Why I Left Facebook

Well, I haven't completely removed myself from Facebook, but I, at least temporarily, deactivated my primary account late this afternoon.  It's not that I have anything against social media...  On second thought, maybe I do have a little something against social media.  In many ways, I think it encourages some of the poorest dimensions of our already bankrupt modern culture: shallowness, pettiness, and meaningless busyness--the antitheses of reflection and substantive work.  So much of Facebook to me really boils down to pettiness and silly acts of pointless reciprocation.  I'm friends with some authors who seem unaffected by it, always upbeat and positive.  With my particular personality, though, it seems less than a positive focus, encouraging an unhealthy dynamic and distracting from the important things, the eternal things.

I found, for instance, that I was talking about writing more than I was actually writing--a sure sign of trouble for an author.  Yes, marketing is a necessary evil when it comes to writing, but I think the correct balance between timing and saturation is critical.  Not that I was over marketing or promoting myself (well, maybe sometimes...a little), but the content has to come first.   If the content becomes secondary to the marketing, you might as well be selling air.  While it can certainly bring people together, Facebook also has a way of focusing us far too much upon ourselves.

That's why I thought it'd be good just to step back from a lot of that stuff and concentrate on what I'm good at: writing fiction.  When I've finished the final page of revisions of the novel, I'll consider giving it another crack.  Until then, please pardon my absence on Facebook for a while.  Now, be sure to "like" this post....

Update: Yes..., it is true.  I did grudgingly return to Facebook in January 2012.  I still dislike it for all the reasons I mentioned above (and more), but, for the time being, it seemed an important way to connect with my readers.  There may, however, come a point when I can't stand it anymore.  So, don't be too surprised should I vanish someday soon from social media--Facebook, at least.     


Jill Kransy's recent piece brought this issue to my attention again.  Hope you can check out her article on this fascinating topic!

(Two of my other reflections on social media (and its dysfunctional relatives) may be found at Connection Illusion and Internet Ramblings.)

The Connection Illusion

I'm not the first to reveal the irony of social media (and electronics in general) in regards to family life.  That is, something created supposedly to help bring us all together seems to do a much better job keeping us apart, isolated in our own little spaces with our eyes fixated on the flickering screen.  While we may know much more about our long lost friend Fred from Weiser, Idaho, the tradeoff often seems to be our immediate family.  I know I'm generalizing here, and it's true that some families are able to do an admirable job at monitoring and limiting electronic usage, but I don't think we're the only parents who have a challenge at times reigning in the electronic games or computer time.  


Looking back on my childhood, it's easy to romanticize the outside time component a little too much.  I was not exactly an outside kind of kid.  While I didn't spend every spare moment outside, I never resisted it either.  Something seems to have changed in the subsequent decades.  It's not just about the lack of real socialization or communication during online time either, it's a whole shift in communications.  Attention spans are shorter and vocabularies are smaller,too.  


I remember once finding an old newspaper stuffed inside a wall of my boyhood home.  It was less than a century old, but the vocabulary was grades above what passes for a newspaper today.  When vocabulary falls, our ability to express and articulate ourselves falters, as well.  In fact, that opens the subject of writing.  Look at instant messaging's effect on writing--it's downright depressing.  I'm not saying that we all should strive for the vocabulary of Charles Dickens, but, on second thought, let's all strive for the vocabulary of Charles Dickens.  


In addition to loss of our substantive connections, wasted time, and lost vocabulary, there are other elements, too.  Take e-mail, for instance.  Looking back to how hard I worked at staying in contact with friends after leaving my hometown for Seattle, one would think that e-mail would be a huge help in staying and keeping connected.  Not really.  Instead, I find people I know, at least, don't seem to write personal letters anymore.  E-mails are great, but it's even better to get an old fashioned hand-written letter, don't you think?  Besides the loss of these letters, there's also the frequent inability to reach people via e-mail.  Often times, the reason boils down to what you might call a "connections overload."  Some people seem so overwhelmed that they'd like to go crawl under the nearest rock--then they find out there's WiFi there, too.


I am not going so far as to suggest a Harrison Ford Mosquito Coast departure from modern life.  In fact, I'll be honest...  As a guy who considers writing his second job, I have to stay somewhat immersed in this stuff.  What I would suggest, though, is that everyone remember that technology is like like a good hammer, a tool.  We can't un-ring the technology bell and return to the 1970s.  (Yikes!  That's a scary thought.)  We can and should try to keep things in perspective.  Our iPhone can't be taken to eternity when we fall asleep for the last time someday.  In the end, when we look back on these years from some distant vantage point, time with family will be much more important than our high score on "Angry Birds."  Now...go get off the computer and read to your kids...I have to go tweet my cat's latest updates.