I recently purged my Facebook account. Last year I spent irrationally much time there, mostly playing FarmVille, Restaurant City and other virtual build-and-manage-an-environment games, befriending strangers just to get more neighbours so I can collect virtual tripe by the dozens and exchange them for rare and seasonal in-game items. At a time when real life didn't offer many chances of success and had no positive feedback, these games gave me proof that if I stick to doing something on a daily basis, I can build something big and beautiful. And in that way they were helpful for a while and made me feel better. But then I became addicted and needed to add more and more games, till I found myself clicking those things all day long.
Do you know the worst part? At a time I convinced myself that I am doing it for my daughter, because on my virtual farm I had a pink virtual house and stuffed its virtual garden with virtual toys, a virtual see-saw and virtual swings, etc, while in reality I spent less time with my baby, because I stole time from playing with her so I can build an unreal environment she may enjoy looking at but will never be able to access. How dumb is that? Yes, Tamara likes the way the virtual puppy wags its tail, but she doesn't enjoy my spending 20 minutes daily on virtual feeding it. And that is just one game.
Anyway, I snapped out of it. I removed 75 of my 85 games. I removed all the pages I was a fan of. Why on earth did I ever decide to "like" Celebrity Birthdays in the first place? And did I really think I can save the rainforests by sending 10 virtual seeds a day? The games I have spared are only there because I feel sorry for the time and energy I invested in building them.
Next I am gonna start to remove all those friends I don't really know. I am only worried about accidentally removing a few stitching friends, as I remember most of them by email addy and not by full name. Should it happen to you, please let me know. I wanna use Facebook for what I believe it was invented for, to keep in touch with real people who are really important for me in my real life.
