Several things lead to my decision to unplug from the Facebook experience the first time, around last April. On one occasion, I found myself posting a status update from beautiful Forest Park while I was hiking with my new puppy. "Robin is loving hiking in Forest Park with Margot!" I declared, certain that everyone else would be interested in this fascinating development in my life instead of just enjoying it for myself. My step-daughter Kendall would call this FOT, or Facebook Oriented Thinking. FOT is similar to BOT, Blog Oriented Thinking, but even more insidious.
I also found myself too often thinking about my day in terms of status updates. This resulted in a bizarre tendency to talk to myself in the third person. "Robin is exhausted from her workout!" I would declare to myself, and often post as well. "Robin is annoyed with her vet," "Robin is so proud of her husband's win in court," "Robin detests opposing counsel in my favorite case," etc. Who was I talking to anyway, and why?
While I enjoyed following the exploits of one stepson, another ignored my friend request. Why? What had I done? I thought he liked me!! While I assume he didn't want me (and by extension, his father) privy to the Facebook-published details of his raucous college experience, the rejection did smart a bit.
There are some on Facebook who update and post excessively. These people are known by the slang term Facebook Whore. If you are on Facebook you know the type I am talking about. With the excessive poster, it seemed that no detail of their life was private or mundane enough not to publicize. And, let's face it, many people use Facebook to brag about their lives and their general level of fabulousness. It isn't enough to be happy anymore, now many of us feel the need to assure the rest of the world how happy we are.
Although Henry David Thoreau noted that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," what I was witnessing on Facebook was the mass of men (and women) leading lives of loud desperation. Desperation came in many forms: some loudly proclaiming their love for a significant other when it was common knowledge the Facebooker was cheating. The "look at me" aspects of photo posting, noting vacations and parties that the poster wanted and needed everyone to know they had experienced. The proclamation of love for children: "he's the best!" "I just love my kid!!!!" that seemed bizarre: since when do we as parents need to publish our affection for our kids? Are we afraid people think we don't love them?
The final straw came when I received several friend requests from people who I have known in the past but who do not interact with me at this point in my life. For reasons good or bad, those friendships burnt out long ago and do not exist in the three dimensional world. Why then would they send me a Facebook friend request? And why did I confirm them as a friend? Auuugh!
What I finally decided to do was to take a break from Facebook and put my energy into a very few things in the physical world: my family, my work, and relationships with those friends most important to me. The result was liberating in ways that are difficult to describe, except to say that I found my life much more satisfying when I did not look for any form of friendship or validation via the computer.
From now on I will call my friends and invite them over instead of just posting something on their wall. I will share the good things in my life with others if I think they would be interested, and I won't approach releasing information about myself via the shotgun approach of an Internet posting. Except blogging of course, but that's different. Blogging, you see, is a writing exercise. And you know how important exercise is.
I have no objections to Facebook for anyone else, but my suggestion is to try going a few days without it and reach out to people in your lives in a more meaningful way. DesCamp, out.
2 comments:
That You Tube clip is hilarious. I've clipped it out and am sending it to attenuated friendships whose friend requests show up periodically and inexplicably. We need more face time with the people who matter to us and also and equally important, more face time with ourselves. Between 6 hours of television a day and Facebook/Twitter/etc, how does anyone have time to process what's going on in their lives, reflect on things, seek advice from friends, reach conclusions....
My relationship with Facebook is like a really angsty, tween-age love affair. I'm either unhealthily obsessed or feeling smothered by it. Which is why I dropped out, then came running back. But it was a relief to break-up with Facebook, and I'd like to think my relationship is a little more measured now. My point: you're totally right.
Post a Comment