Dear Facebook, you make me sad.
This photo sums up how I feel about Facebook recently.
I know there is a lot of controversy and a lot of people talking about Facebook these last few years but that's not why I'm talking about it. I'm not trying to add my voice to the chorus or to give you my spin. I have been overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts and convictions surrounding Facebook recently and knew I had to do something. So I did. Now I'm writing about it because that is how I process things. Feel free to ignore this post if you come here for DIY or travel tips, that's fine. You have permission to move on, hence the whole point of this post. If you care to read and share your thoughts, please please do, so I know I am not alone and we can learn from and encourage one another.
I love Facebook for these 4 reasons:
- It's like an interactive visual diary of my life.
- It is a great way to share things, like photos, with groups of friends.
- I get to peek into other people's lives and experience it with them (and vice versa).
- It provides an unparalleled forum for interacting in groups.
I was in college when Facebook became a thing. Only people with particular, in-the-facebook-circuit, college email addresses could join. It was a secret society of a club that we had. It was the coolest. We shared photos of baking cupcakes at 4am, planned all our events, and posted inside jokes on each others walls. We were the coolest. As I proceeded through college my friend count grew (which was an amazing way to actually quantify how cool you were). I was very social and worked a lot of camps and traveled a lot and we were in college: everyone is your friend! So my friend list skyrocketed. I had 1000's of friends. It was the coolest and I loved every one of them. Facebook also provided us a great way to virtually stalk others. Cute guy in class? Lets see...yep he's single. yep he likes Star Wars. See it helped us avoid bad decisions before we even spoke to them....Then, well you know the story. (but if you don't because it's the year 3025 I'll share briefly). Then Facebook opened slowly to people not in the college circuit, other friends, then our parents joined. Then everyone joined. Literally. Children, teenagers, grandparents, spam bots, people with bad intentions and dirty photos joined. Now, that I am an adult and have lived in multiple states and countries, have worked various jobs, attended multiple churches, met friends of friends, attended events and am a human who talks to other humans, I have gained a lot more friends. Ok, not so cool now. Fast forward to the present issue at hand. I am scrolling through my news feed, like you do when you are bored every hour or so. I see "missing child'. 'someone is killing all the dogs'. 'the police are murderers'. 'riots everywhere'. 'people die-alot'. 'watch this video of someone doing something stupid'. 'watch this video of someone getting hit by a car'. 'watch this video of someone literally getting shot in the face'.And then there are the status updates. I will not even begin to quote those, they are filthy and annoying and boring and make no sense what so ever.Then I lost all faith in humanity. It was a slow loss that crept up on me like one of those viney plants that grows all the way around the window seal. It starts as just one little leaf and then all of sudden you look up and have Jumanji flashbacks. Amy Poehler talks about this in her book, Yes, Please, and I couldn't agree with her more. It's like we actually want to see this stuff. I can't not click on this link that will take me into a black-hole where I will see things I can't unsee....yet I click it. But, something happened on Facebook, there are no longer just links but the whole article or photos or videos are just there. In my news feed, on my phone, in the palm of my hand, at my place of work, at my dinner table. They are there. I let them in. Rewinding again, when I used to look at Facebook I saw people's terrible grainy photos of parties and vacations and random dress up events that made no sense. Then people started getting engaged. Blah. Then they started getting married. Cha-Ching. Then they started having babies. Wah. This is the life stage I am in. I have thrown parties, posed in pretty dresses and am now babysitting. I love it. I love this stage of life my friends and I are in. At first, there were lots of times of comparison and annoyance with all the 'we're engaged' 'look at how fancy our wedding was' 'were 23 and have 7 babies'. But then, that simple, yet real life stuff disappeared and in its place came the nightmare inducing videos and comments and angry articles about politics and boob jobs.When I realized that I had these feelings of overwhelming sadness, guilt, anger and angst often and then linked it to my phone and then further pinpointed it Facebook, I knew I had to tackle it like a linebacker. I toyed with the idea of deleting facebook altogether, but then remembered why I loved it and have it in the first place (see above list). I began researching and found that you can download an app that will disable your news feed, but only on your computer, but my phone is where I use it 95% of the time. So I needed to find a solution. I sat down and began 'unfollowing' people with a viciousness. I am still their friend, but they do not show up on my news feed. I still have access to them and them to me, but not on a daily basis. But, then I realized that made no sense. If I didn't want to see stuff about them or that they said or thought, was I even truly their 'friend'? I owe them nothing, especially nothing Facebook can offer. So I began cutting people from the team left and right, benching them just wasn't enough. As I scrolled through my news feed if I did not immediately recognize someone, they were gone. If I recognized them but don't ever talk to/interact with them, they were gone. If I only friended them because they sent me a friend request because we had one class together in high school and never spoke, there were gone.Then I decided, only people who I truly want to tune into will stay. There are too many distractions already, so why would I enter a room where I need to be tuning out hundreds of stations to only tune into a few that I know and love? Facebook is no longer my social organizer like it was in college, so I don't need a lot of friends. My friends all use email and text messages and just walk into my office when they want to talk to me or plan something now.Facebook is now what I use to keep up with, follow along and interact with friends and family who are close and who are far away. I am literally watching my BF's baby learn to talk as she posts videos of her new words. I am watching my friends move all over the world and learn about new countries and cultures. I am seeing the photos of my family's Christmas party. Why would I want to miss that stuff for a news article about a baby murderer?!I am not apologizing for unfriending anyone or rejecting a friend request. And honestly no one reading this got unfriended because my actual friends are the only one that would read this mess of a story. So I am choosing what I tune into from now on. I am choosing to tune in the happy, the real, the inspiring, the fun, the personal. I choose.