OP-ED: I’d Delete My Facebook, but I Don’t Know Any of My Friends' Birthdays

Facebook is the devil. Fake news, FOMO, unrealistic beauty standards, playing Words with Friends during class. Data leaks, cyber bullying, murders broadcasted on livestream. The 2016 elections, sad videos of starving polar bears, stalking your ex and his dumb new girlfriend. Political debates in comment threads, a newsfeed full of Under the Button posts, the 2016 elections. Everything about it makes me want to delete my account and throw my computer in the Schuylkill.

But I can’t. Because I have absolutely no idea when my friends’ birthdays are.

Like, actually, I don’t even know the months. I vaguely remember it being warm during Gabby’s last birthday— but was that April, or an unseasonably warm February? Lucky for me, I don’t even have to guess. It’s in July, and I would have had absolutely no way of knowing that other than by checking Facebook.

I know a lot of people are deleting their Facebooks now because it’s trendy, but that just reinforces my point because everyone forgot my birthday this year. That never used to happen before Facebook was a tool for evil, when it was just the spinoff of Mark Zuckerberg’s website for students from elite schools to rate whether their peers were hot or not.

So before you go deleting your Facebook, take a second, and program my birthday into your Calendar app. I’ll seriously be so mad if you forget, you pretentious, not-Facebook-having tool.