By Melody Bishop
Elm Staff Writer
It’s 10 minutes before midnight on a Tuesday evening, and you’ve just finished the last of your work due for the next day. Naturally, the next thing you do is log on to Facebook; have to make sure you haven’t missed anything since you last checked the news feed 10 minutes ago. So you scroll for a minute, maybe only 30 seconds, before you realize you couldn’t care less about the majority of the content your peers have posted. Or perhaps it’s 15 minutes into class, and you find yourself mindlessly lurking on another user’s profile or checking notifications on your phone when you really should be paying attention to the lecture. Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
Facebook has come to be a daily habit in many students’ lives, whether you’re addicted to it or suddenly suffering from what has been dubbed “Facebook fatigue.” Despite the many benefits of being able to connect and keep in touch with virtually anyone in the world in such a convenient format, the negatives are undeniable, and some students are beginning to do something about it. It’s not so uncommon for Facebook users to go on “unfriending sprees” in an effort to limit who has access to their information. Some students even choose to deactivate their account for good.
While students worry about privacy or the potential for shared content to affect their future professional life and employability, others are just tired of the site and the way it impacts their lives. There is concern that excessive use of Facebook detracts from the quality of real-life interactions and causes drama, with users more concerned over a controversial post instead of what’s actually going on around them. Others are sick of taking so much interest in other people’s lives when they need to live their own. Whether it’s worrying too much about what other people are doing or saying, or getting caught up in online drama, some students have simply had enough.
De-activating isn’t for everyone though, so other users sometimes deactivate for short period of time to take a break from it and refocus.
“I would find myself just mindlessly scrolling through the newsfeed on my phone, even though I knew there was nothing substantial or worthwhile to continuously keep checking back on. And when I was trying to get work done, I’d have it open only to distract me,” said junior Alison Percich, who has given up Facebook during Lent for the past two years and also at random times when she felt she needed a break. Percich said this experience helped her to focus more on her work, and since then she mostly uses it stay in contact with friends she may not see every day. “Facebook can be fantastic when you need to quickly talk to someone, get in touch with friends in other countries, share photos or just celebrate a great piece of news.”
De-activating may seem extreme to a lot of students, given the popularity of the site, but some have chosen to never create an account in the first place.
Freshman Jenna Carpenter has never had account, and is happy with that decision.
“All of my friends would talk about it and it did not seem like something I wanted to be a part of. It also seemed like it caused a lot of unnecessary issues. It created drama and sometimes people would pick on other people through Facebook.”
Junior Brian Zohorsky has also never had an account and said, “I have never been into social media. I don’t like the fact that someone can just have Google tell my story. I just don’t think it’s for me.”
Facebook is a wonderful resource in a lot of ways, but it quickly becomes a pitfall for procrastinators, the easily distracted, and social media addicts. The list of problems the site creates could hypothetically go on forever, but you get the point. What it ultimately comes down to is knowing how big of a role you want the site to play in your daily interactions, and also how much you are willing to share online. If you’ve ever thought about giving up the site for good or just going off it for a short while, I’d encourage you to give it a try; you never know what insights and new perspectives you might gain when you aren’t viewing the world from behind a screen.