Un-Social Media-ing

I have a new plan to unplug myself from social media for 2013.  I'm closing out of my personal account on Facebook in less than two weeks.  To be honest, Facebook doesn't really fulfill me in any way.  The majority of the people that I connect with on there, I connect with in real life, either via phone or e-mail, or in person, anyway.

There are probably more negatives to Facebook for me, personally, than positives.  Instead of being used as a tool for "good," positive connections, I find that people are judgmental and condescending on social media sites.  I think the NOT in-person part of it makes individuals braver to share their opinion or attempt to negate those of someone else.  I personally do my best to write only what I am willing to say to another person's face, but there are definitely people who don't satisfy that rule.

Another thing that bothers me about written communication, and I will include text messages and e-mail in this category, is that one never knows the tone behind the words.  I could make a totally good-natured comment (and have), yet some might find it derogatory or closed-minded.  Frankly, others have no idea how you meant anything when you write it and don't give it life out-loud.  I mean, one could proclaim pretty much anything, and it could be taken positively if one meant it negatively or vice versa.  For example, "Great, we're having another baby!" could actually be great, or it could be sarcasm about an oopsie that you weren't desiring at this moment in your life.  Why do you think people have taken to putting emoticons (those smily, winky, frowny faces) with their typed words?  That visible emotion that is lacking with written word is so helpful to the reader to determine what the writer was thinking and feeling. 

Now, imagine if some of our beautiful historic poetry had emoticons!  We might find that Robert Frost was not muddling with the decision of which of the two roads to take (and maybe they weren't figurative roads at all!); perhaps he knew where the first one went (a winky emoticon!) after all.  (Check out his famous poem, "The Road Not Taken," at this website:  http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-road-not-taken/ )

So, here I am, about to take a year-long journey without my social media connections of Facebook.  Maybe it will last all of 2013, maybe I will find instead that I am happier with it and my ability to stalk people's status changes.  Perhaps you'll join me in this adventure.  And I hope you'll continue to check back and see if I've blogged, even though I won't announce it to you on Facebook.