Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Facebook Sabbatical

Lately I have been feeling the dangerous lure of casting myself backwards into the abyss of the internet, and have been trying to work out how I'm going to deal with it this time. (Last time I felt it this strongly I got all confessional and it got really, really ugly and my life sort of imploded around then, so it's not a scenario I'm anxious to repeat.)

Today I deactivated my Facebook account, for lots of reasons that are kind of hard to explain but that relate to the above paragraph and involve big issues with how I relate to people. I could go for the easy "it's because it's sucking up my time and I'm on it way too much when I should be looking for a job," but that is only part of the answer, and even that can tie back in to people issues.

I'm disappointed that all I have to do to reactivate my account is sign in again. There should be more hoops to jump through, or maybe a quiz to take based on your reason for leaving. In my case, since under reason for leaving I marked "Temporary; I'll be back," the quiz would ask me about whether or not my time away had lived up to all I was hoping for it, and if I was really ready to come back yet. Or maybe instead of a quiz my computer could be rigged to play something really obnoxious when I tried to log back in, like anything by Kanye West.

As it is, this is a job for an under-used asset: willpower. Hopefully, this will spill over into how and what and why I write on this blog. And how many times I check my email inbox or my instant message program looking for some kind of validation. And how open I am and why with which friends.

Goodnight, dear void.

3 comments:

micah said...

I'll agree with the 'too easy to reactivate' thing. I accidently reactivated my account 6 times in the first week, because my fingers had a habit of typing in an url and a password as soon as I sat down at my computer.

But on the plus side, every time you redeactivate, it says "Are you SURE? So-and-so is really going to miss you!" which made me feel so loved.

Smart Aleck said...

If you know anyone REALLY good with computers, you can have them put a filter/block on facebook(or any other site you want to avoid) and then they will help you stay off the site.

zorana ngai said...

hi there.. just stumbled upon this post because i myself just blogged about my 'fb sabbatical' i am starting like RIGHT NOW. i totally understand.. but i couldn't imagine deleting mine.. i just kinda challenged myself to stay away for 30 days, incling twitter!

i feel you on the reactivation as well. i felt that way when i deleted my xanga many years ago.. they make it so you can't ever recreate your account. it was good and bad for me.. but then again blogging i think is fine.. for the soul a venting tool. facebook.. utterly pointless.

soooo.. its been almost a few weeks almost. how is the sabbatical going???