I physically assaulted a not-so-old friend of mine yesterday. He was always there, even when I didn’t exactly need him. There even were some days when I didn’t seem to be able to get rid of him. By being there, he made me more outgoing. However, I recently discovered that it was all a sham. His disappearance from my life was both upsetting as well as welcome. I often wondered at the fleetingness of the contacts he made me maintain. Now he’s worms’ meat, but one wrong move on my part may make him resurrect at once.
Of course I’m not talking about a real friend of mine; I’m talking about Facebook. Frankly, I’m not an outgoing person. You won’t catch me speaking my mind and being open to many different people. It’s easier for me to do so on-line – in writing. I viewed it as an easy way to stay in touch with some people in my life. Unfortunately, joining Facebook can have some pretty nasty side-effects.
For one, I give stuff about myself away to easily. With just a few clicks on the button, I have revealed when my birthday is, where I live, where I was born, where I work, where I studied, who my friends and family are, what my interests and hobbies are, and the list goes on and on.
Secondly, marketing companies can easily use this information to target me in their campaigns and being as open (and naïve) as me, I’m an easy target.
Thirdly, I’m not only naïve; apparently I’m lazy, too. I mean, come on, when you can avoid having to type in your e-mail address and password every time you want to check out your Facebook, you would, wouldn’t you? Well, I would anyway. This means that Facebook can track every website I visit when I’m surfing the net while I’m still logged on. Not only can it track every website, but it can track my exact whereabouts as well. It’s like having a CCTV cam permanently aimed at my person, or a constant chaperone. Did you know that even if you don’t have a Facebook account, Facebook can track you if you visit websites that have the Facebook share or like button? When this was brought to Facebook’s attention, they countered that it was a bug and that the problem is now solved (which it isn’t, by the way). They also failed to mention that this bug had been lurking in the shadows for over two years before they even tried to do anything about it. Trust me when I say that the only one who cares for your privacy is you.
Last, but not least, stands the fact that a lot of those people I had in my Facebook friend list only exist as friends on-line. This is the sad and hard truth. Sometimes people share (important) information only in the on-line realm. I even found myself in situations where I wanted to meet some of them out in the ‘real world’, and they ignored or rejected those requests. Am I such a terrible person that I’m only tolerable in cyberspace? Well, whatever the reason, I refuse to cooperate and simply stay on there so I can keep my ‘friends’. A person needs real friends, people!
So I decided to put a stop to all this nonsense and delete my account. I was glad I’d looked up some info on that, because it’s apparently wise to make an archive of everything you posted on Facebook before you delete it. On that note, I even read somewhere that information posted onto Facebook is used in court in some countries to conjure up a character profile. I asked Facebook to send me my archive and I gave my ‘friends’, who didn’t have any other way of contacting me, the chance to ask for contact information, which by the way not many of them did even though I gave them twenty-four hours to do so. Yesterday, I proceeded to deactivate my account, because –surprise! – Facebook doesn’t delete your account and all the information in one click of a mouse button. No, it keeps your information for not one, not four, but fourteen days before it permanently deletes it. If I do not want to run the risk of reactivating my account, I have to make sure I don’t accidentally click a like or share button, making the net a metaphorical mine field.
This friend of mine, he didn’t die; I incapacitated him, leaving him to a slow and torturous death. Time of death is expected to be 8:15 pm on August 30, 2011.
