My year in reading involved a couple dozen or so books, most of which I wrote about here, but it also involved, to a large extent, my favorite magazine, the New Yorker. I spent three or four out of every seven days this year reading that magazine. So, for my “Year in Reading” post, I thought I’d revisit all the time I spent reading the New Yorker this year, and in particular, the fiction. It turns out that nearly every one of the 52 stories that the New Yorker published this year is available online. I thought it might be fun to briefly revisit each story. It ended up taking quite a while, but it was rewarding to go back through all the stories. What you’ll find below is more an exercise in listing and linking than any real attempt at summary, but hopefully some folks will enjoy having links to all of this year’s stories on one page. I also wanted to highlight a couple of blogs that did a great job of reacting to New Yorker fiction this year – you’ll find many links to them below – Both “Grendel” at Earthgoat and “SD Byrd” at Short Story Craft put together quality critiques of these stories. Now, without further ado, on to the fiction:January 3, “I am a Novelist” (not available online) by Ryu Murakami: This story by the other Murakami is about a famous novelist who is being impersonated by a man who frequents a “club” of the type often described in Japanese stories. The impostor runs up a huge bar tab and gets one of the hostesses pregnant. Murakami is best-known for his novel, Coin Locker Babies. Links: I Read a Short Story TodayJanuary 10, “Reading Lessons” by Edwidge Danticat: A Haitian immigrant elementary school teacher, a resident of Miami’s Little Haiti, is asked by her boss – and lover, “Principal Boyfriend” – to tutor the illiterate mothers of two of her students. In 2004, Danticat received much praise for her novel, The Dew Breaker and this year she put out a young adult novel called Anacaona, Golden Flower.January 17, “The Juniper Tree” by Lorrie Moore: I really had to jog my memory to remember this one. It starts out with a woman who puts off visiting her dying friend Robin in the hospital. She plans to go in the morning but Robin has already died. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital is Moore’s most recent collection. Links: Tingle Alley, Elegant VariationJanuary 24 & 31,”Ice” by Thomas McGuane: This story was more memorable. A young protagonist with a paper route is intimidated by a drum major. To overcome his fears he skates toward Canada on frozen Lake Erie as far as he dares. Presumably, this story will appear in McGuane’s upcoming collection, Gallatin Canyon. Links: I Read A Short Story TodayFebruary 7, “The Roads of Home” by John Updike: The middle-aged absentee owner of his family’s Pennsylvania farm, David Kern returns to his childhood home after a long absence, feeling guilty and a little disoriented. A standard Updike story. Updike has a new book coming out this year called Terrorist. Links: This story has inspired a field trip sponsored by The Alton Chronicles – AKA The John Updike Reality Project.February 14 & 21, “Up North” by Charles D’Ambrosio: City guy visits the inlaws for Thanksgiving at their hunting lodge. He goes hunting with the family men and finds out about some skeletons in the closet. I remember liking this story. I’m guessing this story will appear in D’Ambrosio’s new collection, The Dead Fish Museum.February 28,”The Conductor” by Aleksandar Hemon: The narrator and Dedo, two Bosnian poets, are reunited in America after the war. This memorable story contrasts the hardness of their Bosnian experience with their new lives on the American academic circuit. Touching and funny. Hemon’s written a novel, Nowhere Man, and a collection of stories, The Question of Bruno. Links: 3quarksdailyMarch 7, “The Gorge” by Umberto Eco: Italian boy and anarchist help Cassocks escape from Germans in war-torn Italy. Pretty straight-forward for a story by Eco, it turns out this piece was culled from his then-forthcoming novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Links: Conversational Reading, A Roguish Chrestomathy, Unhappy with the New Yorker’s editing: The LaboratoriumMarch 14, “Della” by Anne Enright: I’d completely forgotten this story. It made no impression at all, but upon rereading I see that it’s a sad story about two old folks living next door to each other, one worrying the other is dead, and beneath its somber surface, there’s a little humor to it. Enright’s most recent book is The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch.March 21, “Men of Ireland” by William Trevor: I’ve never been a big fan of Trevor, his stories are a little too gray for my taste, but it can’t be denied that he’s a great storyteller. In this one a destitute man accuses his childhood priest of long ago improprieties. Though we can’t know the truth for sure, somehow, in this telling, both seem