Confessions of an ex-Facebook addict

First I did Hi5, then came Myspace, and then Orkut. Social media back then wasn't the way it is now. Atleast for me it wasn't. Back then people became friends with random people they met over the internet. My initiation into social media happened back in 2005, after getting access to internet at the age of 12 in my PC. Fast forward to 2018- when in every half and hour I checked FB from my smartphone. Am I very social a person? Not at all. Rather I'm one of those who is so awesomely bored in her life that FB provides the excitement which is to be otherwise obtained from actually interacting with real people- offline or online for that matter. In my case I do neither. What do I do in FB then? At one point I uploaded pictures or posts because I wanted people to know the otherwise invisible offline me. At other times to intrigue a couple of people, thirdly to stalk a few people of both genders harmlessly. Fourthly for uploading a new profile picture. Uploading a profile picture is no small matter. From my experience of changing my profile picture 10 times in the last year- I have come to see what works as a profile picture to get more likes. But why did I frequently change my profile picture last year? It's probably due to a couple of things which had happened in my life last year. I was in a restless mood- continually being plagued by the thoughts of an uncertain academic future. This restlessness coupled with boredom and not having enough meaningful engagement consequenced into a hyper active persona in FB.

Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with people and ping people occasionally when the need be. For me, seeing interesting updates from other people was another reason. However FB is bad for other reasons as well, there's the unpleasant activity of blocking undesirable people- people who harass you online or offline or perhaps even an ex. That apart, it's generally pleasurable, given that it's used in moderation. Trying to connect with friends and people with whom you have lost touch at first seems like a good idea, so I avidly tried to connect with my classmates from school after a hiatus of nearly 7 years. Although it started well, it didn't end well. Because the obvious happened- online harassment. The possibility of getting harassed online by a classmate from school was unthinkable for me till that point. I had been sending FB requests to people I knew from my school- the school in which I studied for 13 long years. It started with sending FB requests to girls and people I used to talk to (not necessarily friends though), then I sent requests to people who used to be just classmates which at the time I didn't consider as a thing I shouldn't do. However given the number of creeps in the virtual world, that wasn't a good idea- thinking about it in retrospect. I was harassed online by a boy from my class with whom I wasn't friends with back in school days. That isn't the end of the story, I was further harassed offline when the same boy called me from an unknown number. Further when I talked about it to a male "friend" to whom I had previously shared few of my stories of online harassment, he asked me why such things seemed to happen only with me. Well, given that this guy wasn't used to girls telling him their stories of harassment or even if he himself had no clue about such occurrences, I couldn't overlook such a callous statement from anyone.

What happened to me wasn't a deal breaker, I as many other millennial women face many online and offline harassment- from complete strangers, friends we make online, people we know only by face or people who are just our classmates or colleagues, friends or perhaps even our boyfriends or exes. But this instance was particularly disgusting, because when the unexpected happens that's when it shocks us, or perhaps even makes us take a step back and reflect on things. I have been off Facebook for about a week. And it isn't just because of the creep who harassed a classmate from school, it's also because FB, made me acquire a persona which wasn't necessarily how I would like to define "myself". Neither do I want to spend inordinate amounts of time stalking, changing profile pictures or watching animal videos. Perhaps this abstinence wouldn't stay for long, perhaps I would get back to FB just tomorrow, but for now I'm off FB.