photography is going well....the exhibition is in 2 weeks and I took over 800 photos for Holy week, you can see some on facebook. now to what i want to talk about...my deactivation from facebook for lent. I decided to do this for many reasons but one main reason was that i was just wasting a lot of time. i felt that this social network became the way i knew about everyone's business without really asking about them to their face. So as I saw uploads and status messages, I felt the more traditional means of communication was becoming obsolete, but i was also finding that close friendships started to strain as a result of not having a normal phone conversation...so I deactivated.
In the first 2-3 days of my deactivation, part of me wanted to reactivate, but I stuck to my guns. I spent 55 days not knowing if someone was sick, if they were in the bathroom, what they were eating and I found myself that my time that I spent on facebook went to other things (okay so I do have a twitter account), but I was a little more productive with my time and I had more meaningful one on one conversations with people. I did however miss out on invitations to places since I just wasnt on facebook for people to click on me and invite me to a party....but I was okay with out understanding that it's just easier to invite on facebook rather than sending out a mass text or heaven forbid a phone call.
Easter Sunday rolled around and I reactivated and I found myself to be overwhelmed by information overload. Once again I know about the 600 or so 'friends' I have on facebook. Here are my findings from this social deactivation experiment.
1- Facebook is an excellent tool to find people you've lost touch over the years (that includes the people I grew up with in Pleasantville and college friends)
2- I can't possibly remember everyone's birthdays--facebook is great for that...
3- Facebook has made us socially lazy to have one on one communications....in my opinion, nothing is better than having a good old conversation :)
4- Photos---many people missed my photo postings and it was literally one of things I did after i reactivated.
5- I need to be more active in reaching out to people individually and privately without the social tool.
There's a lot more I'm going to stop for now....watch out for more posts regarding my photography expeditions....
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