And if you do have Facebook, you may well truly believe that it's the source of everything and everyone you know. And like a horny teenager who likes to say they've slept with many people, because of course that makes them...'like, totally awesome', you have AT LEAST 500 friends, er..sorry, FACEBOOK friends. Guaranteed too that half those people you never even had a conversation with, or if you have, you can't remember it because you were on a night out and probably inebriated in some way.
I remember some researchers somewhere in the world announced a couple of years ago that the average person can, at most, have 150 friends. I believe their definition of friend was probably something along these lines:
A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.
Now I'm not going to sit here and criticise and pretend that I don't fall into any category, because of course I do. I first got Facebook really soon after it came out, but I was still on Bebo then (hahhaha I know, you'd laugh EVEN MORE if you'd seen my profile on it) but I couldn't get to grips with it if I'm honest, I think I was 14 and obviously not so great with computers. So I left my account to go stagnant. Then later, when shit loads of my friends had it, and Bebo was becoming really uncool, I realised that I probably needed to update my online life and move to more habitable (popular) places. So I did. In 2007 I became fully Facebooked.
Three years on, 2010, how are things with my online life? Well, total honesty, every morning before I'd even got out of bed, and every night before I fell asleep, I would scroll through my ENTIRE homepage on my little Blackberry, not just Facebook either, TWITTER too. Yup, those two sites were very much a part of my life. I needed to ensure that I had read every single new update on both so that I didn't miss a thing. Not only that, but I regularly updated my statuses on both so that everyone could see all the 'awesome' things I was doing, por examplay..'OH MY GOD I'M SO TOTALLY WASTED'. I don't know if I ever actually wrote that specific phrase, but I unfortunately have to admit that I wrote so many that were similar. I guess I felt like I had to prove myself to people, many of whom I didn't really even know. I was also constantly obsessed with the feedback from my status and picture updates/uploads,
'How many likes has it got now? Who's liked it? Are there any comments? And how many Facebook friends do I have now?!'
I had a very unhealthy habit, very unhealthy indeed. Anything that takes over so much of your day-to-day life is either bordering on, or has become a fully fledged obsession. And you know what? OBSESSION is very, very bad for your health. Whatever it may be. As my Dad always says, 'everything in moderation'.
So in January 2012, when I'd just become a girl *WAIT FOR IT* friend, and therefore had way more fun things to do with my time, I decided that Facebook, Twitter, and anything remotely similar, didn't have to go for good, but seriously needed to take a back seat in my life.
I'll be honest, I didn't have much faith in myself that it would stick, firstly because I fold like a little bitch under peer pressure and of course, my friends were still all hanging out there, and I hate to miss out on things, and also because I have a rather addictive personality. HOWEVER, other than for communication purposes, occasionally looking at funny things and friends photos that I actually wanted to see, and maybe uploading a few photos myself because people actually wanted to see them too, I didn't go on. I went from spending about half my day on those sites, to checking Facebook only, once a week or so. And let me make this very clear, IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME. No longer did I concern myself with who had liked my status, no more time was spent coursing through peoples pages to find out who was up to what, I didn't give a shit what my profile picture was, and the best of all, I deleted every person who I wouldn't or hadn't have/had a conversation with, this absolutely included 'exes' (VERY IMPORTANT- DO NOT spend your time looking at an exes page, even if it is 'just to see how their doing'. It is NOT OKAY.) I stopped using Twitter and others completely because I just couldn't be bothered, Facebook I still wanted because it is genuinely a brilliant place to keep in touch with people.
How is my online life at present you ask? Well I recently moved away from home, so I do spend a little more time on it than I'd like, half because I do want to talk to people I miss, but the other half is spent boredly (<that may not be a word, but if it's not, it should be) killing time when truthfully, I should be doing more productive things, i.e. my washing, or writing this stuff. I currently have ABOUT 105 friends I think, and interestingly, and not that I'm counting I just have genuinely noticed whilst researching for this post, I get more 'likes' than I ever used to when I had five times the amount of friends. Weird right? Maybe it's because the only people on my friends list now are people that actually give a shit about my life, maybe it's just a coincidence. Who knows, or who cares? IT DOESN'T MATTER!
If you sound like you're me before 2012, then consider liberating yourself from your computer. If you never even tried the F book and actually kinda want to, then set up a profile! And just remember,
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