I have time
and again contemplated deleting my Facebook account. There are some very
compelling reasons for me to do so. In these times, when time has become a
precious commodity, what with 10-12 hour workdays, managing the house, working
on the weekends (sometimes) and making enough time to remain connected to the
few people that I am fond of. I have started questioning the value that I get
for the time that I spend checking out my social media accounts. Sure, I get to
know stuff like -
Category
A (25% of updates)
a.
Friend
A got married
b.
Friend
B had a baby
c.
Friend
C is moving to another country
Category
B (65% of updates)
a.
Friend
D did dandiya with the women in her building
b.
Friend
E ate spaghetti for dinner
c.
Friend
F vacationed in Switzerland (funnily I saw less of Switzerland and more of his
face in the pictures)
d.
Friend
G attended a wedding
e.
Friend
H’s one year old finally said ‘da da’ and so on…
Category
C (5% of the updates)
a.
Videos
on innovative uses of coca cola (cleaning taps)
b.
Funny
dog/ panda/ cat videos
c.
How
to make candles out of candles and so on…
Category
D (5% of updates)
a.
Quizzes
that will tell me which FRIEND’s character I am most like
b.
Suggested
friends
c.
Some
ridiculous memes/ posters which tell me things like ‘happiness is eating
cookies’ ( I don’t even like cookies) and so on…
Of these, if
I get to know of the category A events through Facebook, then, obviously the said
friends are not very close ones. As for the events in the remaining categories,
I don’t see much use in getting to know about them (unless, perhaps, I can
see some more of the picturesque mountains in the Swiss pictures. And coca cola
is useless in cleaning taps!).
Security of
personal data is, of course, another major motivation to delete my Facebook
account. Then there is this tendency of ‘dumb’ AI and ML systems to keep
pushing content similar to any one link you may have clicked on once, thus
making you a leaning-towards-a-side parallelogram rather than a well-rounded,
balanced circle. The nasty, hate-mongering and the spreading of fake news that even
a lot of my ‘educated’ friends engage in doesn’t help the cause of social media
either.
But, yet I
hesitate and keep delaying pushing the button. It’s just that I have
accumulated a few hundred ‘friends’ over so many years that the thought of
finding another way to connect with these friends or keeping updated with their
lives seems daunting. Even though, I have probably just spoken to once or have
been on a head nodding relationship with a majority of these ‘friend’. Perhaps
I, too, need a ‘social media strategy’.
“How will I
ever get connected to these guys, if I need to in the future?” I think. After
all, we are in an age where networking is the key to many doors, and opening
doors, it seems, is the destiny of the human race.
So, as a
compromise, I have started whittling down my friend list based on the answers
to questions such as: Have I ever spoken to this person? Have I spoken to this
person in the last one year? Do I clearly remember if this person was in my
grad class or post graduation? And who the hell is this guy? This seems to me
an uneasy equilibrium that is working for me for now.
I am aware that
there are some people who were great friends at one time, but we have lost
touch over the years. There is a very good friend with whom I had lost touch
after I moved back to India for higher studies and with whom I reconnected
after many years through Facebook. So, though I am not in touch with her on a
daily basis like before, I do know that she has two lovely children and is a
pro at baking. And there are friends who were nowhere in the scene two years
back, but now I hang out at least once a month with them. My didi once
mentioned, that as ones priorities change, circumstances and geographies change
and new life events happen, so will the set of people one is in touch with at
the moment change. But that does not mean that we value those people any less.
I will probably come around to connecting with them again once I am done with
whatever takes up most of my day these days. And, it is then that social media
will help me probably.
So perhaps, I
will keep my account after all. Meanwhile, if you suddenly find out that I am
not on your friend list one day, know that you have become a causality of the
spring-cleaning exercise that I have embarked upon. Don’t worry, I am sure that
I was as irrelevant to you as you were to me, it’s just that I decided to pull
the plug!
And
do tell me if you find a better way of finding a balanced social media
strategy!
