In Which Kyle Commits His Social Suicide And Quits Facebook

Over the past quarter at UCI, Facebook has become a pervasive tool in my social existence here. I’ve been a member of Facebook for quite some time, but never really used Facebook to its full intended potential until I had the active social group that I have now. I have decided, after some thought, that since I think I now understand the entirety of what Facebook has to offer, I will leave Facebook. I don’t make this decision in what might be considered the usual way of rejecting Facebook. Rather, I do so after considering that there are significant benefits to the social networking site that will be forgone in leaving. I also do not think that my rationale for leaving will necessarily be exemplary of any more widespread social movement to leave Facebook, though I confess I would certainly get a small bit of satisfaction if I turn out to be correct not just personally, but generally.

There has always been in my mind a creeping dissatisfaction with Facebook that I have never been able to pinpoint exactly. Even now, in attempting to fully outline my reasons, I find myself both bothered and comforted by Facebook in a very ethereal way. In fact, I would not really be considering leaving if it were not for my putting leaving in the context of a larger social experiment in which I wish to engage. I desire to become more proactively engaged with my own social existence. In this context, I have concluded that the primary fault of Facebook is that it provides a passive and empty substitute for social interaction. The few (or often more than few) minutes spent on Facebook satiate human desire to be social, but do not fulfill such desire. Facebook is the Splenda of social interaction; it can be consumed ad infinitum, but it does not ultimately provide anything to its consumer. It is the equivalent of social pornography. If pornography acts as a substitute for sexual desire, then Facebook likewise acts in the same way for social desire. Therefore, continued usage of Facebook should be considered incompatible with a proactive social existence.

Since I tend to take an economic perspective on most things, I think one must first consider the opportunity cost of time spent on Facebook.  Every moment spent on Facebook, doing what are essentially trivial things, could be spent in the kitchen, at the Go board, working on this blog, or any variety of things. All of these things contribute in a way to my social goals, but in much more subtle ways, and with much more distant returns.  As an example, take the purpose of this blog compared to the similar purpose of Facebook. I want to be able to have a place to have long form thoughts on a variety of topics, and make them public in hopes that they promote further discussion among my peers, current or future. On this blog, I am unrestrained in the discussion and thinking aspect, though do not have the advantage of a somewhat large captive audience in the form of Facebook. Which is more important though? Do I value more the writing of these posts in terms of thinking in the long form or the pushing of my ideas out into the public forum? This blog emphasizes the first idea, Facebook emphasizes the second idea. However, if I think of myself as having a social existence that places the most value on direct interactions, then the blog should really be introduced in direct discussion with people as a place where interested people may go to get even more depth on some particular idea that I have been musing on. It’s a more difficult way to promote my ideas, but it is in many ways a much more active and healthy way to attract people to my work. Rather than have people come to something that I’ve done or thought because it flashed across some news feed on their wall, I would much rather cultivate direct relationships with people that actually have the potential of involving them.

This leads to another deficit of Facebook. A great number of the interactions on Facebook take place through the mechanism of wall posts. The topics of these wall posts range a great deal from person to person, but for myself the process tends to go as follows. I tend to have what I consider to be an interesting thought or observation, which is then followed by a desire to share this thought with another person. I satiate this desire by broadcasting on Facebook. I will then be satisfied by people “liking” said post, or posting a comment of their own. However, in truth these wall posts are transforming social interactions and the spread of ideas into no more than shadows on a Facebook wall. I feel satisfied, but still feel empty, when I engage in this type of behavior. Furthermore, in the context of living a proactive social life, every “like” of some post or photo is a missed opportunity to engage in a real social experience. I am forced to wonder how many conversations or more personal interactions are lost because one can simply “like” the wall post of another, and never have to actually engage that person. If I admit to having a goal of building relationships with other people, Facebook provides only an illusion of achieving this goal and diverts my attention from the fact that the goal might not actually be progressing as much as I would wish.

Likewise, in terms of building relationships with individuals, the use of the Facebook profile to learn about the interests of friends is also deceptive in its ability to undermine that goal. At first glance, the Facebook profile seems like a novel way to learn about new friends, or keep track of old friends. This is entirely true. One can learn a great deal about new friends using Facebook profiles, and can do so in an entirely neutral environment. In fact, Facebook takes this concept beyond a neutral environment. The person you are interested in will never in fact know that you were interested in them. They will never know that you were probing their interests. This is again where the Facebook idea breaks down. The trade made in exchange for all this new information is an almost complete loss of the discovery mechanism. Learning about a person’s interests doesn’t just serve the purpose of knowing how similar or dissimilar a person is from yourself, but it serves also to build trust and understanding. A person can go on to my profile and learn that I enjoy playing Go, but may never act on that information. However, imagine what a profound difference would be made if people were put in a position where they spent time personally exploring the interests of their friends and acquaintances. Not knowing something about a friend turns suddenly into an opportunity to attempt to learn more. This is an opportunity that I am certainly guilty of not exploiting to its fullest.

Furthermore, to the extent that the Facebook profile is a way of revealing information about one’s self, the Facebook profile provides a very censored view into the life of a person. In a New York Times article, Peggy Orenstein quotes M.I.T. professor Sherry Turkle as saying, “On Twitter or Facebook you’re trying to express something real about who you are. But because you’re also creating something for others’ consumption, you find yourself imagining and playing to your audience more and more. So those moments in which you’re supposed to be showing your true self become a performance. Your psychology becomes a performance.” In other words, your virtual self is manufactured to please the likewise manufactured virtual avatars of your friends. The presentation of self in Facebook is both passive and fake. If one is to be fully conscious of a social existence, that consciousness has to be free from things that will substitute for real social interactions.

In writing this post, I have certainly left out a great deal of the benefits of being a part of Facebook. I have also likely left out several more justifications for abandoning Facebook. However, I feel the need to emphasize that I in no way know if my particular approach is the correct one. As a social scientist, I feel some amount of obligation to put myself on the line to see if a particular theory about human interaction may be true or not. However, I am fairly certain that their exists a conflict between my own value system and Facebook. Hopefully, by engaging in this particular experiment the nature of this conflict will be revealed to me in its fullest form. I invite anyone that may stumble across this to comment on their own relationship to Facebook and how social networking defines social and interpersonal existence. I also hope to follow up later on this idea of living a more proactive social life. As I have said, I am hoping that leaving Facebook will be the first step in trying to consciously engage with my social self.

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