Connected world

As of today my Facebook account is officially deleted. Even though I'm glad for my choice, there are still some mixed feeling floating around on what I've gained and lost. Since making this decision, I've had many conversations with many different people about it. Some people support it and others perceived it as loss of multiple connections.

The pros of leaving-
* Time vacuum no more- I can say with assurance that I was not a middle of the road Facebooker. One term my fiancee used only partially jokingly was that I was a vein slapping Facebook junkie. Quite a few people have told me that since I left, their wall activity reports on others status updates is much less active, simply from my posts not being there anymore. I was on all the time and amazingly it did not negatively impact my productivity...at least not too severely:)
* Less screen time- This is kind of an extension of the previous reason, but my inability to self regulate on Facebook led to multiple posts = many hours in front of the 'puter, which with school work as well, was a LOT of screen time.
* No more frustration with the various privacy and layout setting- I have recently heard that changes have been made and the privacy settings have improved, but it still seems too big to be managed safely.

Cons to leaving
* Scrabble- I will miss playing my multiple online games of my favourite word game. Hopefully I will be inspired to play more in real time non virtual venues.
* Virtual community- this is a tricky one for me. One of the reasons I left was because the connections on Facebook didn't feel real to me, like this virtual substitute for real connections. It was in fact that, but not necessarily in a bad way. The kind of 'tech oriented over great distances' world we live in almost requires this kind of community. It was pointed out to me recently that this may be beneficial in a time when the small town connections/communications are gone and information about people that were once important to us can still be found. I definitely got a kick out of seeing peoples statuses change with life events, but it also felt strange to me that I could know so much about someone I don't actually talk to on a regular basis.
* Posting my one liner comments- I loved cracking myself up, and sometimes others, with my at times witty remarks. Hopefully some of that will occur in this venue as well.

I can't say that I am going to swear off of Facebook forever. One thought I had was to try it again after I get married. The landmark being a fairly arbitrary one- it's a long enough time period from now (just under 5 monthes from now, but it's not like I am counting down or anything :P) to see if I can maintain the type of connections I want or if creating a less involved Facebook account is the way to go.

If I did go back on, there would of course, be Scrabble. There should always be Scrabble:)