Over the holidays I like to deactivate my Facebook account. I have no need for it and find it dangerously time consuming. The reason why I can’t deactivate it during term time is that I rely on it to get the most out of my university experience. I am involved with a lot of university societies and Facebook is the only medium used for organising meetings and making group decisions. It also allows me to be updated with events and talks on campus that I would be interested in going to and it’s also useful to be able to get in contact with people whose numbers I don’t necessarily have on my phone for questions about assignments. I don’t tend to use any other social media because I don’t have enough time and do not want even more reasons for procrastination!

There is a Facebook page for everyone in my year who are on my course that gets used to share interesting articles, events, queries about our course, and to get in touch with our student reps. I have also used Facebook for group work along with Google Drive. As most students not only have Facebook but check it very frequently, it is the perfect tool to organise group work and to be all-inclusive. Particularly for my course, International Relations, Facebook is particularly useful to be updated with general discussions and current affairs. I will often read articles that my friends share because I am interested by what all my friends are talking about and assume that they are interesting before even opening them. I also ‘like’ pages that I find interesting and want updates on, from music venues to politicians.

When my Facebook is deactivated I find myself spending my time far more productively, though I cannot ignore the fact that Facebook is an invaluable tool to reach large amounts of people quickly and to keep updated with my university and the world.