So I recently deleted my Facebook account. For shame! I know. Because trust me that is all I hear every time I run into someone. "Why did you leave Facebook?" "I miss you on Facebook." "How come you're not on Facebook anymore?" Good lord. You would think it was a decision of the scale and magnitude of international diplomacy or something, with the amount of concern and interest it has raised. Which frankly, I find both a little scary and a little sad. I mean, most of these people haven't visited or called me since.... EVER. Meaning we are not exactly of a close nature, you know? They are usually people I haven't seen in years before becoming Facebook "friends." Or those people that are just casual acquaintances through some non-social avenue, like work. Or even better, they are a "friend's friend's friend!" But hey, they "miss" me on an internet site, they "miss" hearing about my life, or even worse, my daughter? It just totally freaks me out and reaffirms my decision to abandon this book of Face.
How odd is our social experience becoming nowadays? Yikes. I mean if I need to play six degrees to find out how we know each other, I really don't think I should have been sharing so much of my life with you anyway. I would probably be more comfortable doing it with the actual Kevin Bacon. And how sad are those people that troll the site so much that they abandon their real life to "hang" with their 458 friends and electronically poke each other and play freakin' Farmville? Yeah, at that point it is time to step away from the computer and return to the world of the three dimensional people. Seriously. Log off for a while. And give it a rest.
This is why I thought it was getting a bit ridiculous. I also came to loathe the way it became a full-on virtual playground for gossip, competition, and just plain-old nosiness! Granted, part of it was my fault for probably getting more invested in it than I should have. You know, posted too many statuses, uploaded too many pictures, accepted too many friend requests. But hey, when I get into something, I go hard or go home, ya know? Anyway, I just think that instead of being fun and lighthearted, it became creepy and annoying. And I saw myself morphing into one of those obsessive people I just mentioned. That is when I knew I needed an intervention. I was on the Facebook junk. And I was on it hard. I had to detox.
Like all addicts, I told myself I could slow down. I could just Facebook recreationally. You know, log in less often, stop posting pics, slow down my posts. Uh...yeah, no. Facebook is like heroin...or potato chips...depending on your metaphor preference. You can't do it just once in a while. You can't eat just one. Knowing that that little log-in box was there..all the time...staring me down, taunting me. I HAD to go on. And once you are on, forget it. You're sucked into a shame spiral of commenting, picture scanning, and "liking" things until the point where your eyes blur and your carpal tunnel inflames. So I knew I had to admit my problem and walk away clean. I had to...gasp....delete my account.
And I did. At first, it was weird. Because I liked the fact that it kept me in contact with some cool people, and that I could find out news and info going on both in my corner of the globe and in the world at large. What I didn't miss was all of those peeper/stalker types ogling over my every post, every pic, every conversation. I knew I had made the right decision. My life, my family, needs to be my business. And people that really mattered, I should make an effort to see, or call, or heck even email! I know that most technological inventions are created in an effort to bring us together. Like this blog. It allows me to "talk" about things and have a wider audience than if I had to literally spew this diatribe to every person I came in contact with throughout the day. (God, could you imagine?) But lately I see more credence to the flipside of the argument. Witnessing that some inventions, like Facebook, actually lessen our need to truly interact and therefore dehumanize our social experiences. So I guess it's a balancing act. Knowing how to use technology to your benefit, to enhance, without replacing, your actual life experiences!
With that said. I still love technology. And I don't think all social media is bad. Again, an example, blogging. Still connecting, still creating, still technology. And another, my new favorite, Twitter. At first I was very against Twitter, thinking it was like a shorter, more annoyingly faster-paced Facebook. But at the recommendation of a friend I tried it. And boy was I wrong! It has all the things I liked about Facebook. The ability to have quick chats and connect with people. The ability to share and follow along on sports, news, and entertainment topics. The ability to discover and check out new websites, companies, artists, books, and musicians. And all without the annoying "page" mentality. Twitter only has a short bio and a pic - no ridiculous sections about everyone's likes and dislikes, or who is related to who, or a "wall" of nonsense displayed like some pathetic badge of honor. It is just people connecting to each other and to information. Fast. Clean. Simple. I love it. And most of all, I have to say, is that while it is trendy, it hasn't yet "jumped the shark" to the point that everyone's parents and grandparents are on it. I mean, Betty White is on it, but we all know she gets a pass because her coolness is just freakin' timeless.
So while Facebook is dead to me, Twitter now reigns supreme. And this time I will be smart. My guard will be up. My intel will be tight. And the "block" weapon will be engaged if needed. So tweet me sometime :) @AlysonDell
