Around this time last year, I decided to deactivate my Facebook account along with my Tumblr account. First and foremost, my reason was plain: social experiment. In this era of dependency to social media to achieve love and belongingness, I want to know for myself if I can live without it.
I did. My experiment was successful!
Here are the things I realized: It is not about the likes, shares and follows that make you 'friends' with anyone. If you are friends in FB and you guys are exchanging comments in this platform, it does not necessarily reflect in real life. Once I deactivated my account, there remained my true friends, who reached out, and asked where am I, how am I doing, if I'm still alive. Anyway, I've known them from the start. I have this gift of knowing if a person will stay in my life or not. I perceive their aura as cue on how to deal with them. From then on, I enjoyed the simple life of waking up to peaceful mornings/nights, without excessive drama and hate from the most popular social media network in the whole Earth. Don't get me wrong, Facebook is a very important tool in reconnecting with friends and family offshore. It's an amazing way of disseminating information as well as, acquiring knowledge. It's just that, before, I noticed my attachment to my phone because of peeking to other people's lives thru Facebook. It's not healthy, you can't avoid comparison, and envy. I hate it. I don't want myself competing and thinking that I'm far behind in life because I want what they are having in life. Once I disconnected, I've found different things about myself, what are my other strengths and potentials, as well as, what are my limits at the moment.
Although, there are disadvantages to this. I can't share to the world how funny life is, thru my daily observations in our surroundings, which almost everyone are ignoring. I used Facebook to remind people how beautiful life is despite the daily toxicity in this urban, polluted place we live in. I wanna make others see that other people's lives are also a blessing, and that we are all connected. Also, I can't document how funny my mom is. She enjoys reading her slips of the tongue and all her unconscious ways of expressing her beautiful self. She has been pleading that I get my Facebook up again just because of that..she wanna see how I see her: a magical creature.
Furthermore, I noticed that, before, I used FB as my primary source of information about current events, which I realized is not healthy. For one, some people are using this platform to share fake news, and people as they are faithful to our dear FB, believe every single bit of news.From this, I started referring to newspapers, I sometimes watch TV! Good Lord! I don't like watching tv, I view it the same as I see Facebook, minus the fake news.
The most important thing I acquired from this experiment, is how to be human again. How to interact with other people, regardless if it's an awkward, accidental meet up at the mall, without touching my phone. Human interaction is one of the biggest component in life that social media networks took from us, since time immemorial. And it feels nice and a little tricky, because I felt different. There's this gawky attitude people exude because of too much exposure to social media. I'm not sure if I'm conveying this right, but to put it into simpler terms, their persona in Facebook is totally different from how they are in person. I don't know if it's just me who noticed, or I'm sharing this view with another human being..I don't know. But that's how I see it, even my sister has that.
There are a lot of things I've seen and observed from this experience, but those are just the ones that weighed more for me.
After a year, I kind of feel obsolete but I'm not gonna regret this in the long run, for sure. It's just that, I don't know what's up with my friends before, but like I said, it just shows who my real friends are. It may not sound as comforting as I want it to be, but that's reality. Also, there are times at the office, that they are talking about things I don't know, because they are all on Facebook. I still have to ask, or there are times that they have to explain it to me first, so I can catch up. And these are my reasons why I almost gave in to the idea of going back to Facebook...maybe to reminisce, reconnect, and peak a little to my 'former' friends. But as I debate about it with myself, I thought, it's not necessary to rely on Facebook to rekindle friendships, because if life wants you to go that way and see them again, it'll happen. I almost forgot something, another reason why I started thinking of going back is that I can't brag enough of how old but healthy my dog is. Ading is a 12 year old toy dog, and she's not an inch near the finish line. I asked her to stay until my first born, so she can take care of him/her whatever. I'm faithful that she will, and she's very cute not to brag about!My little white furryfurfurball.
I guess, what I really want to say in this is that, I'm hoping that humans will not let go of their innate human nature, caring, chivalrous, honest, and loving to every living thing in the face of our planet.I hope there's more human interaction than Facebook messages. I hope there's more date nights than video calls. I hope there'll be more smiles in real life than thumbs up and heart reactions. Because at the end of each day, we cling to warmth of someone we love and not our cold, inanimate smartphones.
That's it mofos. A lonely blog (again) coming up next..
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