guilty. Trevor’s most recent collection is A Bit on the Side. Links: James Tata.March 28, “A Secret Station” by David Gates: A classic New Yorker story: An old man ruminates on his wasted life – multiple marriages and infidelities, dabbling in prescription drugs to dull the pain. But Gates paints the characters well and this is a good read. Gates is best known for his novel Preston Falls. Links: shes-krafty.com.April 4, “Solace” by Donald Antrim: I’ve always enjoyed Antrim’s stories. This one is sort of a romantic comedy about two disfunctional people who, due to difficult housing arrangements, must conduct their relationship only in borrowed apartments. Antrim’s memoir, The Afterlife, pieces of which have appeared in the New Yorker, will be published in May.April 11, “Mallam Sile” by Mohammed Naseehu Ali: Another good story, especially if you like exotic locales. This one is about the original 40-year-old virgin, a tea seller in Ghana. It is included in Ali’s recent collection, The Prophet of Zongo Street. Links: James Tata.April 18, “The Orlov-Sokolovs” by Ludmila Ulitskaya: I’ve had the impression for a while now that the New Yorker publishes a lot of stories by Russians, but perhaps it just seems this way because they loom so large on the page. This story is about a young couple that falls prey to Soviet bureaucracy. The story appears in Ulitskaya’s collection Sonechka.April 25, the only issue of the year with no fiction. Instead, a remembrance of Saul Bellow by Philip Roth.May 2, “Where I’m Likely to Find It” by Haruki Murakami: The first of three Murakami stories that appeared in the New Yorker (Yes, he does get in there a lot.) In this one, we have a typically-Murakami detached narrator who investigates missing people, but, this being Murakami, it’s not a typical mystery story. Murakami has a book coming out this year called Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Links: Earthgoat.May 9, “Along the Highways” by Nick Arvin: A sad fellow named Graham follows his brother’s widow and some guy named Doug as they drive out of Detroit for a weekend getaway. Graham does this out of jealousy and a misplaced protective instinct. It does not end well for him. Arvin’s debut novel, Articles of War, came out in 2005. Links: Earthgoat.May 16, “The Room” by William Trevor: The second of three Trevor stories in the New Yorker this year (Yes, he gets in there a lot, too.) Another gray story, but, of course, well-crafted. It’s about a woman who covered for her murderer husband and is now admitting everything to her the man she’s cheating on the murderer with. It sounds more thriller-like than it is. Links: Earthgoat.May 23, “Two’s Company” by Jonathan Franzen: Franzen goes Hollywood in this tight little story about a screenwriting couple that battles over a script that celebrates monogamy. There’s no Franzen fiction in the pipeline that I’m aware of, so if you haven’t read it already, ignore the hype and read The Corrections. It’s that good. Links: James Tata.May 30, “The Russian Riviera” by David Bezmozgis: This is a great story. One that I still remember well more than six months after I read it. There’s something about boxers. It seems they’re always getting suckered when all they want is a shot at the big time, like in a favorite movie of mine, On the Waterfront. Bezmozgis received much praise for his debut collection, Natasha. Links: Earthgoat.June 6 “A Mouthful of Cut Glass” by Tessa Hadley: Normally, I dislike Hadley’s stories, but this one stands out as better than the others I’ve read. It’s about being young and in love and the tendency that those so afflicted have to romanticize their partners. No false notes in this story. Hadley’s most recent book is Everything Will Be All Right. Links: Simply Wait, Earthgoat.June 13 & 20. Then came the Debut Fiction issue in which three stories appeared, “An Ex-Mas Feast” by Uwem Akpan, “The Laser Age” by Justin Tussing and “Haunting Olivia” by Karen Russell. I discussed the issue here. My favorite was the Akpan for its exotic setting. I was also impressed to learn that Russell was just 23. Of the three, only Tussing has a book on the way, The Best People in the World.June 27, “The Blow” by J.M. Coetzee (not available online): This novel excerpt (from Slow Man) is about an elderly amputee who, after at first resenting his caretaker, allows himself to be fatherly to her son. Good, but too long. I wish the New Yorker would do away with these novel excerpts. They’re not really short stories. Links: Conversational Reading, Earthgoat.July 4, “Ashes” by Cristina Henriquez: This story is set in Panama City and it’s about a young woman whose mother dies. Her family is already in tatters so it’s up to her to try to keep everything together. Henriquez’s debut collection, Come Together, Fall Apart comes out this year. Links: Simply Wait.July 11 & 18, “Long-Distance Client” by Allegra Goodman: