Well, my own little world, not the larger one. Here are my observations on no longer having a facebook:
-It's harder to get in contact with people. A couple of times now I've thought of people who I'd like to contact but don't have a means to get ahold of other than through facebook. People who are in that watery grey area between acquaintances and friends, or even people who are solidly in the acquaintance ring, can fall through the cracks because you can't reach them. Most of these types of frienquaintances aren't in your phone or email address list. Facebook allows you to connect with those types and without Facebook, short of creepily showing up where they work, it's kind of impossible to get in touch.
The Flip Side: It makes those people you do get in touch with--and stay in touch with--more meaningful. It reveals how far you're willing to go in order to reach someone. It makes those connections more authentic. I fully understand the merits and necessity of casting a large social net but I think I'll always be someone who assigns more value to relationships that require some tangible effort to meet up or talk.
-It's easy to feel alone. Because face it (or maybe Facebook it, ha ha), there's some degree of connection in scrolling through a friend's pictures or reading their status posts. I really do miss seeing pictures of those I care about on Facebook.
The Flip Side: It's easy to feel alone on Facebook too. At least for me. And after awhile, scrolling through 67 pictures posted by your friend to a recent album just gets bland. Habituation, that inescapable affect-leveler, just comes in and rolls all over your interest. Seriously, if someday a pill were invented to prevent habituation, suddenly relationships and even mundane tasks would be completely revolutionized.
-It's harder to talk to people. This isn't quite the same as staying in contact with people. I'm talking about Facebook chat, mostly. Since Facebook has become the social media website of everyone's choice, most of real-time talking takes place on Facebook--since everyone's already on it all the time. That means there's less people on Gmail and...well, Gmail.
The Flip Side: Not sure if there's a really clear Flip Side to this one, since it would be nice to chat with more people. Perhaps it's just the whole existential crisis of short-term chatting versus having a real conversation in person. But that's the same Flip Side as the first one. So, jury's out on this one.
-It's harder to do group things. Facebook's event tool does make it a lot easier to initiate group events and sometimes people forget the person who's off of Facebook or it takes more effort to get ahold of that person.
The Flip Side: Um? I like Facebook events. All I can think of is that Facebook events never really accurately reflects who's attending and who's not. There's like a built-in Facebook Event Factor of Adjustment for every Yes, I'm attending that also accounts for the more-likely Maybes.
-Your information is yours. Granted, your information's being made NOT yours in many other ways just simply being on the internet. Furthermore, all the information that was once on your Facebook is still out there, somewhere, and accessible. But the abstract part of me does take satisfaction in the thought that my info isn't being sold to companies through Facebook, that auto-played video ads won't show up in my newsfeed (for all y'all who use fb on your smartphones), that I am not being mined like a fat vein of binary ore. At least through Facebook, currently.
The Flip Side: It's happening through everything else on the internet.
All in all, I personally still think that the benefits of not having a Facebook outweigh the costs. There are days when I really want to log on and see faces, hear news; those are the days my friends meet Connie Who Needs A Facebook Fix. But after I'm done scrolling through a few minutes of information, I'm happy that by closing the website/app and handing the phone back to my friend, I've returned to Facebooklessland.
