On 24 March 2016, I created my 2nd Facebook account. Why did I do so?
I created my 1st Facebook account in September 2009. Since then, I had been making a lot of friends on Facebook. I used to think that the more friends I have on Facebook, the better it is. Whenever someone sent me a friend request, I would always accept it, even if I didn't know the person. My family members also became my friends on Facebook. I never liked to let my family members know my activities on the internet, I prefer to keep it secret from them. Initially, I hardly posted anything on Facebook, so it wasn't a problem.
In August 2012, I took photos with a group of girls in my school. They then posted the photos on Facebook and tagged me. I thought my family members wouldn't be able to see those photos, as they were not friends with those girls on Facebook. It turned out that I was terribly wrong, as the photos that I was tagged in were visible to all of my Facebook friends. My family members saw all those photos and they asked me about it. That made me feel quite uncomfortable.
Since then, I added all my family members to the Restricted list of Facebook. Anyone in the Restricted list is unable see my Facebook posts, except for the posts that I set to Public. I thought that had solved the problem. In 2013, I became more active on Facebook and I posted on it more often. Occasionally, when I posted something that I didn't mind my family members seeing, I would set it to Public. In that way, my family members wouldn't suspect that I added them to the Restricted list, since they could still see some of my posts.
However, I later realised that while those in the Restricted list are unable to see my Facebook posts, they can still see if I liked or commented on someone's post that is set to Public by the person. Worse still, my family members added me to their Close friends list. As a result, whenever I liked or commented on a post, it would appear on top of their News Feed. Moreover, if I accidentally set a post to Public, they would automatically receive an e-mail notification about my post. The only way to stop this is to unfriend or block my family members, but then they would know about it when they try to open my Facebook profile.
Every now and then, my family members would say to me 'I saw your friend's photo that you liked', 'I saw your comment on that news article' and so on. I really disliked that and I told them to stop stalking me, but they would say 'I didn't stalk you, it just appeared on my News Feed!' Sometimes, after seeing my comment, they would tell me not to mind other people's business or waste my time.
In March 2016, I wrote a post on Facebook where I mentioned about my brother and cousin getting A+ for English in the SPM examination. Out of my expectation, my brother could see the post and he told my parents about that, even though I had blocked him on Facebook. It turned out that one of his friends was my Facebook friend which I didn't add to the Restricted list. He saw my post and showed it to my brother. That was the consequence of me accepting friend requests from everyone without even trying to find out who they are.
After that incident, I decided that the best way to stop my family members from seeing my activities on Facebook is by creating another Facebook account. In my 2nd Facebook account, I will only add my close friends. I won't add my family members or anyone I don't know personally. I created my 2nd Facebook account one day after my 21st birthday on 23 March 2016. The fact that I have now reached 21 years old justifies my decision to keep my activities on Facebook secret from my family members.
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