Okay, let's not mince words. Facebook and I broke up last night. A combination of the normal digital codependent relationship we have, and the intelligent commentary of some of my fellow professional leftists (yeah, I have those) caused me to have a rare moment of clarity: I have been spending approximately two hours a day (at least) sending my thoughts out to the world at large, sharing important news stories, and engaging in many high level debates about very important subjects. On the surface, this seems like a great thing. After all, as the name of my blog implies, I live for presenting news stories that the corporate media refuse to acknowledge, and for advocating for radical causes. In other words, I am what they used to call a 'muckraker'. Nevertheless, my moment of clarity also included another bit. That is, while on Facebook I am not communicating face to face with anyone. Other than my wife, my mother (who lives with us as well), my dog, my cat, my academic advisor, and the somewhat irregular meetings I have with friends and fellow academics, I don't really go out and have conversations with anyone anymore. At least, that's what it feels like.
You see, the rest of my time is spent reading, thinking, and writing. I am in the midst of finishing my MS in political science at Portland State University, and in the fall I will begin my PhD in geography at University of Washington. People like me don't need the digital universe to feel connected, but of course, that is precisely what the digitized establishment (read Facebook, Twitter, etc.) would have people like me believe. I spend at least two hours or more a day intensively writing on the computer. Unlike many of my younger colleagues - and I have a lot of them because I am older than the average graduate student - before I begin writing on the computer, I have usually spent a great amount of time ACTUALLY WRITING, using a pen and paper, attempting to compose my thoughts before putting tapping them out on a keyboard. I don't say this to show that I am somehow more dedicated to my studies than my young friends who hardly ever put pen to paper. to be honest, it is kind of a handicap. I cannot remember a single damn thing when I read it on a computer screen first, unless I write down some thoughts about it in a notebook, or write about it immediately on the same computer.
The problem I am having with Facebook, the problem that has led to our breakup, is that while I am in front of the computer, attempting to compose all my thoughts into a coherent master's thesis, Facebook constantly knocks at my door. It is mostly my fault, for I did not realize until recently that I could just turn off all notifications, so that when I log out it actually feels like I logged out. That said, Facebook - like a clingy girlfriend - has ingratiated itself into the regular daily lives of so many people, many of them friends of mine all over the world, that it becomes increasingly difficult to control my natural urge to 'comment', to 'share', to 'post'. And I am forced to ask the question, does it really matter? I mean, if I didn't share all of this great information that I am finding out, both through my academic pursuits and through my regular online research on political and economic issues, is anyone - including myself - any worse off? The answer is no. It's as simple as that. Nobody is worse off as a result of my decision to live more actively in the analog universe than in the digital universe. After all, most of my professional and academic communication is already done through the digital universe anyway.
Am I human, or am I extra-human? Am I analog or am I digital? These are real questions man! Think about it for a moment. How much time do you spend in each of these realities? Call them spatial realities if you like. How much time do you spend in the analog and how much in the digital? And for that matter, how much time do you spend engaged in both at the same time? Well, I guess one could argue we can exist only in the analog, but not only in the digital, unless of course you think of your 'self' as your digital person, the entity that Facebook communicates with. For me, I can honestly say that I am spending way too much time in that digital space. I am longing for the wonderful feeling of not knowing what is going on in the Facebook world.
I am forty-two years old. What that means is that for all of my life, until about the age of thirty-five, I did not participate in the digital universe. And before that, I only started using a cell phone at the age of twenty-five. I remember, like it was yesterday, when there just wasn't any way to know what was going on in the world unless you were in front of TV, on a hardline phone calling friends, reading a newspaper, or through having real conversations.
It's not as though I want to return to the days of looking for a pay phone and having to memorize hundreds of phone numbers, but I do very much want to return to a period of sanity in regard to the analog-digital interface, if you will. It is in that sense that Facebook and I have broken up. Well, I broke up with Facebook, because Facebook is, by design, can't break up with anyone, unless of course its corporate handlers decide they don't like you. That's a discussion for another time. The point is that I broke up with Facebook as my digital mistress. For at least the next several days, I am not going to look at it, pay attention to it, post, share, or comment on anything. I have logged out. For real logged out, you dig?
During this little break, I plan to do two things: First, I am going to get an amazing amount of writing done. Second, I am going to create a plan for how to take control of the amount of time Facebook takes from my life. I remember when I quit smoking. It was time that did it. I was a pack and a half a day smoker for the better part of ten years. One day I sat down and added up the amount of time I spent just standing around smoking cigarettes, looking cool, or whatever. It added up to about 1,775 minutes per week. That's about 28 hours. I thought to myself, if I just spent half that time sitting down and writing in my journal, I might actually figure out what I want to do with my life, what's going wrong, what's going right, and where to go from here.
That was about eleven years ago. Since then I have done a tremendous amount with my life. I feel very fortunate. Facebook adds up, for me, to about 14-20 hours per week, most of which is - while entertaining and interesting - ultimately pointless. More accurately, I'd say I could get the useful stuff out of Facebook in about 20-30 minutes per day. I do have a very impressive set of friends, many of whom I consider truly great critical thinkers, writers, activists, musicians, and so on, so I don't want to just completely leave everyone hanging, but I must look out for my own social-psychological health. I know that I can't just drop from 2 hours+ per day to 30 minutes. So I am going to drop to nothing for several days as a preparation for training myself to spend no more than 30 minutes on Facebook on any given day.
For all I know, I might just not come back. So, with all of this in mind, perhaps it is not a breakup after all, but a kind of separation of indefinite length. I don't know who reads this blog, except a few folks, but maybe someone will post this for me. I don't want the digital universe to think I died or something. I am still very alive, just existing in the analog world, where I belong.
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