This, I think, was my favorite story in the New Yorker this year. In it, Mel, the oldest employee at a tech start-up, bewildered by his coworkers, finds himself misaligned and in severe pain. He goes to an odd sort of chiropractor, Bobby, who, when not giving Mel the runaround, is able to straighten him out. But Bobby claims to have a client that he treats over the phone, and the truth behind Bobby’s claim becomes the quirky question at the heart of this story. Goodman has a new novel coming out soon, Intuition. Links: Earthgoat.July 25, “Awaiting Orders” by Tobias Wolff: The masterful Wolff puts together a brief story that deftly circles the topic of gays in the military. It’s funny that now that we’re at war, the once popular gays in the military controversy is old, old news, and, somehow, without being obvious, Wolff manages to highlight that irony. Wolff’s most recent book is Old School. Links: Earthgoat.August 1, “Commcomm” by George Saunders: There’s no one writing like George Saunders. “Commcomm” is too weird to briefly summarize, but in typical Saunders fashion, he places us in an alternate and oddly terrifying universe where people talk like zombies yet somehow remind us of people we interact with every day. “Commcomm” includes an element I’d never seen before in a Saunders story: ghosts. Saunders’ new collection, In Persuasion Nation will come out this summer. Links: standBy Bert (featuring an appearance by Saunders in the comments), Earthgoat.August 8 & 15, “Gomez Palacio” by Roberto Bolano (Not available online): A somewhat oblique story, this one is about a young man teaching in Gomez Palacio. Both he and the director of the school are poets and they’re a little odd. They go for a long drive together. That’s about all that happens. A new book by Bolano is coming out this year: The Last Evenings on Earth. Links: Earthgoat.August 22, “Thicker Than Water” by Gina Ochsner: This story is about a Latvian girl who lives across the street from a family of Jews. Latvia being what it is I suppose, her parents are suspicious of these people, but she is fascinated by them. In the end, there is an ill-fated chess tournament. Ochsner’s most recent book is People I Wanted to Be. Links: Earthgoat. August 29, “The View from Castle Rock” by Alice Munro: An unusual setting for a Munroe story – a ship heading for Canada in 1818. I like Munroe’s stories generally and this one is no exception, though the drama at the center of this long story – a young man who meets a well off father and daughter who tantalizingly offer to lift him from his poorer circumstances so that he must choose between his family and the promise of a better life – it’s a bit trite. Munro’s most recent collection is Runaway. Links: literarylover, mike.whybark.com, Earthgoat.September 5, “Club Des Amis” by Tony D’Souza: Mr. Wu, who lies at the center of this story, is a Chinese man in Africa. The narrator is a Western aid worker, and he relates how Wu’s son “went native” and died in the bush and now Wu is trying to be a distant benefactor to the son his son had with a native woman. I’m a fan of exotic locales, so I liked this one. This story appears to be an excerpt from D’Souza’s forthcoming novel, Whiteman.September 12, “Coping Stones” by Ann Beattie: A very good story that asks how well do we really know the people we think we know. A widower, Dr. Cahill, rents a house on his property to a young man, Matt, who he treats as a son, but one day the authorities come looking for Matt. Beattie’s most recent collection of stories is Follies.September 19, “Cowboy” by Thomas McGuane: This story is about An old cowboy who hires a young cowboy to work with him. Both exist under the watchful eye of the old cowboy’s sister, who eventually dies. I think this story is about friendship, really, one that grows slowly over many years. This story will appear in McGuane’s collection, Gallatin Canyon. Links: Literarylover.September 26, “The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day” by Haruki Murakami: What if you knew in advance that you would only love three women (or men) in your life? Would you worry, with each new person you met, whether he or she was one of three. This is Junpei’s problem and it makes relationships pretty tough for him. Links: shake it off.October 3, “Companion” by Sana Krasikov: I enjoyed this story. Ilona, thrice divorced we quickly learn, is living with Earl, a man much her senior, not because she is “with” him but because she is in financial straits and he has offered her a room. This makes pursuing her love life difficult and all of her friends somewhat snidely assume Ilona and Earl are together. Earl’s family meanwhile is quite suspicious of her. I like the desperation in this story. A sample description: “The air was stale with the yeasty scent of bread.”October 10, “Early Music” by Jeffrey Eugenides: Another story of desperation. Rodney just wants