About a week and a half ago, I deleted my Facebook account. Its something I wanted to do for a few months but didn't really see commitment in the act and found excuses to avoid it. During my pity party session right after I encountered the man on the bus incident, I axed the account. My moment in time reason was deleting numbers from my phone wasn't cutting it and I decided to make the move. I haven't broken down and sneaked a peek into this week's latest updates from "friends" and family but I believe that I can maintain my stance. For now. Well, no I really plan to. But, I need to breakdown my initial reason for bailing out on Facebook...
Envy is defined as : "occurs when a person lacks another's (perceived) superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it," or "derive from a sense of low self-esteem that results from an upward social comparison threatening a person's self image: another person has something that the envier considers to be important to have..."
I don't consider myself to be an envious individual. To put it plainly its a pretty pathetic trait to possess, but it isn't unusual to be filled with it once in awhile. Facebook is a social networking tool, a site where one can find long lost friends and acquaintances, discover love (e.g. my "situation"/ex-boyfriend), make awesome career connections and meet new friends (this hasn't been my case). Usually you'll befriend peers who share similar interests, likes and dislikes and upon discovering friends' photo albums (self-made or tagged) you can get caught up in their lifestyle. Now, I've never witnessed one photo album that consists of multiple pictures with people sitting around moping and depressed. The whole point of the website is "socialization" so you'll find photos of exotic vacations, nights of getting wasted and non-stop partying, people showcasing their new apartment, new babies, new cars, new girlfriend, dog, etc. Whether this is reality or fictional, I'm never really aware, but I found myself measuring my life's achievements, shortcomings and pleasures against what people pick and choose to portray about their lives. I began to feel inadequate because I felt that if "Nicole's" life was so carefree, why wasn't mine? Funny thing is, although "Nicole" and I went to high school together, I never once wrote on her wall or messaged her to see if she was actually living up to her hype. We were just Facebook "friends." High school and college peers who were introverted nerds in person and that I did happen to know personally suddenly became Mr. & Ms. Popular on Facebook. People were allowed to invent personalities because their real ones sucked. Too many Saturday nights I sat home clicking through a friend's photo album envying her lifestyle and feeling 10x lonelier and depressed than before. How pathetic.
The invention of Facebook statuses are worse as the world is full of imbeciles and Facebook proves to have one too many. People who you thought you knew have absolutely no filter and you realize how much you actually might not like the person if your friendship didn't exist before Facebook. I was getting annoyed quickly with the self-righteous bible thumpers, hypocritical announcements and the all around flakiness. Add that to the never ending public relations crisis Facebook had on their hands about their ever changing privacy issues. The thought of Mark Zuckerburg keeping a log of my cookies for kicks made me paranoid and was the final push for getting rid of my profile. I reasoned that everyone I want around, I know how to get in touch with and vice versa.
I come with a box load of my own self-esteem issues and I hate to have it worsen based on what I perceive. I'm chucking the deuces, its been a nice five years but preserving my happiness and keeping depression at bay is a longer journey and so I need as few obstacles as possible. Besides, in the next three years, it'll be some new Internet craze and Facebook will be a faded memory.
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