A week without Facebook is much easier said than done. The thing about Facebook is that I can go without it as long as my friends do not mention or discuss the daily updates they read. But once they start, it is only a matter of clicks before I log on too. I did not though, for a week.

Facebook is a social network with over 600 million active users around the globe. It is available in different languages so making contact with someone in the opposite side of the globe is much easier than before. Facebook is free to users, however the user must be at least 13 years of age or older to have an account.

I felt like I was out of the loop from WTAMU and from my friends the first morning I was without Facebook. It first became evident that I was in trouble during an Eternal Flame meeting on Monday. The first topic on the agenda that day was concerning the Facebook contest we had recently started. I survived the meeting though, assigning other members to check the status of the contest online and updating the Eternal Flame page.

Later that day I received some gossip via text message from a friend in Waco. She was telling me about something that happened to one of our friends from back home. I laughed at the message and asked my friend how she found out. She replied with a message reading, “Facebook,” of course. Was my friend being a “creeper” or was she just passing on valid information that was posted on Facebook for others to see?

This brings me to a point I have asked my friends and myself. What is the point of having hundreds or thousands of friends on Facebook? I bet if each of us went through our “Friends List” we would most likely stumble upon people we have never met, have not talked to in ages or people that have not used their account in years. I did.

During the winter break I went through my “Friends List” and realized that I did not communicate in any way shape or form with many of them. So, I did something horrible, I deleted them. I did not delete them from my life, just from Facebook. Is that bad? I do not think so. Some of them were “friends” from high school that we probably didn’t say one word to each other then, so why would we say anything years later on a social network site?

The remaining part of the week without Facebook went a little smoother, except when I was with friends who were on the site or whenever I was not busy and I had the urge to log on and check out what my friends were doing.

Overall I believe that as a mass communicator, well in the process of becoming a mass communicator, Facebook is something that I hear about every single day whether I am with friends or in class. Most of my mass communication classes usually mention Facebook during the period. It is because Facebook has become part of our culture, it is who we are, at least right now. What a better and easier way to communicate news, stories, updates, photos, videos and links than with Facebook.