to play “early music” on his clavichord, but he and his wife Rebecca are in serious debt. She is trying to make ends meet with her ridiculous invention, Mice ‘n’ Warm. His precious clavichord on the verge of being repossessed, Rodney watches his life’s dream slipping away. Eugenides’ most recent book is Middlesex.October 17, “Path Lights” by Tom Drury: A bottle falls out of the sky – no, it’s not The Gods Must Be Crazy – and almost hits Bobby. He becomes obsessed with this bottle, Blind Street Ale, and eventually tracks down the bottle-thrower, but it’s awkward. This story may be an excerpt from Drury’s forthcoming novel, Driftless Area. Links: Short Story Craft.October 24, “Summer Crossing” by Truman Capote (not available online): This is an excerpt from a long-lost, recently found Capote novel. The story is well-crafted, if a bit formulaic. Rich girl gets mixed up with tough guy who she thinks she can “save.” You can tell that Capote wrote this when he was young – he was only 19 – but still, his talent is evident. Links: Earthgoat.October 31, “The Children” by William Trevor: Another Trevor story, the final one of the year, and he uses the same palate we’re used to, the scrubby Irish countryside. Young Connie and her father Robert suffer the death of a mother and wife and when he decides to marry the mother of Connie’s friend, we think all might be well, but as Robert new wife Theresa discovers, “nothing was as tidy as she’d imagined.”November 7, “God of War” by Marisa Silver: A daring choice of main character, the troubled child Ares, is at the heart of this story. Set near the desolate Salton Sea, this story covers Ares’ relationship with his brother Malcolm, whose inability to speak Ares may have caused, thus dooming them both. Silver’s most recent book is No Direction Home. Links: Wuff.November 14, “The Best Year of My Life” by Paul Theroux: A young man and woman are in love but nonetheless, she is pregnant with his baby. To escape scrutiny (the story is set in an earlier time), they hide out in Puerto Rico, where they are miserable, but somehow find the experience heartening. If there’s anything I enjoy as much as stories with exotic locales, it’s stories in which the protagonists travel. Theroux’s most recent book is Blinding Light. Links: Short Story CraftNovember 21, “The Year of Spaghetti” by Haruki Murakami: One of the weakest stories to appear in the New Yorker this year. Murakami brings us a guy who eats a lot of spaghetti, then a girl calls looking for an old friend of his, the narrator demurs and returns to cooking spaghetti. That’s about the extent of it. Murakami has a book coming out this year called Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Links: Earthgoat, Short Story Craft.November 28, “Love and Obstacles” by Aleksandar Hemon: I loved this story; exotic locale,traveling, etc. An adolescent Croatian (I think) narrator is sent by his family to buy a freezer in Slovenia. Desperate for adventure, he treats this errand as though he were a wandering poet, but he turns out to be more bumbling than anything else. Funny and poignant. Hemon’s written a novel, Nowhere Man, and a collection of stories, The Question of Bruno. Links: Short Story Craft, The Glory of Carniola.December 5, “Wenlock Edge” by Alice Munro: This was one of my favorite stories of the year. It starts out very predictably before taking a deliciously strange turn. I won’t ruin it for you, but basically our narrator gets thrown in with an oddball roommate in college, and this roommate lures her into some odd situations. Munro’s most recent collection is Runaway. Links: Short Story Craft.December 12, “La Conchita” by T.C. Boyle: Boyle, a California resident, loves to make use of his home state’s frequent natural disasters in his fiction. In this story, we’re dealing with mudslides, which impede the route of the narrator who is delivering a kidney for transplantation. He is on a journey to save a life but he stops on the way to try to save another. Boyle has a book coming out this year called Talk Talk.December 19, “Twenty Grand” by Rebecca Curtis: A pretty good story. A harried young mother is forced to give away an old coin – a family heirloom – at a toll booth, only later discovering the coin’s real value. The story is told from the perspective of the young daughter. Links: Short Story CraftDecember 26 & January 2, The year ended with the International Fiction Issue. It contains five stories. In lieu of descriptions, I’ll rank them in order of my favorite to least favorite and provide links when available. “Last Evenings on Earth” by Roberto Bolano, “The Albanian Writers’ Union as Mirrored by a Woman” by Ismail Kadare, “Beauty is a Fate Better Than Death” by Tahar Ben Jelloun, “Pregnancy Diary” by Yoko Ogawa, “The Word” by Vladimir Nabokov. Links: Literary Saloon.If you want to keep up with the fiction next year, you can always subscribe.
