I love to learn. Knowledge rocks my world. When meeting someone new, I secretly wonder, like Emma, “is he a man of information?” I get a rush from being an early adapter, from knowing the news, from being well read.
Social media was made for a person like me. I was a little late to the blogging party (2005), but thereafter, when I heard about a new way to interact, I was on it.
Last summer, though, everything changed. I found myself spending far too much time on Facebook, reading posts that did little to enrich my connection to friends. Sure, meaningful communication can happen there, but with nearly 400 friends, no way could I imagine that real relationship building was happening with more than a few folks. At a time when I crave community more than ever, I was losing sleep from anxiety.
After some long, hard thinking, I made a decision. I posted a statement on Facebook that read
After coping with information-overload-induced anxiety, I’ve decided to use FB in a different way. I’m eliminating my friends list (not eliminating our friendships, though! email me any time!) and remaining in a few groups that communicate only here. I know you will all understand and tell me about the big ups and downs in your lives by email, phone, or in person. MWAH
Facebook doesn’t make it easy to delete friends. Honestly, though, I thought more about most of my people while I culled the list than I had in a while. I whittled the list down to about 50 people. There were some hard choices, but with very few exceptions, I deleted
- Family (I can email or call them any time)
- Acquaintances from real-life circles (if we haven’t become more than acquaintances yet, chance are we won’t)
- Co-workers (we see each other at work; I’ll hear their news there)
- People I don’t really know (see acquaintances)
On my list I kept a few very close friends. Even though we can communicate other ways, I like to see Sara’s pictures, and Sarah’s videos of her hilarious kids are, well, hilarious. Pals from my NY and my NM days stayed on the list, as did professionals whose work I admire and want to be certain to hear about.
I still use Twitter regularly. I don’t feel overwhelmed there. When a conversation gets going there, I shift it to email. I’m on Ravelry every day; I love to see what my crafty peeps have posted. I stopped using Instagram and renewed my relationship with Flickr. Why did I need two places to share my shots? I hop on Facebook a few times a week, but it no longer overwhelms or distracts me.
I’d love to hear how you handle information overload when you feel it.
On that note, I’m honored to be included in Be More With Less’s Simplicity in Action series. If you’re visiting from BMWL, welcome!
On our school news channel, it talked about how 60% of people had taken a break from using FB for up to a few weeks at a time –of course, the newscast when on to explain what FB was doing to prevent that from happening. I find myself wanting to disconnect from it as well, and I notice more and more I’m overwhelmed with information I didn’t really want to have…So maybe a break is in order for me, too.
Dana, I gave it up for Lent in 2009 (I think that was the year), and I didn’t miss it too much. Really, if my knitting group and blogging group weren’t there, I think I’d eliminate it. Give it a try!
Meghan Daum wrote an amazing essay about the very specific ways FB has been creeping into her psyche and working her nerves — and it’s funny, after I read it, I realized how this thing that started out as community-building has actually raised all of our collective anxiety levels. I’m guilty. I have over 3000 friends, half of whom I’ve never met. I keep thinking that I’ll start unfriending people I don’t know, but I don’t. I feel bad about it. I’d hate for someone to think I didn’t want to receive their information. Anyhow, I really think you’ll like this essay — Meghan’s fantastic.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/03/opinion/la-oe-daum-facebook-brag-20130103
Thanks for the article link, Brooke. I’m going to read it this week. I wonder if you put up a post for a while stating your intentions for reducing the number of friends and your willingness to communicate via email if you’d feel less uncomfortable about whittling down your list?
I’m just about there myself. I agree with you about Twitter. For some reason, it’s not as overwhelming.
We should chat sometime to try to discover why Twitter feels less distracting and overwhelming!
I love this! I may have to use a variation of your Facebook Statement. It’s perfect! I have a love-hate relationsship with FB and your hit the nail on the head for me. Thanks so much for sharing this!
Thanks for visiting, and please let me know how it goes when you post your FB Statement!
Last year or so I “created” a rather simple rule for my facebook friends: 100 is the max number and then it’s “one in, one out”. So if I want to befriend somebody, I have a look and usually it’s not that hard to find somebody to “let go”. Acquaintances I, to be honest, don’t really care that much anyway, people who were friends, but aren’t anymore (for whatever reason). This way I stay in contact with people I really care about and sometimes it’s also an “invitation” to re-connect with somebody and don’t befriend the “new” person.
I did the se recently. I kept my family, asparagus are elsewhere. I often ponder dropping off of Facebook. “Unfriending” felt mean, but 400+ of them?
I recently decided to try setting a lot of “friends” to either show only their “important” updates or nothing at all in my news feed. Unfriending makes me feel bad, but I know I should have the guts to just go ahead and do it. Hopefully this experiment in not having to see what most of them have to say will help mitigate the overload. If it doesn’t, the next step will have to be unfriending people I don’t really know.