Enough of ‘friends’ and their ‘likes’

I quit Facebook in January 2012.

It started with the deactivation of my user account due to upcoming final examinations, and those two months were such a relief for my brains and my eyes, and not to forget the internet bill, that I went ahead and deleted it once and for all. It has been more than three years now, and I don’t miss a single bit of it. Sure, I miss out on staying ‘connected’ with like lakhs of people, some of who I might have met at a friends’ friend party (or never), and we just know each other by face. Sure, I miss out on the picture updates of the new vacation that my friends took, or my cousin's fiance, but does that make me unaware of what’s happening in my friends’ lives or my ‘closed ones’? Not at all.

In fact, if anything it has made me more aware of the real world that’s around me, real friends who will actually be there for me at midnight, and not just leave a 100 word comment, so easily typed. The gossip next day in the class about who uploaded a drunk picture with who, and whose ex liked the picture and so on, the never ending gossip, and I just think to myself, what is it doing for me?

Because the world works on the 'What's in it for me' mantra.

The trademark ‘like’ on Facebook, is no longer about which friend likes which picture, which used to be a big deal when Facebook initially started out because it was almost as if someone ‘liked’ your picture meant that person is in love with you. Pfft. It’s become even crazier, half the time people like each other’s’ pictures so that the other person would like theirs, and they both get the ‘numbers’. Simply put, I give you the numbers you make me popular, and you do the same for me. Ha!

So since the crazy trend of Orkut and Facebook has been in the light for quite a long time now, the latest trend in the social media sector is to actually socialise. Gradually more and more Facebook users are either deactivating their Facebook accounts or completely quitting, reasons ranging from too many red notification lights blinking on their phones, with friend requests, game requests, etc, or maybe just wanting to get a taste of what’s it like to not be on Facebook for a while, a life without updates about random people’s lives.

A simple argument that former Facebook users put forth is that it’s simply a waste of time. In an article by Anna James, journalist for entrepreneur.com, if a Facebook user spends one hour on the weekdays on Facebook, and 2 hours on the weekends, i.e. Saturday and Sunday, it amounts to 10 hours a week, that’s 4,160 hours, equating to 73 days continuously, or 24 weeks, or six whole months of one’s life is spent on Facebook, and then the question pops up, doing exactly what?

It’s not like it’s this great information gathering activity that one is engaging in, like perhaps reading a book, or newspaper, and yet most of our information and awareness is based on what someone puts up on Facebook, and like the Magic Bullet Media Theory, we just take it all in without questioning or trying to find out the source, because we have full ‘faith’ in our virtual ‘friends’, who are really just fake people on Facebook, but that’s a philosophical debate for another read.

I remember an incident from my first year of college, a girl got up and confidently walked up to the front of the class, facing the professor said, “Ma’am, I would like to share a very shocking fact that I am sure no one is aware of in the class. I don’t think you all know this but Shakespeare was actually a woman, not a man.”

Now that was some accusation, and the professor who quotes Shakespeare and Wordsworth in casual conversations, because she was from the great era of Queen’s English, laughed and asked her the source of this ‘fact’. And NOT surprisingly, it was ‘Facebook’. She just stood there and said “Ma’am, I read it on Facebook”.

Well that was the end of her confidently walking up to share a shocking fact with the rest of her classmates, because it’s Facebook, it’s only called that, it’s not really a book in case you hadn’t noticed my friend.

Gradually more and more people are deactivating their Facebook accounts due to the bombardment of information which is more than half the time, useless.

Saket Kanth, an employee with Dimagi organisation and an inactive Facebook account holder, says, “Sometimes it becomes an excuse to keep a tab on minor activities in people’s lives that are not relevant or quality information. It does form a great network though- best utilized through its messaging and important status updates, but I find the need to break away once in a while so I deactivate it from time to time.”

As a student, I can easily say that Facebook is a big distraction and a hurdle in our lives, from gathering quality and important information from other sources like, novels, newspapers etc. The source of most of our information is Facebook. Even before reading a news on the website of a news agency, we get our half told truths about the event or incident from Facebook, and that is how we end up roaming around with just half the story, least bothered to confirm the facts.

Good news is, times are changing. The importance to be smart and intelligent and not just an avid Facebook user with 10 lakh friends, is gradually spreading. Aman Kumar, a third year engineering student says, “I haven’t quit Facebook, nor am I an active user, I’m somewhere in between. I must’ve deactivated my account a 100 times. I feel it’s useless at times, and really distracting during exams. Deactivating Facebook makes me do more productive stuff. I open Facebook when I am absolutely bored, like maybe 4-5 times a day, and that leads me to think that I could’ve spent that time in a more productive manner. And I am anyways the sort of person who believes more in real meetings like meeting friends face to face and not on Facebook or WhatsApp so I really don’t miss it when I deactivate my account for a few months.”

It’s safe to say that Facebook is not going anywhere, it’s going to stay and it’s here for a long time, because of its effective connecting and networking functions. However, there is a growing need emerging, among users, for a break from Facebook, it could be temporary or permanent, but yes, users are realising that there’s more to life and to internet, for that matter, than just Facebook. And not to forget how it’s more exciting to meet someone after a long time over a cup of coffee, than having to see them every day with their daily updates, and miss out on the little surprising happiness that you experience when you see someone after ages.

Good news: The surprise might just be coming back!