Face It.

Facebook troubles me.

Once upon a time we were casual acquaintances, Facebook and I.
Our relationship was amiable enough. Not the kind of thing where you connect everyday, but when I did look Facebook up, it was always a pleasant affair. I caught up with old friends, photographs were shared along with general pleasantries. I don’t know if you remember, but back then, Facebook was a student thing. You had to be part of a school network and someone needed to invite you to join. I remember tracking my courses with Facebook, getting to know other students in my class, and even reading a few course related discussions. It was wonderful.

Then came that period where people sent each other things. From scuba suits to potato chips, random objects were flying through Facebook-occupied-cyberspace. It was entertaining for a bit. I must confess I am guilty for gifting multiple hatching eggs and at least three puppies. In return I received a hook, line and sinker. I have spent a few hours idling my time, figuring out which house I would belong to at Hogwarts; when the quiz results said Gryffindor, I gleefully displayed it on my wall. I nicknamed at least ten people and having no wheels of my own back then, I had three bumper stickers added to the messy mélange.

I would go so far as to say… back in the day, when I was a student …I liked Facebook.
Hence, I was part of the trends that changed Facebook from being the healthy social networking site it was, to the full-time distraction it has become today.

Today I find Facebook most disagreeable. Not just because I take issue with its invasion of privacy, I hate Facebook because of what it has done to people and relationships.

Recently, while playfully reprimanding a friend for not being in touch, she responded by saying,  “Dude I’ve been so busy!! I haven’t changed my status message on Facebook for two whole days.”
I rolled my eyes so far back into my head you could only see the whites.
Also, I did not think it was funny anymore.

This phenomenon isn’t uncommon though. Thanks to Facebook, we all live under the unrealized fear that we are constantly being watched. And guess what… We are!!
Whether we consciously acknowledge it or not, each and every one of us is spending a considerable amount of our time, energy, and creative resourcefulness to portray an image of ourselves online. This is usually followed by frantically refreshing the page to see if anyone has responded to my new relationship status, favorite quotes, hair color, what have you. Such strenuous idleness!

My simple question to you is, why does it matter so much?

Sure, we all like a little bit of self-indulgence. When we were kids we filled out scrap books for our friends writing out as neatly as we could, our favorite color, hobbies, songs and so on. When I think back, I think that process was an important part of growing up, because in our own juvenile little ways, we were trying to find and define ourselves through those pages.  We were trying to be funny, witty, coy or whatever else.
But aren’t we all grown up now?

Is it really necessary to add “not updating my status message” to your daily to-do list? If so, let me ask you, when was the last time you called your mother or your best friend?

I guess what I am trying to say is that while a lot of people can live on Facebook, I can’t stand it for more than ten minutes. Seeing as how I have turned blue in the face from condemning Facebook up until now, you might think I feel proud of myself for being abstinent.

If irony is your brand of humor, you’ll be in stitches when you hear this.

As far as my Facebook-ing capabilities go, I don’t feel holier-than-thou, instead I feel deprived.

My Facebook handicap makes me, in turn, the victim of a lot of eye-rolling and remarks like, “Whats wrong with you?? How could you not know that?? It was all over FB!!” Or worse, “Don’t you care for me anymore? I’ve put pictures up on Facebook for the longest time and you haven’t commented on any one of them!”

You don’t say.
It must have been after I spent those agonizing ten minutes, sifting through that ceaseless news feed, with its  excruciatingly detailed account of everyones activities.
Can’t imagine how I missed it.
Does this situation warrant a “Sorry” from me?
And what on God’s good earth is Farmville??!!

Somehow, the way the world is set up today, if you don’t live on Facebook, you’re just not alive. I can’t be sure my friends will email me or call me if something important is happening in their life, because they’re Facebook-ing about it to the whole world anyway. My aversion to Facebook means I miss out on their lives, which is why I feel cranky and constantly out-of-the-loop.

I honestly think that in an increasingly complex world, Facebook adds to the misery. It invokes all our frivolous tendencies and takes us farther away from doing things that matter. Like writing a letter, or making a phone call; doing something personal for one person or a close group of friends. It’s not too hard. Like I told my friend, “An email is merely a minimum of three status message updates rolled into one.”

Don’t get me wrong. I love that you can use Facebook to find people you might have lost along the way and even for the occasional shout-out. I love reading some witty little snippets, the videos some folks share are things I might never have discovered myself. Sometimes I read things that are outright educational and that makes me so happy. I also think Facebook is the easiest way to share photographs that are public-appropriate.

So while this might in parts sound like a tirade, it is not meant to be only that.  You could consider this a plea of sorts going out from me to you. A reminder that we should not forget the finer things… like phone calls and meeting up for coffee with our laptops out of the way.

I am not saying don’t Facebook. I am not saying Facebook is the scourge of our times.
I am saying go write a letter, go call someone. Log out and Hang out instead!

Just so you know I do Facebook. But on that really plump bell curve, I am at the far left backed up against the y-axis. Hence, do forgive me in advance for being socially awkward with this networking phenomenon.  If you poke, prod, write on my wall, knock on my window, cry through the lock or whatever, odds are I might not get to you immediately.

Send me an email though, and I’ll write you a song.