I have two things that I feel I have wasted years of my life on that I regret: The first is my time in intercollegiate debate, deluded that it was a place for teaching. It’s not. I either should not have done it at all, or done it at about 1/6th the amount of time and energy I put into it.

The second is Facebook. I spent a lot of time on that site, deluded that it was a place for engagement and conversation. it’s not. This one is new, and I’ll be happy to chat with you about it as well, but not on that platform.

While I was in Mexico teaching at the International Debate Education Association’s youth forum in 2012, I deleted my Facebook because I found it to be such a let down from places like LiveJournal and other blog-oriented sites. I felt that time people spent on Facebook could easily be spent on composing longer, more thoughtful, more rich sentiments about ideas. I thought that ending reliance on Facebook would encourage reflection and engagement rather than immediate switch-flipping or comments. Facebook was just like intercollegiate debate – it promised to be an international platform for the rich discussion of ideas but was more a place for people to show off what they already knew in unreflective ways.

I kind of wish I hadn’t deleted it because it would be nice to have some of those photos back, but it seems that once it’s gone it’s just gone for you, but Facebook keeps it somewhere on an old drive – I still can’t use my old email address on my current account because it is “in use by another account.” Strange stuff.

Instead of deleting my Facebook this time, I’m just going to use it as a portal to bring people here, where they can comment, or not, freely without the horrible social media environment.

Last time I re-created my account only because of intercollegiate debate (see how the life-regrets work together so smoothly?) because students would not respond to emails, or phone calls in a timely manner, but would respond to facebook messages nearly instantly. It was the preferred mode of communication about 5 years ago, now no students use it at all. Plus, I am not doing anything debate related anymore. So I’m not sure why I don’t delete it. I guess it might be to keep it open for some use I haven’t discovered yet. But Facebook probably will not become a good place; it will just continue to be the only place people share their political thoughts and simultaneously be the worst way to share your political thoughts.

Facebook is a place to windmill high-five yourself on your sick political takedown, or whisper to yourself “ooo burn” when you read your friend’s comment, 1 out of 271, on some thoughtless political statement uttered by someone you don’t know, or wish you didn’t know.

Oh it’s also making Mark Zuckerberg rich. It’s for that more than anything else. In the words of an old friend of mine years ago, “Why do people think Mark Zuckerberg should be the person who connects you to people you casually knew in high school?” It is strange that we are ok with putting this guy in charge of who is in our social circle instead of the better choices of time, geography, and fate. Relationships are kairos not chronos; Facebook is the latter.

There’s always the outside chance that Facebook won’t translate to traffic or conversation here, so then I’ll most likely delete it in 3 or 4 months if the numbers aren’t good.