When I was in my early-twenties, I made a new year’s resolution to stop looking at myself in the mirror so much. It didn’t work, of course–what else can one do with a reflection besides look at it? This year, in my late-twenties, I set a similar resolution: for four months, until April 1st, I would turn away from Facebook and Twitter. I had grown bored, obsessed, bothered, even–I admit it–enamored with my reflection there. And lord help me if I found myself at midnight yet again, drinking a glass a wine and scrolling through wedding photos of a friend of a friend of a friend, or, come morning, drinking a mug of coffee and vainly attempting to read and retweet one fascinating article after another. J. Alfred Prufrock may have measured out his life with coffee spoons; I had begun to measure mine with status updates.
And also relieved. In his book, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, Jaron Lanier decries the devaluation of individual thought and personhood in a Web 2.0 world. He writes:
The problem of the internet–its power, and the way it’s changing how we live our lives–is a big topic these days. There’s The Tyranny of Email: The Four-Thousand Year Journey to Your In-Box by John Freeman, and, forthcoming, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. The internet age is so young that we’re worried, and intrigued, by how it will shape us–we simply have no idea. The single most fascinating aspect of my detox was the number of people who wanted to talk to me about it. Almost everyone I spoke to said, “I wish I could do that!” Then they got this strained look in their eyes that meant, The internet is ruining my life! When I assured them a detox was easy to do, they weren’t convinced. Or they said, “Okay, yes, next month. I’ll try it.” And then they wouldn’t. It saddened me to see all these people, chained to their online lives, posting flattering photos of themselves, “liking” a funny status update, posting or retweeting a link. It’s a never-ending race to remind others that we’re here, that we exist. It reminds me of when I used to do dance routines and little plays for my mom. “Look!” I’d yell every few seconds. “You’re NOT watching! Look!” It gets exhausting. And it’s not really living.
Thanks for that lively article, Edan. After much nervous contemplation about it in the past year, I still haven’t joined either Facebook or Twitter, and now I know that I won’t!
Dropped out for a week thanks to you–it’s been coming for a while, though. I’ve realized that so much of the time that used to go to reading, like over my morning coffee, is now spent on Facebook or other random internet browsing. So we’ll start with a week, then keep going.
(Emma Straub sent me here–with her Facebook link.)
Agreed! I deactivated my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts two weeks ago, and am enjoying it. More than just being tired of the banal status updates, I was annoyed at my repetitive, obsessive checking of the Twitter feed. Anonymity and privacy is underrated.
Without FB I’d be stuck obsessively checking the weather and my clean inbox over and over. My addiction is to the entire laptop…it seems to join my every activity lately. I feel this compulsive need to see if the midnight show of KickAss at the ArcLight is selling, to check BoingBoing for new posts, to Google anything and everything. And, like I said, looking up the unchanging weather every 30 minutes or so. Maybe I need to get on the wagon for a bit!
Interestingly, around the same time you did this I fell in love and …fell off twitter for months. I’m even having trouble keeping up my blog. But I do love both Twitter and FB for the capacity to crowd-source things like where to stay and where to eat, and I do feel closer to friends and relatives at a distance—email can be so cumbersome to respond to, whereas the passive connectivity of FB means they feel more like a part of my daily life than they would otherwise.
Anyway, you’re missed, but I’m glad I get to read you over here.
I suppose it is no surprise to you that I heard of this article by way of a retweet of a twitter post. That, unfortunately, is the great gaping hole in your plan: without those sites you say you don’t need, there would be no one here to read your thoughts on it. Of course, I agreed with you 100%, but then, that’s the gaping hole in my thinking too.
@mrG (“Without those sites you say you don’t need, there would be no one here to read your thoughts on it.”) Not necessarily: I’m not on Twitter, and am an infrequent Facebook user (post a comment or update maybe once every 2 weeks) but I came across this article the way I usually do: by checking one of my favorite sites. Which can still become a distraction; but limiting your online media time to a few favorites, at least primarily, sets a sort of boundary to the field – and insures that your screentime will be thought-provoking and not filled with, say, hours of looking at funny cat videos. I agree with Edan: like most pleasures, it’s a question of moderation in the form of self-regulation.
Loved it…. Will you do a update in 3 months? And on the ball about Twitter!
