struck,I really did not need a FB account,and I started to analyse what did I do so far or achieve on FB?
The points are as below:
1) Made a lot of friends:( well did I really??I just let a lot of acquaintances access what I was doing in my life !! Talk about friends on FB; there are people who go on a friend hunting spree. They would send request to any Tom Dick and Harry who's remotely related to a remote friend of theirs on FB. And once they are accepeted, you would never hear from them. They would be dormant,maybe checking out your pictures,the links that you post,but would not even dare to post a hi . Then there are people whom you knew in college or school,like the boy who sat in the front bench who had passed the exam papers to yours sincerely sitting in the back bench, the geeks in the techsavvy branches who looked down upon you while you passed by them during one of their GMAT or CAT discussions . Why would they want to add you as a friend now and then be dormant?
I guess I can live without that.
2) It brings a lot of information on your finger tips: Yeah I have seen that!! The 80s songs posted by the die hard romantics; political posts shared by communists living in capitalists countries; RIP to Steve Jobbs ,give me a break!!!
3) Found a lot of my old friends: if they wanted you to find them , they might have done that long time back
4) Its a time pass : Ofcourse it is. A wide guess would show that atleast everybody on FB spends more than an hour a day on it,maybe not at a stretch,but still. And I guess most of them do that one hour at work.
Well guys I guess if you are seriously thinking of shedding your addictions, kill this one!!
Its quite easy!!
But a few disputes at home over my over indulgence and a self realisation that I might be peeping into my FB account a bit more than I do into my sales accounts and excel sheets at work threw a stone somewhere at the back of my brain. Maybe its time to kill my account!!
The new year was approaching fast and I did not have any fresh resolutions than the usual ones that I have been making and breaking for the past 35 years ;skip those few budding years off. Narrowed them down to one usual and one quite new and adventurous!!
Stop smoking again and deactivate my FB.Deactivate my FB!!!!yes you read it right!! I was confused which is going to be more difficult,quitting the stick or killing FB? . Will the urge to check for notifications tickle my nerves while the craving for nicotine is killing me?
A day after the new year bash,ineberiated,opened my FB on my android,put all my courage to not look at the notifications and messages glowing in red,went to the account settings,scrolled quickly through the menu and to the deactivate your account tab.
''click'' and the clever FB popped open a page of options on why i want to quit. The easiest was ''I think I am spending too much time on FB'' something like that..And there it went..But Mark isnt a fool. Deactivating FB is only as good as logging out. If you want to reactivate it,you just have to login again!!So much for a deactivation. I dont even know why they have to call it as deactivate. So now its tempting!!you know its just a click away!!
Well to be honest,I did not think that I could stay away from FB for more than a few days;so just to console myself,I said let me go in solitude for a few days and see if people are missing me,and then on public demand I will re- surface again.
And so I waited!!
Day one- I guess no one noticed
Day two- I guess people are still under the new years hangover;none noticed yet
I was waiting for PMs on Gtalk or Yahoo or SMSs or phone calls from people curious to know where I am gone?
Day three- Thank God!!my sweet little brother noticed
..........
.........
.........
Day 11-- Oh my god!!!am I so invisible???All these days and just one person has noticed that I have been missing from action for almost 10 days??
And then the reality struck,I really did not need a FB account,and I started to analyse what did I do so far or achieve on FB?
The points are as below:
1) Made a lot of friends:( well did I really??I just let a lot of acquaintances access what I was doing in my life !! Talk about friends on FB; there are people who go on a friend hunting spree. They would send request to any Tom Dick and Harry who's remotely related to a remote friend of theirs on FB. And once they are accepeted, you would never hear from them. They would be dormant,maybe checking out your pictures,the links that you post,but would not even dare to post a hi . Then there are people whom you knew in college or school,like the boy who sat in the front bench who had passed the exam papers to yours sincerely sitting in the back bench, the geeks in the techsavvy branches who looked down upon you while you passed by them during one of their GMAT or CAT discussions . Why would they want to add you as a friend now and then be dormant?
I guess I can live without that.
2) It brings a lot of information on your finger tips: Yeah I have seen that!! The 80s songs posted by the die hard romantics; political posts shared by communists living in capitalists countries; RIP to Steve Jobbs ,give me a break!!!
3) Found a lot of my old friends: if they wanted you to find them , they might have done that long time back
4) Its a time pass : Ofcourse it is. A wide guess would show that atleast everybody on FB spends more than an hour a day on it,maybe not at a stretch,but still. And I guess most of them do that one hour at work.
Well guys I guess if you are seriously thinking of shedding your addictions, kill this one!!
Its quite easy!!
Nice blog! I was actually thinking about the psychological logistics of FB and other social networking sites recently. Its interesting to see that our FB profile is actually as psychologically important to us as our real social profile! People seem to live through and live for their FB profiles!2 weeks ago I went to eat out in Coventry and saw a table of 5 girls next to ours. even while eating ,all of them were updating FB or chatting on FB! It seems to be a huge revolution in social psychology ,accelerated by smart phones and high speed internet. Oops written too much on ur blog time to check out my FB!
ReplyDeleteAnd you are the one who’s gonna do an MBA to build network!
ReplyDeleteHe he,MBA isnt for networking :),for business networking there are things like linkedn
DeleteSuper blog.. I have done this so many times, To prove myself that i can live without FB. All your points are exactly right.. Me also expected so many questions from my more than 500 friends about my invisibility in FB, but no one did . Most interesting joke was that, after one month when i turned on to FB, and said, well i am back, nobody trusted me that i had deactivated my account for 1 month.. phew..
ReplyDeleteHi Tomy, thanks for the comment, i can understand!! :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome Stuff, Nithin....All the Best...
ReplyDeleteThank you Prijesh
DeleteIshtappettu ketto. nalla kaaryam. I mean I liked the post. Very good Ideas. Who will dare to find an alternative to facebook, so that we can keep only the good things in it?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletewell, you really dont need FB to store your pics. you can do it on Picassa also
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNice thoughts. Totally agreeing with you Nithin. Even I had quit FB for two months and except my wife no one else noticed it!! Now am back into it.
ReplyDelete..and its been 4 years now. Have you ever came back to fb? just curios Bro.
ReplyDeleteToday I was reading some blogs and some how you and your blogs flashed into my head. Just did a search in FB, you are not there...then google helped me to find your blogs, was reading couple of them and spotted this write up.
Hope you are doing well..
How u doing,Shili? Wow this blog is also awaking after years!!well to answer your question,yes and no. I reactivated after a year,then deactivated again. Its been close to three years now
ReplyDelete