Life without Facebook: Day one

Bad habits are like a comfortable bed,

easy to get into, but hard to get out of.

Anonymous

Yes, I could! I de-activated my Facebook account. Though Facebook gives you an option to come back at any time and recover all your data, but for now I am firm on my decision to spend my coming weeks out of social slavery networking.

I arrived at this decision slowly and painfully as I realized that it was no longer me spending time in Facebook, but it was Facebook eating my soul, my time, my life, my health and my nerves. During these two years and something I became a real Facebook addict who would lay all his to-do things aside and spend countless hours surfing through friends' profiles. As a recent essay on BBC says (and I'd sign under):

I'd got sucked into semi-stalkerdom and felt something akin to separation anxiety if I ever found myself offline for more than a few hours. What had been my favourite waste of time had morphed into a demanding and anti-social addiction.

However, leaving Facebook brought not a relief but anxiety. "What is next" was the only question in my mind all the time and I didn't feel any greatness of the moment. Perhaps it was the very feeling of ancient Hebrews when Moses led their exodus from fertile and civilized land of Egypt to unknown and unpopulated deserts. And perhaps had they known they'd spend 40 years wandering in emptiness, they would remain on the banks of the Nile however oppressive were the chains they were wearing.

In our days, when the world thinks that it has put an end to a long and shameful history of slavery (in fact, the slavery is once again confined to the very banks of the Nile where it once started), there is a new kind of slavery emerging. Disguised beneath a gentle term of "online procrastination" it has become lifestyle of the entire planet. Social netwroking has enslaved millions of Internet users and continues to grow in a speed of a deadly virus. In non-free societies it has become the last refuge from harsh realities of the day where hundreds of dissident youth gather to realize, at least virtually, their ultimate dream of a just society.

In the beginning, it would be my activities mirrored in Facebook, but towards the end it was my activities in Facebook mirrored in my real life. Facebook has become the second most discussed topic of me and my friends and my foes, after the oppressiveness of the regime that rules over us.

Thus, it was time to quit Facebook. At least for now, to feel once again that I am a real human being from flesh and blood, not just an online profile somewhere out there. And I de-activated my account. But to be frank, I am still wondering whether I would do that if Facebook didn't keep all my user data. And I wonder whether I am really free again, if this invisible bond still continues to connect me to Facebook and I can be drawn back into its net at any time, soon or later?