Why I’m Glad Facebook Froze My Account

In Real Life

This morning, my wife mentioned that Facebook froze her account.

I responded that yesterday, Facebook froze our bookstore’s ad account.

We stared at each other in bafflement, and I said, “We can’t let it get to us. We live out here, in real life.”

A few hours later, a woman who’d been browsing in our bookstore approached the front desk and told me, “I live in Brooklyn and I’m thinking about moving out here to Easton. But I can’t live anyplace without a good bookstore. This place is amazing—I love your selection. Can you recommend a book?” I thanked her for the compliment, and, after learning about her recent reading, recommended Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. She bought it. I guess if she likes it, she’ll be moving here.

IRL—In Real Life—is the place where flesh-and-blood stuff exists, including all physical artifacts like books. It’s not everybody’s favorite place. People spend hours a day living the virtual life. Videogames, TV, doomscrolling.

My dad loved bookstores so much I took it for granted that much of the time we were together would involve hopping from bookstore to bookstore. The family joked that he was addicted to bookstores. This was way back in the twentieth century, before social media—even, mostly, before the 1991 invention of the World Wide Web. When I think back to those innumerable slow hours spent in bookstores with my dad, I realize there was a remarkable absence: no cellphone!

I was distracted only by books. I’d get so immersed in browsing that only one hour in a bookstore was nothing. I’d wander from section to section, shelf-reading title after title, perusing book after book about sub-topics of sub-topics. I’d be unconsciously building a stack of books in my arms—possible purchases—and I’d periodically retrace my steps to return a book to its home shelf, when the cost of my stack had become unrealistic.

I guess bookstores nowadays might be mistaken for a physicalization of the online experience, though we know this is the opposite of the truth—because, of course, online search is modeled after, dependent on, and based in real life. There is no virtual world without real life.

So, when Facebook freezes my account, I should be grateful. This information behemoth has been feasting on my reality with my full permission and participation, and now, for some unintelligible reason, its appetite has uncharacteristically gone into abeyance. Geez, I oughta take this chance and make a break. Into real life!