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No Truths…Only Dares! Facebook Deactivation

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Erin Smith
Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Alexandra Pannoni
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Towson chapter.

To try something new, your favorite staff of writers here at HerCampus Towson decided to create a blog of articles dedicated to dares. Everyone who wanted to participate wrote down a dare, we put them in a bowl and then picked one out.
 
My dare was to deactivate my Facebook page for five days. When you first hear that you’re like “Oh! That’s so easy!” and believe me I thought the same thing. Besides, who uses Facebook anymore right? It’s all about Twitter and Tumblr. But what happens when no one is online on one of those? That’s what I was going to find out.
 
I used to be in LOVE with Facebook. But then my family decided, “Hey even though I’m in my 40s, lets join the hip, hot, new trend and make a Facebook like the young kids!” * note sarcasm here* Even my grandma has a Facebook! Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind it now, but in high school I was so annoyed. That’s when I slowly, but surely weaned myself off of Facebook and on to Twitter. It was hard to get the hang of at first, but I did it. Twitter gave me the freedom that I wanted. I could use those 140 characters to say what I want without someone commenting on EVERYTHING!

 
I love my family and I have nothing to hide, but not everyone needs to know everything. My mom is the type of parent you can share anything with. My other family members are so conservative that sometimes it can be a pain. In fact, until I was 18 my family could only see my pictures. To them, my wall did not exist. They could only see what I shared with them, but once I turned 18 I figured what could they say? The answer: EVERYTHING! No status was left untouched. No photo was left unseen (except my tagged ones. Lets face it…they don’t need to see everything!) My Facebook page had become a “Free-For-All.”
 
To complete this dare, I made Facebook inaccessible for me. I deactivated my page, delete the app off of my phone and removed the link from the bookmarks bar on my computer. I had to go completely cold turkey for this to work and it did. My friends couldn’t believe I actually went the whole 5 days without giving in. I’m very proud of myself because I don’t think some people would be able to complete the task successfully.
 
It wasn’t until I deactivated my page that I realized how much it actually meant to me. My family and friends thought I was trying to get rid of them and I felt disconnected. I didn’t know whose birthday it was and I couldn’t check up on how things were going with extended family members. I couldn’t even laugh at any of the new memes posted on the “Towson University Memes” page.

A meme is an image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another. Find more about Towson Memes on their Facebook Page.
 

But there was good to come out of deactivating my page; Facebook was one less distraction that I had. I could focus more on schoolwork because there was one less thing that I could be doing. Now that the five days is up, I’ve gone back to using Facebook on the regular. It was nice to realize that people actually noticed when my page wasn’t there anymore. To me, it meant that even though they may not reach out to me everyday they still think about me. They still care to know what’s going on in my world and that makes a difference. The experience taught me that social networks are becoming a big part of today’s society but we have to be able to monitor our usage.

 
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Erin is a Mass Communications student at Towson University studying Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations. She is the Editor-In-Chief, Campus Correspondent and President of Her Campus Towson. Erin has been writing for Her Campus Towson since fall 2011 and worked as an intern for Sister 2 Sister Magazine in summer 2013. She competed in the 2012 Miss Maryland USA pageant and has since done some print modeling as a hobby. 
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Alexandra (Ali) Pannoni is a senior at Towson University majoring in journalism with a minor in theatre. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Her Campus Towson. As the Campus Celebrity columnist for Her Campus Towson, Ali has interviewed Country Music Superstar Chuck Wicks and Major League Baseball Player Casper Wells. In Spring 2012 she was an editorial intern with Baltimore magazine. Currently she is an intern for the nationally syndicated radio morning show, The Kane Show, heard locally on HOT 99.5 in Washington D.C. and Z104.3 in Baltimore.  You can view some of her published work for Baltimore magazine on her website. She loves reading magazines, (attempting) to run, and hanging out with friends and family.