The End Of An Era

About two months ago I wrote a post about Facebook and the lack of intimacy that it provides between individuals. Well, I finally got tired of Facebook and decided to end my relationship with all social networking websites. I just simply became annoyed with all of the nonsense. It was great seeing old classmates and finding people I grew up with in my neighborhood but outside of those moments, I didn't enjoy it much. To be quite honest, I actually found it to be an invasion of my privacy. For those people who do not know me well, I am a VERY private person. I don't share the details of my personal life with many people so for me to be so easily accessible was bothersome. I know I'm not Angelina Jolie or Halle Berry but I do believe that maintaining a certain level of privacy for myself is important. I didn't like the fact that people could look at my pictures and view conversations that I was having with other people. It leaves room for too much interpretation and with my sense of humor, people who do not know me can easily misinterpret what I say.
I also found myself being a bit more intrusive in other people's lives as well. I would get home from work and instead of sitting down and reading a book, I would turn the computer on and immediately begin to shuffle through other people's random vacation pictures, party pics and more. Its not like I'm not interested in what other people are doing in their lives, I just don't think I need to be consumed with it for two hours out of the day. I have literally sat down at 5pm, started looking at Facebook and before I knew it the clock was reading 7pm. That was when I knew I had a problem. I was so involved in other people's lives that I was neglecting my own.
Another big issue for me is that some of the people who were popping up on Facebook were people who I didn't care to know any longer. I am a firm believer that not everyone belongs in my life. When I closed my account, there were many friend requests "pending" and I am so thankful that they will remain in that "pending" area of my life. The fact that I have to keep someone "pending" to be my "friend" speaks volumes to me. Anyway, as I have stated in many of my blogs, I am experiencing a tremendous growth spurt in my life and Facebook was not helping me to focus on myself. I think it did just the opposite and hindered my growth. Now I can come home, read a book and get back to my normally peaceful state of mind. This may not mean a lot to other people, but it means a lot to me. Either way it doesn't matter if others understand it or not. I just know that I feel so much better.