Although social networking has benefited my life as a writer more than it has damaged it, I am trying to keep a balance. I now have one internet-free day a week, and that seems to be working fine. Like everything in life (food, sex, sleep), it’s all about balance.
You are a remarkable young woman. We miss you, Edan, but more power.
I agree that it is all about balance. I am a journalist so use twitter as a news feed and to find things I might not normally read (such as this article) – but don’t use it outside work. I have never joined, and will never join Facebook, because I have the old-fashioned idea that you should make an effort to keep in touch with friends you care about.
I really had to laugh at the gravity with which the idea of cutting out Facebook and Twitter for a few months was treated in this article (the “collapse” of the internet, the “strained look” in the eyes of almost everyone the author spoke to about it)—as if it were real deprivation.
I keep my number of Facebook friends low, and I enjoy reading about their creative accomplishments and inspirations; I’ve learned about new and obscure music, videos and articles; I find out about the best parties and nightclubs that they frequent and/or promote; and I am genuinely happy for the ones who have married and had children and share pictures of their loved ones.
I’m not addicted to Facebook nor Twitter, but I appreciate it for what it is: it’s a celebration of the moments we want to share.
It’s fine as long as you don’t let it siphon off your valuable time to the point that you need to go cold turkey to remember that it should enhance your social life, not substitute for it. But such is the sad, empty world of the technologically privileged, I suppose.
I am probably at the old end of the demographic here. I am 67. I’ve certainly had my share of addictions (some took years of active overcoming), not-constructive distractions or abused distractions in my life. But now, now, I am so care-taking of my time. TV is gone, movies are here and I make them count. Will my eyesight hold up? I am hoping to live to 90 and take very good care. The Millions “manifesto” struck a chord–not wasting time on vapid (other adjectives also) when I could be reading insightful. I do enjoy some light reading–the last few years the Scandinavian mystery writers fill that niche. So Edan, I think it’s a good thing. Not to presume on how you should do it–but maybe a withdrawal diary? What fills that space, what would you like to fill that space. Rest and remembering are good things to do. Good luck.
My mind is blown wide open. I’m just not sure I have the balls to try it.
Lovely article/post. Re. “If I run into you at the grocery store, the question, “How are you?” will be genuine, and that will feel good” – I can only agree. I enjoy blogging (mostly) though have so far avoided Facebook and Twitter and am fairly sure I’ll continue to avoid it – I like your analogy that it’s like a crowded elevator and everyone is talking over each other. I don’t like crowds or elevators, so that rights me off. For me, despite the undoubted benefits to having an on-line life, social media is essentially, if not necessarily, shallow and vacuous. A hello in a grocery store is so much more meaningful and, dare I say it, profound.
I quit facebook during the month of February and it was hard, especially at first. In the month that I’ve been back, I’ve realized the key my fb portion control: I check in a few times a day and see what my friends are up to but I typically don’t post status updates myself now. I might once a week because when I do then I find myself obsessively wondering if anyone has liked what I wrote or responded at all. I guess others posts feel genuine to me but my own posts feel like the “LOOKIT” thing you described so well.
(an old Peanuts cartoon has Charlie Brown yelling at the red haired girl, “I’M LOOKITING!!”)
Thanks for a great article.
Don’t go back. I quit Facebook last fall. Best decision I made in a while. There are much better timesinks, ones that don’t drain every second of your attention while not really providing anything real.
Has anyone successfully used FB or Twitter for business? Any good stories?
I have hundreds of people on FB and over 1000 following on Twitter. The exchanges can be entertaining but I have yet to derive anything meaningful from it.
When I first got on FB, I used it to see how my old girlfriends compared. Once that little game was over it went back to the typical 3 round e-mail exchanges to catch up on decades of lost time with friends. Now there is a small core of 20+ people that I keep in constant contact with. About the same before FB.
I do not feel the need to put up pictures of my kids, quite frankly it scares me. Also, it is very interesting to see how others boast about every little trip or thing they buy. Updating your status to tell me you just “put down new hard wood floors” is not why I joined a social media network.
There is a value to social media networks but you spend so much time cutting through the noise it almost works against you.
I deleted my twitter and facebook accounts around the same time, in January, and called it social media suicide. I had heard about the suicide sites, but by the time I got on them, they had already been blocked by twitter and facebook. So I deleted all entries, friends, photos, by hand. It was hard. Hard to see all of that love and attention go away. But I did it, because
I knew I was addicted. And
I don’t want facebook and twitter to have the rights to my information.
