Banned In China - Deactivating My Facebook Account

The Great Firewall Of China. I used to think that was a clever and funny way of describing the internet censorship in China. But since coming to Beijing in August 2012, I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to enjoy the kind of internet freedom which is taken for granted back in the U.K.

This includes time taken to research a trustworthy method of connecting to foreign websites, attempting to purchase software when many of the websites selling it are blocked, and the time spent trying to use the software while the connection often fails.

When I first arrived in China, I found free software for my computer. This allowed me an intermittent connection to blocked and restricted websites such as Facebook. But the connection speed was far too unreliable to stream videos on Youtube.

After talking to colleagues, I decided to purchase a Virtual Private Network which can add security to the internet connection and also re-routes the internet connection through a foreign server, allowing access to banned websites and offering me a faster speed to watch videos. However, even a VPN cannot ensure a good connection. Earlier this year, my paid subscription to a VPN provider stopped working and could not grant me access to restricted webpages. This was highly frustrating as I keep in touch with many friends and family through Facebook and this blog.

As my subscription for the VPN came up for renewal, I decided that I would not pay for a service I could not depend on; instead I would rely solely on free VPN software I had downloaded to my phone. Although this would not always work efficiently, it did usually allow me enough time to communicate with friends and family. This is one of the reasons I have not updated my blog in such a long time. Using my phone to make blog posts can be rather laborious, particularly when the aforementioned free VPN software fails.

Recently, I heard from friends that VPNs are working more consistently again. This of course can change if there is a sudden government crackdown on internet activity. But for now, I have made the decision to renew my VPN subscription, which offers me a less stressful internet experience. With that being said, last Sunday I chose to deactivate my Facebook account, and here is why:

I have read online articles explaining the theory that using mobile phones or digital devices before sleeping, can affect our sleeping patterns and quality of sleep. While feeling stressed with events at work, I thought that I could experiment with cutting down on my phone usage before bedtime. When I thought more carefully about this, I realised I did generally use my phone just before I slept, to check Facebook and other apps.

I also read similar articles which detailed that social media can affect our moods. Viewing Facebook is like seeing the “best bits” of people’s lives and it can result in making unfair comparisons with one's own life. While I did not feel like I was making such negative judgements about myself, I did realise that I could drastically cut down on the time I spent trying to connect to Facebook and browsing on social media. Living abroad can definitely give me the feeling of being “out of the loop” but I definitely thought that I could benefit from cutting out the temptation of using Facebook for a while. Instead of looking for gossip fodder, I could read more books, study Chinese or sleep that little bit earlier.

So how did the week go? On the first day of deactivating my account, my thumbs did automatically click on the Facebook app to check if it was someone’s birthday, or if there was some interesting news or rant that had been posted. But it was surprising how quickly I stopped wanting to check. I usually use Facebook Messenger to speak with my friends and family so I did notice that absence. However I was observing that I slept much earlier in the evening than before. Moreover, whether or not it was my mind playing tricks on me, I’m not quite sure, but it appeared that I was having a deeper sleep each night.

During the week, I did of course use other forms of social media such as the Chinese juggernaut Wechat (see my previous post on the joys of Wechat here), so I hadn’t completely cut out communication with others. But now that I will be reactivating my Facebook account, I will try to be more aware of how I am spending my free time. Internet freedom may not be something I can relish while living in China, but I can choose to accept it (be that reluctantly). What if my VPN doesn’t connect? I don’t have to get annoyed and keep trying until the early hours of the morning. I can rest and see if it works the next day. After all, most things are better after a good night’s sleep, right?