I never ever thought I’d write anything like this. I was Facebook free for three years, even though I opened my account in 2007. Truth be told, I only opened the account to see my friends wedding pictures. I went to Antigua and had a wonderful time bar the loss of my phone and all my pictures (losing phones is a recurring theme in my life) so the lovely bride said to me
“Open an account on Facebook, I’ll put all the pictures on there!”
I thought nothing of it, being able to ogle all the pictures was great, but when I started getting emails about every last fart that my friends did, I started to take offence. (Yes I now know you can switch off that function but I didn’t at that time) The final straw was when I saw photos of myself in my beachwear from Antigua on the Internet. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a prude nor were the pictures embarrassing or obscene. I just wondered if it was right to have your picture displayed to potentially the whole world without your consent.

Old-fashioned pictures would end up in a photo album and really now, who looks at photo albums? Let’s be honest, when someone gives you a musty old album to look through, we look at it to be polite, often before the end of it our eyes have glazed over and all the pictures have merged into one hazy mess, but pictures on Facebook? We over indulge in them and all their 10-megapixel glory.

So I deactivated my account and thought that was the end of it. Oh foolish pride. There I was walking tall thinking “Facebook, who needs that? I have real friends in the real world, I don’t want to be part of the matrix”
Famous last words. Many phrases come to my mind, kettle, pot, black or if you live in a glasshouse do not throw stones.

As it transpired I needed to contact someone in South Africa, so after a few cumbersome emails he’s like “Yeah contact me on Facebook” and he gave me his profile name. Upon reading the email I thought, “excuse me sir I don’t do Facebook” but as I had a good excuse I went to check it out. I thought my account had been deleted so I would need to open a new one, so you can imagine my horror when my old account reared its ugly undeleted head and smiled at me! All the pictures all there with unconfirmed friend requests from friends’ non-friends and randoms. At first I felt guilt towards all my friends, folks who I had abandoned and left in limbo having not accepted their requests to be my virtual digital buddy, I frantically started confirming people hoping that I hadn’t offended anyone. I promptly stopped when one my friends said to me in real life “look at you adding people like a madman” I thought about it. I’m sure nobody is really offended if I don’t add them, they don’t really care do they? (Actually I suppose they do. I have sent requests to at least two people that I really do know and they have ignored me, I am actually quite bitter)

So I closed the account again, or should I say deactivated it. Now here is one of the sinister things. The account is just deactivated, so it is still in cyber space but people can’t see it. As you try to close it asks you why you want to close it. I was thinking, why I want to close my account is none of your fucking business Mr Facebook. But it’s a question you have to answer so I put my reason as “other”
Its final twisted temptation before it becomes comatose is to show you pictures you are tagged in and say “so and so will miss you.” It’s like the monster in the movies that is left for dead after a long gruelling battle then suddenly springs back to life with its last dying breath and grabs you by the ankle.

Images of lovely memories almost made me give in, I stopped before I hit the deactivate button and looked at my friends pictures of fun in the sun, then when I realised I was being emotionally black mailed, I hit the deactivate button. “Be gone foul beast of social interaction!”

So fast forward to November 2010 and after meeting new people at home and abroad, coupled with the start of a period of unemployment and that darned Facebook iphone app,(I have since lost my iPhone) the devil made work for my idle hands. I found myself back on Facebook. I could hear my evil account saying, “Sucker, weakling, I knew you’d be back” It knew I’d be back but can honestly say I didn’t. Why else would it only allow you to deactivate it and not be able to delete.

Once again I started confirming all the waiting requests. I laughed when one of my real friends said “Its taken you three years to approve my request” I shuddered when one of my non-friends said “You are lucky, its taken him five years to approve mine” (I am still not 100% sure of who she is)

Being back on there has given me some positive things, it’s made me realise how much I enjoy writing again. It’s made me realise how funny and witty some people are, it’s made me realise how much technology has the ability to shape culture. I was in the supermarket and I over heard two young people talking, when I say young I mean anyone who is too young to remember life without mobile phones. They were talking about someone’s Facebook “Status” They spoke about the status as if it was a true reflection of the person’s inner being, I can’t remember the whole conversation but it was something like “She was really angry with him because she said so on her status”. Status=Reality=Scary.

I do find it strange when people update everything that they do. A old school friend of mine once put on her status “I’m going to take a bath now” after all the mockery (“is that your first one this year?”) her excuse was that she typed it by accident following a telephone conversation. I’m not sure which is more alarming, writing that by accident or writing it on purpose.

It got me thinking about how much people reveal about themselves knowingly and unknowingly on Facebook. With me being an armchair psychologist, I am quite careful about what I post, nothing too that is too militant. I don't wish to offend anyone and I don't think its the appropriate forum for a certain level of debate. My friends and non-friends must be thinking that I have too much time on my hands because at the moment I am in light-hearted comment overdrive. I don’t have a job at the present so I have a (tiny) excuse, however as I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist I can’t help thinking that there is something a bit sinister about a system that coaxes you reveal so much personal stuff, does it get stored somewhere? When big brother goes for lock-down mode will Facebook tell him who the "real revolutionaries" are?

Facebook highlights to the fact that we have at least three parts to our psyche, how we see ourselves, how we wish others to see us and how/who we really are. I suppose in an ideal world to those closest to you all three should be the same, but in everyday life things are different. How many of us go to work and project the image of a professional in a “role” then come home and smoke all the weed we can get our hands on! Facebook is definitely about how we want others to see us, so its quite interesting what people choose to reveal. I suppose it’s a social utility so for the most part people want to show their fun side, but there is also a lot of ignorance, and I find that people can also be overly critical, harsh an quite judgemental sometimes, often more so than they would be in real life. Everyone gets ten tons of courage when they’re behind a computer screen. For a supposed multi-cultural modern world we live in some of the racism I've seen on You Tube comments is appalling.


So I am going to enjoy my time back on Facebook and I am not going to be ashamed of it, hopefully I’ll get bored someday but until then, I’ll be adding people like its going out of fashion. I still admire those who have been able to resist, I think in a way that’s a small sign of strength of character… Anyway, I'm done now so I am going to check my Facebook page.......... I am a self –confessed Facebookaholic don’t judge me!

@me “Get off Facebook!”