... the Facebook juice, that is.
As you may or may not know, I turned off my Fb account about a month ago. I had a variety of reasons for this move, but most revolved around being sucked into trivial, completely unimportant garbage by people that I haven't seen/talked to/thought about in a decade. It's been a great month, and I haven't missed the garbage at all. But I have missed the photo updates from my dear friends with babies. And I've missed keeping in touch with those I care about who are far away. Fb is great in that it is easy to say a quick "hello" when you have five minutes free. So, after some deliberation and discussion, I've returned to the equally engaging and repulsing medium ... for now.
But I've made some changes, and I already like them.
First, I deleted friendships with anyone that I don't really care about. I don't mean to sound cold-hearted or evil, but there are people in the world that I'm just not concerned about. I don't wish them harm or ill will, but I don't need to know what is going on in their daily lives. I whittled my friends list down to under 70 from the previous over 200. I've always been proud that I've met every one of my Fb friends in person (except for Stephan Pastis, the cartoonist), and I've added a new layer to that friend criteria. If I haven't thought of you or communicated with you in the past 9 months, there is no real need to have you on my list. Again, not trying to sound harsh. I'm just trying to make Fb more manageable and beneficial for my purposes.
I've also deleted and "unshared" a lot of personal information that was previously shared. I'm not trying to be secretive or mysterious; let's all be serious because we know I'm not. But people who know me know those things already. There isn't really a need to share it on Fb. And, if you don't know, I'm happy to share. But in a less public and permanent forum.
I've left my privacy settings on "lock down" and that will stay the same. I'm more comfortable with that.
So, for now, I'm back. We'll see how long I can tolerate it.
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2 comments:
Lol, you sound like me.
I use facebook mostly for work (because we get jobs on word of mouth) and for family/close friends.
Except my rule is stricter. If I have not spoken to you (in any way) in 3 months, I axe you. Or if you have a child and all your status updates are how many teeth they have or what shade of yellow/brown their waste is, I axe you. Because that's gross.
That said, I do have a lot of people hidden on my news feed because I just don't care.
I have no info on my page except who I'm in a relationship with and most people can't see my photos. People joke that my facebook is like Fort Knox.
I love it! I may need to go that hard core if it becomes a problem again. I used to have a TON of people hidden, but I figured that I should just delete them. And i did. It was kinda cathartic. :)
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