Real life

As I prepared to pull the plug today on Facebook, I spent some time thinking about how I’d replace its better features. I made a list, for example, of the people I tend to “see” only on Facebook. It’s woefully incomplete, but it’s a reminder that I need to take steps to stay in touch with people important to me. I’ll try to write at least one personal email every week. I won’t hit everybody. I don’t even know everybody’s email address. But I hope that improving the quality of key relationships will polish some of the pain from losing touch with, for example, some of my dance friends. Ideally, I’ll see the dance friends at social events anyway, so it won’t be a total loss. We’ll see how it goes.

Facebook demonstrated its adroit understanding of my soft spots when I began to deactivate my account. On the first of their “are you sure?” pages, they strung a garland of pictures. On each picture, it said “<Person’s name> will miss you if you leave Facebook.” The people they chose to feature weren’t necessarily the people with whom I interact most often. Some of them don’t appear to use Facebook much at all. But Facebook accurately chose some of the ones dearest to me. I’m not sure how they did that. I suspect, based on things I’ve read recently, that they look for words of emotional connection in our communications. I don’t know what else. But since I am leaving largely over concerns about privacy, they effectively illustrated what I’m worried about (while suggesting that the benefits may outweigh the costs.)

Meanwhile, life goes on quite nicely. As the weekend approached, I got an Easter card in the (postal!) mail from a friend in Belarus. Then on Friday I had a great time at the regular weekly dance near Boston. On Saturday morning, I went to the Institute of Contemporary Art with a group of alumni from my university. We enjoyed the exhibit we came to see, and then I especially enjoyed another exhibit there, called “Art in the age of the Internet.” They had some amazing stuff, all of which would have been impossible to create without computer assistance. After the show, we went out to lunch, where we enjoyed spirited conversation and a delightful waitress.

The whole weekend is going that way. I’ve always liked real life, and today I am savoring it with new commitment since I have nothing else.