My name is Jacob Bastin, and like most students here at BHS, I have a routine I go through when I get home from school. Well, I used to anyway. Drop my backpack and jacket off, change into something more comfortable, grab a snack and a can of pop, and get on my computer to check my Facebook. Notifications, friend requests, game invites, messages, wall posts, comments…. the list keeps going, and before I knew it, it would be really late, I’d be really tired and I would stress over all the homework I forgot to do. But like I said, I used to have that routine.
On Friday, February 11, after much thought and consideration, I pulled on all the courage and strength I had and I clicked the “Delete Account” link on my Facebook, and to my surprise, it was a very simple process. It asked me if I was sure a few times, but finally it was finished. The last page informed me that my account had been deleted, BUT if I logged back on at any point within the following two weeks that my entire account would come back.
The two weeks I had to wait for my account to be completely deleted were absolute hell. I had a lot of hours to kill, and trying to find something to fill that time was hard. I started getting my homework done, but even that still left a few hours a night. So, in my attempt to find something to do, I stumbled across another time wasting internet website: Stumbleupon. I guess I could have found something more productive to do, but when you’re an adult and you suddenly have 2-3 more hours of free time in your afternoon, wasting time is the easiest and most fun thing to do.
This whole mess started back in February of ’04 when Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room. It has since expanded from a college based social network to holding over (as of 3/4/11) 629,982,480 members across the world. That’s about 1 in every 13 people on the planet. America has over 206.8 million internet users, 69.13% of them have Facebook accounts, and the U.S. accounts for over 24% of all Facebook accounts. I got my Facebook back ’07, and the 4 years that I have had it taught me a valuable lesson. There’s no need to have a digital identity when the real one gets the job done.
On Friday, February 25, my digital identity was officially deleted, and I’ve never been happier.
So I challenge all who read this article to do as I have done. Get rid of your Facebook. You don’t really need it, you just think you do. For me, deleting my Facebook gave me a freedom I never knew existed. Just think of what it could do for you.
