Part of the exchange student process is leaving behind your home life and embracing your new country as if it were your own. Facebook seemingly allows you to have both - stay up-to-date on all your old friends' lives with only thirty to sixty minutes of efficient wall-posting, messaging and Facebook stalking, a skill I have mastered. One would think that this would be a truly wonderful thing - it's like I can stay with all my old friends while still being an Argentinean.
And, for the most part, it has been a wonderful thing. Pangs of loneliness could quickly be erased by seeing a wallpost or Facebook chat from an old friend. When you throw AIM into the Internet 2.0 mix, I was talking to my friends almost as much as I did at home.
The problem was that I was only talking to them on the internet. I have seen my friends' faces maybe once or twice on Skype, but other than that, their voices have been temporarily replaced by their fonts and their appearance to the way they look in the newest Facebook pictures.
It is not only my friends who have become their Internet alternatives - I too have found that I am defined by my Facebook page. My personality is my "About Me" and my name is my screenname. My self-image comes not from the mirror, but my Facebook default. This unconscious obsession with self-definition exists to some degree in every Facebook profile, but for me it's gotten pretty intense because my Facebook page is the only thing that defines me in the U.S. right now.
My solution: a complete withdrawal from my Facebook and AIM addiction for two weeks and the deletion of all personal content on Facebook.
We'll see how that goes.
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1 comment:
yeah, i didn't like your facebook withdrawal. glad it didn't last.
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