Tuesday 29 March 2011

Un-Facebook

It was getting out of hand. Totally out of control. I was reeling under the shock that my life was being controlled and I had been morphed into a puppet. This monster, this vile thing, had me wrapped around it’s little finger. I had to take action…before I became its slave. That’s when I decided that it’s time to un-facebook. Yes, the monster I have been talking about is none other than Facebook, with a capital F.

People talk about drug-addiction, alcoholism, shopahol-ism, and this and that-ism, but how come no one talks about Facebook-o-mania (FOM)? It’s worse than the above mentioned because FOM creeps upon you and attacks you with such stealth that you don’t even realize you are a victim.
 It’s only one day before an assignment is due or on the day of your mid-term exam that you realize you are done for.
Same is the case with me. I smelt trouble when I started noticing that my wardrobe was empty and my laundry bucket was overflowing…since...he he....well, you needn’t know that. My suspicions grew stronger when I realized that I had two 1000+ words essay due in a week and I didn’t even know the topic yet.  I blamed it on the lack of time, but when I sat back and contemplated about the issue ( I am a very deep thinker, you see) it struck me that I DID have a lot of free time, considering that I have classes only for a maximum of 3 hours in a day, the rest of the day is free for me to do anything. Then where IS all this time going?! I started sniffing around; I smelt chocolate chip cookies, Maggi curry noodles and….unwashed socks….wait! There is something else...lurking on my blue laptop (Which I lovingly call Dory)’s screen… *sniff*… FACEBOOK!!

How did I find out? Google? Nah.. the other day I opened Internet Explorer to do some research, and realized after 5 mins that I am on facebook. How did I automatically key in Facebook? It was creepy! After that whenever I logged in I noticed that I would always go to Facebook, unknowingly. It was not even my homepage! I started looking out for symptom:
Ø  Excessive ‘like’-ing others’ statuses and thought-provoking one liners like- ‘I hate it when someone throws a cheese burger at my face while picking their nose’- check.
Ø  Reloading FB homepage every 5 seconds for new newsfeed- check.
Ø  Racing heart when I see a new notification-check (ok, not really, there’s only a slight fluctuation in the pulse rate).
Ø  Mindlessly going through 186 pictures of a friend’s puppy chewing her shoe- check
Ø  Going into depression when no one comments on or ‘like’s my status or photos-check.
Ø  Milking cows and growing corn while baking blueberry muffins  on my e-farm in Farmville - NO.
Thank god! I hadn’t reached the terminal stage. I had hope! Right now I am only a FADDICT(Facebook-addict)

But did I really have FOM? I am only 19 after all! I want to live my life, see my kids grow up…I want to make profiles for them and tag them in my pictures. I want to like their statuses and spam their wall with e-advices and poke them when they don’t do their home-work….I want to…NO! There I go again… This is getting out of hand. I need to do something. So, I’ve figured out the root of all evil-no it’s not money- it’s Facebook. I was spending way too much time letting the world know what I had for lunch(Fried-Rice) and which movie is really horrible( Aisha) and which person needs to get a life (G… no no, nosey you! I won’t tell you who that is!) I needed to stop before it took total control over my life. So I gave myself an ultimatum- Do you want to enjoy your actual social life in University or do you want to get poked by the fat dude with snot on his chin and a burp lurking in him somewhere, for the rest of your life? It was easy to pick which one I wanted.
But quitting wasn’t so easy, I pleaded with myself- how will I stay in touch with my friends? How will I show them photos of the latest happenings here? How will I let them know which song of Rihanna is totally ‘Kewl’? How? How? How? But then, the image of the fat dude came to my mind again… there were no more questions after that, my mind was calm.  The strong me said to the weak me- ONE WEEK, Just one week. Let’s see if we can survive for that long without fb. Wait, was it the weak me which said this to the strong me when the strong me decided to discard it forever? I am confused…
So I went to the ‘Settings’ page, clicked on ‘Deactivate Account’- I won’t lie, my hands did tremble, my heart did falter, but I bit my lip, closed my eyes and just pressed it. I waited for the explosion-there was none. It was as if I was in space, no sound. When I opened my eyes I thought I’ll find a picture of Mark Sucker-berg jeering at me. But no, the vile emotional-blackmailing pest of a website shows me pictures of my friends with captions saying-‘ X is going to miss you’ ‘z is going to miss you’ the only thing missing was tear drops running down my laptop screen. It did make me rethink my proposed line of action, but then, I am strong. So I took a deep breath and gave the ultimate click- DE-ACTIVATE ACCOUNT. The relief I felt…wasn’t as much as I thought it will be, I have to be honest about that. I felt like re-activating my account to update my status about the de-activation of my account. But that didn’t seem right for some reason…
It’s been two days since I logged in (I can reactivate my account any time I want to) and I am extremely proud of myself for accomplishing this feat. There are moments when I feel tempted… to see who had a great time, to know what X posted about Y and Z. To be invited to the latest events in Uni., to like my best friend’s status, to tag her in my status…But one week off is all I want. I want to prove it to myself that I have control over my life and it’ll be run by my rules. I will not let a ‘Social Networking’ website’ to dictate my life. If I can stay away for a week, I can rest assured that I am not dependent on it.
So here is wishing I can get the better of FOM and De-FADDICT myself!

Cheers!


13 comments:

  1. Wooooowww....... Im speechleess.....I fall in love with this blog... not because I think that you can control yourself from fb.. But the way you conveyed it,the way you puzzled words to frame a sentence to covey the exact feeling you have been going through.... .wooowww HATS off to that......AWESOME......

    -Ejaz

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  2. :D LOVED it! Not many funny write ups actually make you laugh - this one did! Thank you so much for taking my mind off of how I would never be able to forgive myself if something happened to the baby because I didn't take my folic acid tablets regularly! :/ You can't fathom how terrifying the thought is until you experience it yourself, and I hope you never do. :) I now know why parents count their baby's fingers and toes when it's born. I think there's no complete relief until you see for yourself that the baby is okay. Gosh, do you see how disturbed I was? Pouring out my fears in a comment on a blog about FOM. Sigh.

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  3. I am going to count your baby's fingers and toes! And Insha allah- you are going to be blessed with a perfectly healthy baby :) <3

    And you better take your folic acid tablets regularly!

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  4. wow nazreen, that was one cool write up! good going!
    'z is really going to miss you'....z for you know who ;)

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  5. well, i have been in the deactivated-fb-account phase for months now and trst me it feels great.. gives me more time for things and I now know how and what i think unlike before when i knew what others thought..

    bRILLIANTLY written piece.. will strike a chord with anyone :)

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  6. Thank you SO much,Gowri!
    I hope even I get the will to do that and stay away from fb totally. :D

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  7. Yeay! It's not that hard. I deactivated my Facebook months ago. It's cool, you get to 'have' a life.

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  8. I knew you would like it Adiba! :P

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  9. awesome!!! bt i alrdy told u tht dint i?? :) keep up de gud wrk!!! its nice 2 kno tht ol my trainin hasnt gone 2 waste *luks at u wid a gr8 deal of pride in her eyes*

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  10. LOL... this is juz gr8! And i'm proud to say that i'm one of the very few high school students in my school who don't have an fb account :)

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  11. That's great Zainab! But my relationship with fb is more of a love-hate kind. In the past few months I have deleted my account more than 5 times!The last time was yesterday, I want to be distraction free for Ramadhan. Hope I stick to it! :)

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Thoughts?