And I don’t want to spend all of my time on there. I realized that I was in a certain mood when i would check facebook and twitter, the mood of “doing something half-heartedly” or “wanting to waste time.”
Since I got off these sites, I’ve written 40,000 words of my book, 35,000 words on my blog, created an e-newsletter or three, created 6 new paintings, started writing letters to my relatives (which has brought me such joy) created an ebook about how to get more freelance clients, made 10 slideshow presentations to help people find jobs or fundraise better, and started making an online game to teach people how to fundraise. I’ve made three websites too. And I’ve progressed towards my dream of selling iced tea to people in Austin Texas.
I have gotten so much done, and I feel like a better person for having committed facebook suicide. I encourage anyone who wants to have a greater impact on the world to do it.
Mazarine
http://wildwomanfundraising.com
Full disclosure:
I have made a new, professional twitter account that I check once a day, during the week, to post my new blog entry.
I often forget about Facebook for a few days at a time and spend no more than a combined total of a half hour a day or so on Twitter, and I enjoy both places. I do sometimes think about deleting from both sites, though — or, more to the point: I sometimes wish I had the luxury of deleting from both places.
But if you’re promoting a book, deleting your social media accounts is a terrible idea. I’ve booked a lot of events via Twitter contacts, and I don’t like to think of how few people would come to my readings if I weren’t constantly talking to readers and broadcasting my events on these sites.
Facebook is annoying. I have been on Facebook for over a year and it is ok. Great way to share family photos and stories. The key is to keep your network small and easy to manage. Once you let in people you do not know, you are subject to pointless ads and stories.
Facebook is about “ME”. Most people cannot handle seeing a low number on their account so they end up being friends with anyone to get a cool looking popular number. I find most of the information worthless. Farmville, Mob Wars etc.. etc…
The internet is young but I expect a facebook killer application to come along soon. Also, Facebook is upsetting people with its privacy rights. If you want to keep anything safe and secure, just keep it off the internet. Sad but true.
This article is fantastic!!! Thank you for sharing your detox experience. One thing I think about, on top of these issues you brought up, is the way that reading other people’s blogs affects my own creativity. I’m a writer and photographer, and while I often claim to follow other artists blogs in order to find inspiration, I often leave feeling insecure and left out of the internet loop of artists. I’m sure some of this has to do with my own personal issues of insecurity, but as soon as I mention this to fellow bloggers, I’m immediately met with resounding agreement and similar frustration.
While I do often find inspiration from fellow online artists, I often end up recreating the things they have produced. I, as well, want to read and exercise restraint. Perhaps I’m headed to my own detox, of the RSS variety. Who knows…It might end up clearing out my head a bit and allowing me to produce something original.
I often wonder if all of the web is an illusion. Then I check facebook.
Greg Gutierrez
Zen and the Art of Surfing
Thank you, everyone, for your comments. Getting all this feedback means I never have to return to Facebook or Twitter ever again. I exist!
I’ve done the same thing last week, in part to Nicholas Carr’s blog and MGMT’s new song “Flash Delirium” which encourages you to “stab your Facebook”. I only wish more of my friends and family would join me in the real world, but like you said, they all make the same damn excuses.
Loved the article, Edan. I feel some of the same pressures — or rather, all of them. The noise online is deafening, and my contribution to it, at least, is ego-based. My detox starts on July 3rd when I leave on the tour. But I’m trying to take it a step further. No Twitter or Facebook, but no computers or television, either. Just books and thinking. And bicycles.
Excellent article! I have been doing a bit of hand-wringing over the last few weeks about reducing my online activities and presence. Your well-written piece provides all the intellectual, and quasi-emotional, support I need to flip the switch into the off position.
One question, though. Did you inform friends and “followers” of your impending departure or did you just leave?
Cheers!
A lovely, thoughtful essay.
(And I got here via facebook, for which I am grateful.)
I’ve been off FB since July 1 and guess what I’ve been doing? Reading voraciously…like I used to before SM took over my life (including your book, Edan! Which was incredibly compelling). Anyway, I miss it the way I might miss being at a great party but not enough to go back. I deleted my account and the people who love me and are my friends are still in my life. In fact, we talk on the phone and share our real lives. I don’t know if you are still “off” but I’m thinking about leaving Twitter too. Merry Christmas!