Facebook isn’t de facto everywhere. Photo by avlxyz on Flickr, licensed under the Creative Commons.

Facebook is everywhere: You’re sitting in Norbucks, biding away precious study hours surfing Facebook. While copying all of the important social events you were Facebook-invited to into your iCal, you suddenly run into that hot guy from your Poli Sci lecture. The second he’s out of sight, you embark on a cyber stalk-fest. Is he single? Alas, it appears he has a girlfriend. You’d stalk her too –- if only you had access to her private profile. Well, at least you spared yourself any extra effort expended on his behalf. Before you log out, you are luckily reminded that your best friend’s birthday is tomorrow. You make a mental note to wall-post congratulate her, and thank your lucky stars that Facebook has saved you from another near-miss.

But Facebook’s omnipresence is spreading past your inner circle of friends. The latest Facebook controversy resulted in a return to an older version of its Terms of Use after a debate sparked worrying claims that Facebook owned all content posted to the site in perpetuity. Some are rethinking their dedication to the social networking site after realizing their “private” information may not be as private as they thought.

There’s no doubt about it — we owe a lot to Facebook these days. But are we too dependent? This is a question I have grappled with for quite some time. From the first day I uploaded my profile pic, my attitude towards the site has been one of bipolar love and hate. While the strange freedom to stalk almost anyone is understandably addicting, it always made me feel a teeny bit shameful — not to mention unsatisfied. After almost three years of wild vacillation between loathing and loving the ‘book, I reached a breaking point. I could no longer reconcile my stalkerish tendencies with my image of myself as a normal person. And that’s why several weeks ago I made the most drastic decision a modern collegian can make: I, Hannah VanderPoel, deactivated my Facebook.

Ultimately, my own self-prescribed hiatus from Facebook was fueled by three factors. One was to rid my life of unnecessary distraction, mostly in an attempt to finish my homework. The second was the hope of re-learning how to socialize in ways that don’t involve typing public messages to profile avatars that serve as pixeled representations of real people. Thirdly, it was the desire to regain the sense of personal privacy that I surrendered three years ago when I first created my account –- a move that I am retrospectively thankful for, given the controversy surrounding the site’s privacy policies (or lack thereof).

But mostly it was just to see what life is like off-line. After almost an entire college career spent broadcasting my life on the web, and in anticipation of next year’s job search, I was itching to reinvest in both some discretion and some quality face-to-face time with my friends. The truth is, I realized that I don’t really want strangers ogling at my hobbies and political views via Internet. I don’t want potential employers sniffing out pictorial evidence of past drunken hijinks. And I certainly don’t want a barrage of consolation messages when my mini-feed informs the entire Western world that I’ve just Facebook-broken up with my boyfriend (because everyone knows that it’s not really over until it’s Facebook-over.)

Quitting Facebook is kind of like quitting your job. It’s hard to do, but harder still is breaking the news to your nearest and dearest. Some even seemed slightly offended, as though my failure to continue our friendship via Facebook somehow diminished our friendship in real life. Reactions were not the ones of indifference that I’d expected, but ones of worry and fear: “Are you okay? Do you need to talk to someone about this? How will you know what’s going on?” Most assumed it was a minor blip, a short bout of a predictable mid-college crisis that is the twenty-something equivalent to purchasing a Ferrari — a kick that would last a couple weeks max, after which I would regain my senses and return to normal. Several times I heard the same old adage: “I’ll give you a week.”

After so much skepticism, it admittedly became harder to stick to my guns. A barrage of doubtful reactions began to make me wonder if my decision was impulsive, or whether or not it meant I was just plain starting to lose it. I think the pinnacle was when someone asked me point-blank if I had social issues. (A personal note: I am not socially-phobic. The whole point of quitting was to put more stock in my social world, not my cyber one.) But I began to wonder if I really was trying to get away from something by abandoning Facebook. In retrospect, I know this isn’t the case. Getting acclimated to life sans Facebook took some getting used to, so in hindsight the weirdness was normal.

I no longer dwindle away the hours by creepily stalking my TAs or passing sarcastic judgment on questionable people I barely know. But there are a few cons as well — the difficulty of keeping up with my brother in New York, or my best friend from high school who just left to study abroad in New Zealand. (My mother on finding out I’d ditched my account: “But how will we know if your brother is still alive, he never picks up his phone!” I told her just to ask my Facebook-savvy dad.) Even though I know I am technically still able to communicate, there is no denying that Facebook just makes things easier.

As for the big question of whether I plan on staying off the ’book permanently, that remains to be seen. For now, I am satisfied enough without it. But if and when I do go back, it will be with a different (and most likely healthier) attitude. Oddly enough, quitting Facebook has made me realize how much I took the accessibility for granted and how much I managed to abuse it. When Mark Zuckerberg gave birth to this Frankenstein juggernaut in 2004, I doubt he did it with the desire to ruin college kid’s lives (and GPAs) by luring them into a time-wasting trap. The site was created for the same reason that most mass technology is — to communicate. Shooting the odd wall post to your friend across the country is much different than stalking the pants off someone you barely know.

So am I happy without Facebook? Yes, I would say that I generally am. Is my social life suffering? Not to speak of. Sure, I no longer instantly know when one of my friends has changed his or her musical tastes, but I think I’ll get by. There’s certainly something to be said for life outside the well-formatted text boxes of www.facebook.com; it’s kind of like taking a giant breath of fresh air. Is it tempting to want to go back to the privilege and convenience of having a cyber self?Have I realized I’d rather spend the all-too few hours in a day seeing my friends face to face rather than from behind a screen?

Unquestionably.