This year is a rather important year, for people like me. This year, we all have to face an exam known in certain circles as “The Leaving Cert”, most people call it by it’s official government given name, “That Pain in the Ass” certification, or the T-PAC.

This is a time for us 18 year olds that we find especially hard. Society tells us that we should be outside at 4AM, getting drunk, and enjoying the night with some young’un. However, the government have rudely placed this big looming megalith above our heads, promising rewards, an evolution of a sort, if we can work out it’s secrets. This results in us having to “knuckle down”, as the parents and adults around us keep pointing out self-satisfactorily. We nod our heads, and pretend that this is good advice that we had not thought of ourselves, and shuffle off, as if to make use of this tasty nugget it knowledge that this glorious creature has blessed us with.

But that’s not what I’m here to discuss about, today. I’m not going to mention how the T-PAC does not cater to the intellegent, how it can allow even a headcold to screw up the rest of your life, and I won’t even consider mentioning the stress that this system puts students under. Because today I am writing about how I gave up facebook, all in the name of this evil examination. CURSE YOU, T-PAC!

The decision to give up on facebook for a while was made when I realised that I would have to do a fair bit of work in order to bring my T-PAC grades high enough to get whatever course I wanted in whatever college I wanted. They would have to come up a lot. Facebook was probably the biggest timesink every day, and Twitter is too important for my communication with the outside world to drop. So facebook had to go. And go it did!

However, facebook did not go without a fight. Take a look at some of the emotional terrorism that it wrought upon me! (you can click to view the image slightly larger, if you so wish.)

That’s right! The buggers actually went and fished out images of me with people I know, and dragged them up in order to make me reconsider my account, because I will never talk to these people again!

Anyway. On with the post.

Day 1: After one full day without facebook, I notice how much I use it. When first opening a browser, my fingers use muscle memory to head to reddit.com, tab, facebook.com. I hope this stops soon, as closing facebook again and again makes me miss it more. Also, I keep heading over to my iPhone to check out the latest on that, but am always dissapointed when I notice that it’s not there. I also feel the need to poke everybody I see and write on all walls, but this might not be connected. I have also discovered a problem with deactivating an account. It’s basically just logging off. Nothing else. Hmm….

Day 3: I have still not gotten over facebook. You see, every time that I whip out my iPhone when I’m bored, be it on the bus, train, in a car, or just waiting around in school, I have a little ritual that I follow: Email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Check for app updates. This systematic checking of my digital life is disrupted half way through now, as where there once was a facebook app, there is now naught bt black space. I stare at the screen for a moment, then realise what’s wrong, and move on to checking RSS feeds (there’s another blog post in the works on that topic. Long story.).
However, am I happy I gave up facebook? Yes and no. I miss the instant communication it gave me with many of my good friends, but I do not miss having to wade through loads of wallspam every day. Gives me more time to write these posts!

Day 5: I still get pangs for Facebook, every now and again. After all, it’s a really great way to organise nights outs, and such. However, I’m fairly sure that I am totally over it. Hurrah! Now, should I start up my usage of it again once the T-PAC is up? Only time shall tell!

So, the question is thus: Will giving up facebook for the next six or so months give me much more free time? I’m fairly sure that it will, if only from the time no longer spend deleting stupid wall spam. I know that some of you have given up facebook. Why have you done so? For those who haven’t, why not? Is the threat of loosing contact with your friends too strong? It seems that facebook have managed to build one of the ultimate systems for keeping people locked into their accounts.

Tags: emotional terrorism, facebook, Social Media, social networking

So I was lucky enough to get a ticket to Ze Frank and Jonah Peretti’s talk at the Science Gallery entitled GO VIRAL from the wonderious Darragh Doyle, one of the friendliest people in the Irish Blog space. And trust me. They are a friendly bunch, all in all.

So, I head into the Science Gallery to meet Alan Costello and Darragh, and get stopped by an official looking man in a white suit with what seems to be a metal detector. He asks me to please stand up against the wall, and starts scanning me, beeping every now and again. He then shines a bright light into my eyes, and begrudgingly says “Please walk this way, sir”. I head into this clean-roomesque tunnel, to be handed a face mask, a little baggie containing the programme of events and a little microchip which the white-suited person behind the table claims will begin to flash if I contract an infection spreading around the exhibit center. if I get this infection, I must move immediately to the disinfection area on the second floor. I am also instructed to avoid any people with flashing tags. Next to the disinfection area there was a map showing all the various connected tags. Quite interesting stuff.

So it was a weird day. What can I say?

Anyway, soon after all this, we started filing into the auditorium to see the big show.

It started off with Jonah Peretti giving a talk on his website, Buzzfeed along with his various forays into viral media, including accidentally becoming the spokesman for an anti racism movement along with an anti sweatshop movement. One of the highlights of his talk was a simple demonstration of viral activism in the real world. Mormonism. The idea behind this being that since every single Mormon must spend two years of his/her life converting others, the religion spreads like wildfire.

Many other interesting topics were brought up by Johna, such as Big Seed advertising, his foray into viral marketing with the Huffington Post and his various theories on advertising, such as the one of Mullet Advertising. (Business at the front, party in the back!)

Once Jonah was done, Ze Frank, self professed fame whore, came on-stage and started speaking on the 8 moments which made him realize much an emotional effect he could have on people over the internet. I’m not going to go through all the moments here, but check out his site for more. You might loose a few days in there.

Oh, also, I bought some Chlamydia.

Tags: Alan Costello, Jonah Peretti, marketing, Science, Social Media, Viral, Ze Frank