OK, so over the summer, I made the decision to deactivate my personal Facebook account after realizing how much time I waste sitting in front of my laptop reading all the boring things my friends do that I, quite frankly, don’t really care about (no offense, guys). I’ll admit, I felt unplugged from the world for a couple of months, and it was a bit of an inconvenience not having everyone I’d ever met just a wall post away. All that aside, I reactivated it over the past week to discover that the site has a litany of new features and settings. However, one thing never seems to change: the way users react whenever Facebook updates.

Just before I left the social media site, everyone was up in arms over the “new” profile and the way the site’s picture viewer had been altered. That eventually died down. And then again this past week, as we all know, Facebook updated again. After analyzing my newly formatted news feed and thinking back on every past experience I’ve had with how my friends have responded to the site’s constantly shifting format, I’ve concluded that the community’s response reflects the “five stages of grief” theory.

Denial – So, after they change the way you view photos and add polls, you think to yourself “There’s no way they’re going to change this again.” You’ve finally gotten use to how the “new” Facebook functions, and you allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security. That’s when Zuckerberg strikes…

Anger – Now there’s some ridiculous blue tab at the corner of every post noting “top stories” and suddenly your already frustrating chat panel, which never worked half the time anyway, has some ridiculous Twitter shit happening at the top? What the Hell, Facebook? Seriously…

Suddenly the entire context of your social media experience has changed. In case you’ve been living under a rock this week and haven’t logged in, I’ve broken down what you’ve been missing in this convenient chart:

Bargaining – Since you can’t really bargain with the Facebook team, you begin to weigh your options. There are always other social media sites, but they don’t necessarily have all the bells and whistles that your precious Facebook once did. You could always go back to Myspace, but since you aren’t 13 anymore or a pedophile, that one’s out. And then of course, there’s always the option of leaving your dorm room and going out to interact with people in person. But what kind of bat-shit crazy psycho maniac would do something as ridiculous as that in this day and age? Wasn’t the internet invented so we could live in a perpetual state of never having to be within touching distance of one another?

Depression – Realizing that you have no other options, you decide to stick it out and deal with the “new” Facebook.

Acceptance – Within a week’s time, you’ve finally gotten back into your comfort zone, and you’re creeping on that guy or girl you met at the bar on Thursday, more efficiently than you ever could before, I might add.

My point is, the old Facebook was, at one time, the “new” Facebook. You adapted once, and you’ll adapt again. And besides, the site didn’t become as useful as it is with the site developers sitting around twiddling their thumbs. It took changes and updates to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and if you don’t like it, it’ll probably be completely different next week anyway.

And before you leave a comment below saying that the reason you’ve been whining so much this week is because all these updates are confusing, Facebook, believe it or not, has a blog where they EXPLAIN each new feature and its purpose. You can find that here. You’re welcome.

Contact Justin Lagore at [email protected].