Well, this time last week I started an experiment.
That experiment was to see if I would really miss Facebook. Would not being on Facebook make a great deal of difference to my life? Would I genuinely miss it?
In short, the answer is no. In the last seven days, I’ve neither had any need to go on Facebook, nor have I had any urge to. Sure, it’s one website that I wasn’t spending a reasonable amount of time on every day, and it felt a little weird not checking Facebook from my iPhone, but not checking Facebook for this last week has had zero impact on my life. I’ve probably seen more interesting stuff on the web and got more off-line stuff done than ever before.
So why have I reactivated my account? Well, the account reactivation isn’t without conditions. I’ve got twenty friends on my account, which are all of my ‘gang’. I cannot be found in a Facebook search, and I’ve changed a lot of my settings to give me an almost Facebook ‘lite’ edition of the site. I’m not re-installing the iPhone application, instead I’ll just be popping on when I’m on the laptop.
What has happened during this week is I’ve begun to appreciate texts, phone-calls and e-mails a hell of a lot more, and my Twitter usage has definitely increased. This I’m happy with as I see Twitter as more of a Social Broadcasting tool rather than Social Networking.
All in all, the experiment was a good one and I’ve convinced myself that Facebook isn’t a Must Have™, it is a Handy Thing™.
