The Case Against Facebook (I appreciate the irony)

I've recently been inspired by a south park episode, of all things. I'm going to try and minimize my use of facebook from here on out, and I will observe the effect (as objectively as I can) it has on my life. It may sound like a trivial thing to do, and I don't know, maybe it is. The point is that I'm going to find out.

I heard some statistic about how the average person spends some large amount of time on facebook, and I always thought it didn't relate to me. Whenever I do homework on my laptop or anything else on it, it's become almost habitual for me to open up facebook. The justification being in my mind, that I'm not spending my time on facebook only using facebook, that I'm multitasking and concentrating mostly on other things. The truth is though, and I'm sure that many of you can relate to this, is that the multitasking ends up really hurting your productivity and focus on the other thing you really need to do.

In many cases, it's simply become a time waster. Often on sunday nights like these with little homework due the next day, I'd pass time sitting on facebook, watching youtube videos, etc. Thats the thing though. It's just passing time. I've really come to appreciate how time is a valuable thing, and it's really important to allocate what time you have doing things that are actually important and useful. If the past 3 hours are anything to go by, I'm going to have a lot more time to allocate to things I enjoy.

Back home I really enjoyed reading for pleasure, both fiction and non fiction. Some of the books I read really transformed me into who I am today. In college the passion has dimmed somewhat. My thoughts have been that college reading and general school work has kept me busy and away from reading what I love, but thats really not true. I've simply spent too much time doing things that act as a screen saver for my mind. As soon as I finish this post, I'm going to read a book from the long queue I have waiting for me.

In a broader more sociological context, I'm interested to see how this is going to affect my interpersonal relationships. Especially under current conditions, we as a population have come to rely more on virtual relationships as substitutes for real, face-to-face interpersonal relationships. The problem with virtual relationships is that they are virtual. They don't fulfill our deeply human needs for close interpersonal contact and relationships. They're hollow, a sham of what a meaningful relationship is, and ultimately meaningless. So, I attempt to lessen the presence of virtual relationships in my life, and hopefully substitute more humanistic face-to-face-type relationships. We'll see.

I'm not saying that I'll never be on facebook. Like any addict there'll be a time period where I'll have to consciously stop myself from using the site. And again, if the last 3 hours are a good indicator, this process will be pretty arduous. Similarly, facebook itself is a useful tool for getting in touch with people when you want to. I won't deny that value, and I'll certainly use it as such when I need to (like posting this blog entry). The point is though, is that from now on, I will use facebook. Facebook will not use me.