For anyone following the story of my recent quitting Facebook, I need to confess what I did just now: I reactivated my Facebook account. I have found that completely not existing there (which is how deactivating an account reads to other users—as if Rebecca Kuder doesn’t exist) seems like it’s more a hindrance to me and my writing. This is another experiment, and we’ll see how it goes. I decided to re-activate and thereby re-exist in the weird place that’s not a place, and then log out and staying off for (at least) the rest of summer, and then will reapproach how or if I will use it.
I’ve never been a smoker, but this metaphor might explain: If Facebook was a lit cigarette in the ash tray on my desk, from which I could take a drag whenever I wanted (and I did, regularly, habitually, without thought), I intend that reactivating my account is allowing the pack of cigarettes to sit across the room, present, but untouched. That is my intention. (I will keep investigating this metaphor, to make sure it works, and to make sure I am working.)
I realize this post might be akin to telling you what I had for breakfast. Maybe I’m being a hypocrite, or undisciplined. Quite likely I’m the only one who cares about this shift in my relationship with Facebook. But in the interest of being honest, I needed to post what I did here.
Rebecca Kuder 