People keep asking me why I decided to delete my Facebook.
Honestly, I thought my online disappearance would go unnoticed. I first started
unfriending everyone while simultaneously saving photos onto a flash drive. But
soon people (mostly other Peace Corps Volunteers) noticed and I got a ton of
questions.
So what’s the deal? Let me tell you:
Facebook makes me miserable. I feel lonely when my friends are
in Washington D.C. hanging out at a bar together. I feel left out when my
entire family attends a family friend’s wedding without me. I feel a sense of
longing when my boyfriend is photographed at a wedding (a wedding in which he
had a +1 invite!). Lastly, I feel inadequate when other volunteers post their
success stories.
Rather than sitting here in a bubble of self-loathing, I
decided to do the healthy thing. I deactivated my Facebook. HAZAA! Deactivating
your Facebook account means that you temporarily go away in the virtual world.
You can disappear and reappear whenever you want. In order to get your virtual
life back, you simply enter your password. Poof! You are back online with all
of your photos, all of your friends, all of your statuses, and all of those
“likes” we all seem to like.
Deactivating my Facebook made me feel liberated. Well, for
the one day I actually did deactivate it, that is. The very next day, I found
myself typing in my password, eager to get back online. I wanted to see what the
world was up to while I was away for that brief period. I was like an addict. I
just needed a fix. I needed to post something, like someone’s photo, stalk
someone who I secretly envy. I simply could not cut my social media addition.
But the funny thing is, I didn’t post all that much. I
mostly checked up on others. I compared my Peace Corps experience to my
friend’s. I saw how one volunteer got a
dentist to send a box of supplies for her school. I saw care packages being
sent. I saw people taking snap shots of them skyping their family. And the
worst was when I saw other volunteers who got to visit home. Their access to
cheese nearly threw me off a ship of sanity and into a green sea of envy.
I even looked at photos of people from my past. I loathed my
former college classmates. They were pictured drinking in bars that had air
conditioning. They were with friends, smiling, and posting comments that
contained inside joke. I SOOOO wanted to be on the inside.
All of this Facebook envy wasn’t because I was unhappy with
my life in Indonesia. In fact, I’m really happy here. But I can’t lie; it does
get hard. It gets lonely and frustrating. I find myself needing a lot more
alone-time than I normally would. I shut my bedroom door and then play loud
music just so I can dance by myself. The culture can be overwhelming. My sleep
gets disrupted from the morning call to prayer at 4:30am. It’s difficult to
live far away from the familiar. I realized that Facebook was my out. It was
like watching a reality TV show, except I knew all of the characters
personally.
One post could literally ruin my day. I would mull over the
amenities I didn’t have or become upset over friends I no longer kept in touch
with. So, I deleted my Facebook. Deactivating it was clearly not working since
I did not have the willpower to stay off. Plus, why have something if you
never plan on using it? It took me over 2 months to fully delete every friend
and every photo, but I did it. I deleted everything in order to make it
difficult for me to come back. If I had no friends on Facebook, then what would
be the point of being online, right?
I sometimes miss Facebook. I liked the chat function, but
overall I’m happier. I no longer think of things that are thousands of miles
away. I no longer envy people with whom I barely talk to. I no longer envy
other Peace Corps Volunteers. I feel liberated. And I now fully understand the
meaning of this very important phrase:
Out of sight, out of mind.
