Life Offline

So, it's been a few weeks since my removal of all things social network from my life. There have been some interesting results, which were as follows:

"Hello? Anyone?"

First off, upon the announcement that I was deleting my facebook account (purely so that I could stay in touch with people who wanted to) I was absolutely shocked to find multiple people emailing, texting and generally getting in touch saying things like "is everything alright?". Apparently not wanting to share every detail with the world equates to suicidal maniac in a lot of people's eyes. Not that I don't appreciate the concern, I truly do, but it's fecking facebook, people.

When the day finally came and the account was deactivated, I found myself sporadically breaking out in a cold sweat. It was like suddenly being stranded on a desert island, all alone. Friendless, nameless. However after about 2 hours I realised that there was no dramatic change, life had in fact continued on as normal. I wasn't out of touch with anyone previously in my life and all was good. Instead of spending hours vacantly looking at people's holiday photos, I found myself reading, writing and generally being a much more productive human being.

The only downside thus far has been the arse-ache I've got from my family and friends for being such a 'drama queen' and the fact that there a number of people in my life who I actually care about and enjoy seeing what's going on in their lives. However, that's been my point all along. I now have to resort to actual communication in order to gain said updates (be it skype or just a plain old phone call) -- a far more nourishing and enriching experience.

Therefore I can only conclude that in the battle against the information age, I am winning and winning well. Up yours, Zuckerberg!

JB.