News Flash: Teenager quits Facebook
I quit Facebook this week, and I’ve never been happier. This is obviously an exaggeration, as I have, in fact, been happier several times in my life.
However, I rejoice in the fact that I am no longer bombarded by asinine notifications regarding people with whom I have not spoken to in several years. Facebook was destroying my youth.
At 16 years old, I should be at the height of conceit and selfishness, not frantically checking what everyone is up to. I realized that although my parents have always told me to pay attention to other people, Facebook is taking that several steps too far.
Facebook is like Internet crack. Once you sign up, you find yourself needing to check on all of your friends, on all of your acquaintances, and on all of the people whom you saw once in class and sent a friend request to.
Over time, you can build up your little stable of friends as if you were a real life Pokémon trainer. Let’s face it: how many people did you send friend requests to just to increase your friend count?
Facebook is even devaluing the word “friend”. Once, it meant someone you hung out with, talked to, and had common interests with. Now, with this social networking fad, a friend is little more than a commodity, something to acquire in bulk.
For all of us sick and tired of Facebook and its ilk, we can take comfort in the fact that in five years, this fad will have passed. Whether its cramming ourselves into telephone booths, hula-hooping, or ghost-riding-the-whip, we’ll have found something new to distract ourselves with.