Eighteen long months back, I started an experiment. I got myself off all social media groups – Whatsapp groups, Facebook groups etc.
I have a slightly mixed feeling of the experiment but overall, I do not feel any need to go back to the groups. I certainly regret the fact that I did not realize one of my schoolmate’s dad died or another friend had met with an accident – all of these were discussed in groups. I found those out during my birthday calls with those friends. And occasionally, some friend who was aware that I was not in any group informed me of those incidents.
As a slight aside, somebody let me know that people were showering me with a lot of birthday greetings on my birthday in my MBA classmates’ Whatsapp group. Not sure how many of them realized that I was not even in the group.
I re-joined my middle school Whatsapp group about four months back. Lasted less than 48 hours.
I am thinking about Facebook now. As many of you know, I actually do not post on Facebook. I write (some might even suggest way too much) on my blog – www.rajibroy.com. It then gets crossposted to FB thru a plugin of the platform that I use – WordPress.
The original purpose of my blog (which is in its 16th year and predates when I joined Facebook) was to leave a journal of my life – if anybody in my progeny or even current times ever wanted to know who I was/am and what life I led/lead.
While Facebook has been a great vehicle for me to get those posts out to so many of my friends and find out connections that I was not even aware of, my original purpose was never to try to make my stories popular. I just needed a place to write my stories.
I am wondering whether I should just stick to my blog like I used to and not cross post ever to Facebook. What do you think?
(This is not to say I will quit FB. Every weekend, I catch up with news. I will catch up with some of my FB friends’ posts too – of course, depending on what FB lets me see)
