Today I finally RE-activated my Facebook after deactivating it for over half a year

[Teknoe]

As I've gotten older I've gone from more extroverted and "showing off" (I used to post vlogs on FB) to introverted and private. I didn't necessarily miss FB as I was getting tired of the same ole people posting the same kind of stuff on my newsfeed. However, in cutting it off, I cut off all ties with acquaintances as most of these people didn't have my email or number, which meant I would receive a great deal of privacy.

 

I decided to rejoin because I just signed up for a fitness challenge that requires me to check in everytime through FB that I attended. i.e. accountability. Just signed back in and added a bunch of new friends I made recently. It's nice to be back. Maybe I'll reconnect with some old acquaintances. I think the real reason I left was I really just wanted to be "left alone" and not have anyone able to "check in with me" if they didn't have my email or number. It's easy to ignore ppl after all who have no way to reach you. While it was safe, I certainly didn't grow and couldn't help but have this nagging feeling that I was not living life to the fullest, or that I was ashamed of my "boring" lifestyle to suddenly go so private. I was happy in my own way but deep down a little miserable at the underlying reason here... I just wanted to quietly exist on my own rather than live life sharing it with others.

 

I guess I'm slowly getting back to be a little more extroverted and less super private. I guess I needed a season or two to kind of be in my own spot before feeling mentally ready to expose myself again so to speak.

 

Anyone ever been in my shoes/this position before? I'd love to hear more about your story!

[Frank2thepoint]

While it was safe, I certainly didn't grow and couldn't help but have this nagging feeling that I was not living life to the fullest, or that I was ashamed of my "boring" lifestyle to suddenly go so private.

 

I don't nor ever had Facebook. I live my life to the fullest without it, and I'm not ashamed of not having it. In fact, I have piece of mind and more time on my hands to do activities without it hovering over me. Maybe this is how you could view life without Facebook.

[Popsicle]

I can't stand and resist being tethered to any online source for socializing. If you need to, make new friends offline and leave out the FB thing with them (that's what I do).

[scottishfold]

I deactivated my Facebook 3.5 years ago. I had Facebook ever since the beginning of it when you needed to be enrolled in college and had a university e-mail address and had it confirmed. Then I think it rolled out to high school students, and then everybody else.

 

I deactivated my account because I went through a breakup. It wasn't on bad terms, but I just cut him out cold turkey. He reached out several times via e-mail, but I never responded until a couple years later. We e-mailed for a day, and then that stopped too. He died a couple months ago in a motorcycle crash.

 

Anyway, once in a while, I think about Facebook. But the majority of the time, I'm glad to be off of it. I felt depressed looking at everyone's highlight reel. My life is not exciting at all, but I spend the time the way I want to. I'm not out taking selfies of my outdoor activities because I partake in none. I enjoy being introverted, always have, and didn't care to see pictures of everyone's boyfriends, babies, dogs, etc. I know I won't ever go on it unless I desperately need to save my old photos from what I posted on there. I don't miss it at all.

[Els]

FB gets a lot of hate, but I've found it pretty useful for keeping in touch with old childhood friends who are now scattered in all corners of the globe. I never used to be active on FB in the early days when my friends and I all lived in the same place, but once I graduated college I started keeping in touch with people through it and I'm glad I did. Sure, you can and should make new friends too, but I don't see the point in cutting off communication with people who shared a history and a childhood with you.

 

IMO it's just one of those things that works reasonably well if you use it moderately, and is pretty bad if you let it turn into an addiction. I've even gotten a couple of job contracts and collaborations off of it. I mean, there are other ways - Skype, phone, etc that you could use to keep in touch with old friends, but I don't see how any of the above methods are superior to the others.

[Haydn]

FB gets a lot of hate, but I've found it pretty useful for keeping in touch with old childhood friends who are now scattered in all corners of the globe. I never used to be active on FB in the early days when my friends and I all lived in the same place, but once I graduated college I started keeping in touch with people through it and I'm glad I did. Sure, you can and should make new friends too, but I don't see the point in cutting off communication with people who shared a history and a childhood with you.

 

IMO it's just one of those things that works reasonably well if you use it moderately, and is pretty bad if you let it turn into an addiction. I've even gotten a couple of job contracts and collaborations off of it. I mean, there are other ways - Skype, phone, etc that you could use to keep in touch with old friends, but I don't see how any of the above methods are superior to the others.

 

True. And it also has settings that allow you to control who sees what and vice versa. Some seem to forget;)

[Els]

I find FB to be superficial and fake.

 

The place that has you signing to to be accountable is getting free advertising - and everyone knows where you've been at what time of day.

 

That doesn't seem smart or safe to me.

 

I'd tell them I'll attend but I'm not signing in for everyone to see. What happened to personal accountability?

 

You know you can use FB without checking in to a place, right? Sure it can still collect your location data, but so can most other apps on your phone. And EVEN if you're using an old 'dumbphone' Nokia with no apps, your phone service provider can still track your location data if it wants to, based on the nearest cell tower that took a call or SMS for/from you.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Elswyth

[No Limit]

Until a month ago I kept my Facebook account very private. That changed when I was named Admin of a Facebook group dedicated to saving horses; now I regularly get friend requests and of course plenty of messages with questions. But I never posted anything too private on Facebook anyway; it just transformed from gamer-chat-account to horse-stuff-chat-account.

[popcornpuff]

I'm part of a different group that uses fb for accountability as well. Other than that, I really don't use the site. I haven't posted anything to my profile in years. Sometimes if I find a funny picture or comic on the interner I'll use fb to send it to a friend.