Quitting facebook

A few months ago the news was full of privacy issues regarding the recent changes of Facebook security settings. After reading so much about it, and many articles on how to quit facebook cold turkey, I began seriously thinking about leaving facebook as well. So one boring afternoon, out of the blues, I decided “today will be the day to quit facebook”. And so I did.
前一陣子因為facebook 隱私管理的緣故，新聞鬧的很大，好多報章雜誌都寫專欄交大家如何離開facebook。而我也因為讀了這麼多相關文章而開始認真考慮要離開facebook。結果，就在一天心血來潮的狀況之下，我突然決定不玩facebook。我把facebook帳號關了。

There were actually a few reasons why I quit. One of them of course was the privacy issues. Facebook is very different than blogs. It connects you to all your friends, and even show pictures of you and your friends. So the viewer not only knows you well, he/she also knows your friends too. And I think that is pretty intrusive and potentially harmful. Yes, one can change the security in the privacy settings, but I still think that if one day facebook were to used incorrectly (yes I love to daydream like this), it can become a very dangerous weapon.
戒facebook其實有很多原因。其中一個就是報導過很多的，隱私。facebook與部落格不同的則是，它可以聯繫到你所有的朋友。大家的照片有都可以貼標籤，瀏覽者除了知道你以外，也知道你所有的朋友。這樣一來隱私完全曝光。是，隱私權是可以在帳戶上做調整，但我只是想，要是哪一天facebook落入了某人手裡，不正當使用，真的會是個很可怕的工具。（是我在胡思亂想，但我也當真）


photo - a-Lou Creations

Another reason for quitting is because it doesn’t promote healthy interaction with people. I found myself just leaving a message on someone’s wall instead of actually calling them or emailing them to say hello. This wall messaging became an excuse for me to interact with people. Before facebook, if one wanted to get in touch with a friend, you either talk on msn or write an email. And on these forms of communication, there is some commitment. One can’t just say hi and how are you on msn/email and end the conversation. However facebook does not require commitments. A wall message, you actually don’t necessarily need to respond. So for valuing relationships, I have decided to quit facebook. (very funny though, facebook I believe was created so that it promotes interaction with others, but here I am finding it is giving me an excuse not to)

另一個離開的原因是因為facebook取代了許多可以與朋友真正相處的時間。好多時候我會發現，「阿，這位朋友好久沒聯絡了，在他的牆上留個言吧。」就用個「你好嗎？」當藉口。而在以前，沒有facebook的時候要不就是msn或是email。msn，email寄出去不可能只寫個「你好嗎？」，這兩個工具都要求使用者要「用心去交流」。而facebook的牆上留言呢，感覺好像比較不需用心。牆上留言有時回不回其實都沒差，也不能講到什麼真正有意義的內容。所以，因為交流關係，我決定放棄facebook。（非常諷刺的，facebook應該是用來更方便交流的工具，而我卻發現它使我懶惰，有藉口不去真正的交流。）

So in the future, if you want to contact, email me or msn me! And if we could meet up, lets hang out!
所以，以後如果要與我聯絡，歡迎email或msn我！如果我們可碰面的話，更歡迎你約我出來喝個咖啡或出去遛達。


註:在北美，facebook已經成為大眾聯絡彼此的主要工具。甚至有報導預測再過幾年，社交網站會取代傳統email聯絡方式。