facebook

Facebook. It's a disease. I hate myself for the amount of time I spend my days on that site, that incessant need to always know what people are doing, what did they get up to etc. Like most of my generation, I have become addicted to keeping up with my social network, keeping up with the trends, scandals and parties, I just had to let everyone know what I was doing with myself.

It wasn't until middle last year, I took a look at myself and thought how pathetic I was. Even though I have never actually shared every problem and thought that was on my mind, posted every single picture I've ever been in, 'statused' about why Albert was being a jackass (I'm kidding babe, but you know those kind of people I'm talking about) I still felt like I was obligated to maintain my place in the social circle, obligated to upkeep the life and persona I had built on a website.

A big reason for doing this is that I didn't want to get left behind. I wanted to let people know 'You know what? I'm way better since the last time you saw me.' And after a good long hard look at myself, I realised I was responsible for all the unwanted attention and gossip that had ever come my way, because I had fed people the information to allow them to do so.

I straight away went cold turkey, disgusted at myself, I deactivated my facebook, and kept it that way for 2 months. It was liberating! It was such a relief not to have to care about what anybody else was doing, what was I missing out on etc and that I could focus more about what was in front of me and not what was on my screen.

Unfortunately, I had missed out on a lot of information regarding my final year in my course that had been posted up via facebook, which led me to fall behind so much in class, I reactivated my account. I was upset. Upset because I reactivated my account, upset because about what had just happened. I had tried my best to break free of this obsession a lot of us have to this site, and I did, only to be pulled back, because without it, I actually did get left behind.

Nowadays, I have slowly come back to where I started, spending too many hours updating my news feed, looking at photos of parties I wasn't invited to etc but starting from the moment I publish this post, I'm going to rid myself of facebook once again, but I've learned something from the attempt I made last year. I'll never be able to fully delete it, like it or not, I have to accept that facebook has become apart of our lives and that most people use it as their main form of communication, invites for events, wall posts for much needed catch ups, and of course, networking. There is not much benefit for me de activating my account again because as for some, it's their only way to get into contact with me. Instead I decided to never look at my feed and only go on facebook whenever I receive a notification, which my phone alerts for me so I don't need to check the site everyday.

I don't care anymore about keeping up with everyone, if I fall off the face of the planet to most of you just because I don't update on my status, then obviously you are not someone closely linked in my life, Albert and Andrew taught me that, and I appreciate them so much for teaching me not to care. I'm really happy to know from now on, I'll be spending my time reading again like I used to, appreciating my independence on pleasing myself and caring about the people who are actually in front of me in person.

But I must let you in on a secret, I am very confident this time to finally come through with this and I have a secret weapon. I obviously will get withdrawal symptoms. I'm only human, curious, nosey, need to be liked and remembered, but I have my nicotine patch solution! I have this application on my browser that gives me a certain time limit to a website before banning me for the rest of the day, I set the limit to 30 minutes a day and if I feel that's too much time, I'll lessen it until I don't need it to restrict me anymore, I just need to remind myself, it's okay to take baby steps. Wish me luck!

P.s regardless of my feelings about facebook, The Social Network is an amazing movie, definitely one of my favourites.