How would your life be different without Facebook?

This question addresses an interesting dynamic of how technology affects our lives and our interactions. I'm assuming this means "How would your life be different without social networks in general?" (because something else could easily replace Facebook). Facebook offers a way to connect with old friends with whom you've lost touch or with family members in far-flung nations. It also offers a forum to interact with the friends and family that you see on a daily basis. You can easily make plans for the weekend or say "Hey" to your Aunt in Alice Springs. This is certainly a convenient tool when it's used in this way. Another use of Facebook is the sharing of links, videos, quotes and other media with your friends. You can play games and even use a live chat function. All of these useful or superfluous programs work together to create a website that can absorb hours and hours of your day even if Facebook is just sitting idle in one of your tabs as you peruse the rest of the web.

Before I can answer how my life would be different without Facebook, I have to explain how Facebook affects my life now. As it is, I sign on to facebook perhaps three or four times a day for several minutes. I use it to plan events with my research group. I occasionally chat for a few minutes with friends from home and browse their pages to see how they're doing and what they're up to. If I have nothing better to do, I'll mindlessly revise my "Info" section or post funny pictures from the web. Overall, it doesn't take up much of my day, but I do feel the need to check it regularly or else I start to wonder if I've missed an important message. However, in all honesty there's rarely anything truly urgent happening on Facebook. In summary, I use it as a tool to interact with people that I don't see but for a few times each year and I use it to kill time.

Facebook isn't a particularly necessary part of my life. Sometimes I feel that addiction-induced craving to check it if it's been a day since I've been on, but nothing important has ever occurred. If Facebook disappeared I really wouldn't miss it. I feel like it's something I need to have to keep in touch with people and interact with my friends in this day and age. Even though I could call old friends or send emails and letters to my family, Facebook is just simpler because everyone I know is using it. Without it I would be disconnected from many of the people I know. I would definitely still keep in touch with friends and family members, but more selectively and on a much smaller scale than I do now. If Facebook disappeared and no one used it that would be much different than if I alone stopped using it. In that case, I might have a harder time keeping in touch with people, but that's not always a bad thing. The people who I wouldn't keep in touch with anyway would fade out of my life and my really close friends would remain. I would also probably spend more time talking to and interacting with the people who live next door or who live on campus.

If Facebook disappeared, a lot of how I see the world would probably change. One change that quickly comes to mind is that I wouldn't sign on each day and see what my ex-girlfriends are doing, which is sometimes troubling knowledge. I might speak to them less, but I'd also know less about their lives which in some cases might be an improvement. Not having this extra connection would make losing girlfriends and friends in general much less painful. I would also (hopefully) spend less time on the internet in general. I'm not big on web surfing, but if I have Facebook open I'll sometimes leave it open and mess around on the web to see if any old friends sign on that I could talk to. Without that I wouldn't have a reason to keep my computer on and I'd probably go work on the stack of books next to my bed or go walk in the forest that I've neglected to visit. All of that might be overly optimistic thinking, but it might happen. Another important effect of Facebook disappearing would be the removal of one way of accidentally misrepresenting yourself. A lot of times embarrassing pictures can show up that aren't necessarily "bad" but that maybe your family, your employers, and the world don't need to see. Without Facebook it would be much harder for those kinds of problems to be created.

In terms of socialization, having no Facebook would probably be really helpful. It would force you to really learn things about your friends so that you truly know them. You could have more personal conversations in person. With Facebook, you can always check on a friend's page to find out when their birthday is or whatever else you have forgotten about them. Without a reference database of your friends' information you'd have to really get to know them. Another interesting aspect of Facebook and other text based communication is with emotional conversations. Sometimes it's hard to approach someone and talk to them about a problem, to ask them on a date, or do something else that puts yourself out there. With things like Facebook chat and text messaging it's very easy to just use that facade to avoid embarrassment when asking a difficult question. Without those resources it might be harder for some people to interact, but it would also force everyone to be more social, interactive, and open. Our culture has grown to be in some ways closed off as we hide behind our LCD screens. We create an image of ourselves in the virtual world that doesn't really represent us. Without a forum like Facebook we would lose that ability and return to who we really are.

On a broader scale, having no Facebook would open up friendships and communities to real human contact. If the kids are each in their own rooms on Facebook and Mom's on the couch watching the news and Dad's in his office on a conference call then there's no growth and there's no getting-to-know-each other; there's no family. Without Facebook - and beyond that without all of the technological distractions like cell phones and televisions - we'd be forced to talk to each other, to look each other in the eye, and be human beings. Each decade and each year there's new technology to enclose ourselves into our individual spaces, separated from everyone except for the illusion of interaction provided by images on a screen. Humans evolved to live in communities and to have the help of a family, but that kind of interpersonal support is fading as we learn to fend for ourselves and only interact in cyberspace. Without Facebook we'd be one step towards a society that has people socializing with their neighbors, helping each other, and getting to know one another face-to-face without all of the unnecessary distractions provided by the internet.