What is it about Facebook that keeps me coming back for more? I honestly don't know. There's an element of exposure Facebook creates which makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't want the whole world up in my business...and yet, I want to be able to share photos and memories with people who matter to me.
I think the "mattering" element is the hardest for me where social media is concerned. When I first logged on to Facebook (immediately following my last exam as an undergraduate), it was all about adding everyone I had ever known in my entire life. People who disappeared after elementary school, old teachers, people I knew from various summer camps and activities, random people I'd met one time at the bar or through friends. The only criteria I had was that I actually had to know the person - no accepted friend requests from complete strangers here!
From the beginning I wasn't really worried about the Facebook phenom because I didn't have anything to hide. Having worked in leadership positions all through university, I wasn't stupid enough to post anything scandalous, or to put myself in situations where something I said or did would be newsworthy within my Facebook circle. I believe one of the major contributing factors to my generally positive experience with Facebook is the simple fact of when I signed on - after undergrad was already finished. The work was done, the hard yards were over - everyone was excited for summer and the next chapter beyond. Facebook became a way to keep our tight-knit community alive as several of my close friends and I left Canada in search of new adventures. It helped us keep track of each other, and reminded us that no matter where we were in the world, there were people who were invested in us. Ah, the good old days. I feel for my younger cousins who - along with their friends - seem to use Facebook solely as a means to perpetuate cruelty and gossip. The things they say to each other - and the appalling lack of spelling and grammar employed in so doing - are truly disgusting. It makes me wonder if kids these days even understand what it means to have friends! From what I've seen, Facebook has been detrimental to the junior high/high school experience, because it does nothing more than allow gossip to travel at rates previously unheard of. And with pictures. It's just so messy and needlessly cruel...I really loathe it.
In grad school, Facebook became a constant in my life. I was living in the States, 15 or more hours away from my family, and missing Canada terribly. Being stuck in an uber conservative, impossibly small town was killing me, but when I was on Facebook, I felt like I was back in the big city with all of my friends. In my new reality, being able to create events and invite people en masse was incredibly helpful. No more calling around to make sure everyone knew the plan - everyone was on their Facebook 24/7, so that became the easiest way to communicate to multiple people at once. Unfortunately, the euphoria of Facebook as a great means of communication soon began to dissipate as I began to discover the inevitable obligations and expectations of putting your friendships in the public realm. This is the crux of why I have come to hate Facebook.
I am not a person who believes we are meant to keep every single friend we ever make. In the normal course of life (prior to social media applications like Facebook), it was natural to part ways with people as your lives went in different directions. When you stopped having things to talk about, you stopped talking. You both moved forward, made other friends, and lived your lives. No hard feelings.
Not so with Facebook.
At the height of my "friending" on Facebook, I had over 1,000 peeps, all of whom I legitimately knew. (Trust me - I had details listed for each one, and as the ability to group people came into play, everyone was sorted into a category of some description.) Here's where things got tricky; while I did know every single person on my list, I didn't necessarily like every person on my list. Or, if that wasn't the case, maybe I knew someone but didn't think it was necessary to give them voyeuristic access to my innermost thoughts (status updates), romantic life, photos, and other friends. It got to the point where every time I went to post something, I felt like I was climbing up onto a stage in front of 1,000 people and yelling "Excuse me, everybody - I have something to say!" Now, if I had actually had to do that - go up onto a stage, I mean - in order to update my status, would I have done it? Fuck no. But ostensibly, that's what I was doing each time I completed the line "Audrey Maple is..."
The negative feelings I had about this felt counter-intuitive. I got Facebook to keep in touch with people I cared about and communicate my experience, but all of the sudden I felt like those people were judging everything I had to say. I literally felt like each status update was akin to someone shining a huge spotlight down on me. Who wants that stress and drama? Not me. The solution seemed simple enough. Give up Facebook? Hardly. Start deleting people!
With a few rare exceptions, the people I have deleted from my Facebook I genuinely like; they just aren't people I could see myself working to maintain a relationship with. (Which, ironically, is sort of what Facebook is all about anyway. How many people on your friend list do you actually communicate with in order to find out what they're up to? Probably not as many as you think. By catching someone's status updates and trolling their page/timeline, you can often find all of the information you're looking for, no conversation required) Before Facebook, we would have just gone our separate ways without issue. But now that everyone else can see how many friends you had and who they are, the process of adding and deleting people becomes another opportunity for unwarranted drama.
For example: my graduate school program was very small. I think there were 23 of us. We took all of the same classes together for two years, and many of us worked together as well. As I'm sure you can imagine, a small group like that, together so often, banished to a little shit town in the middle of nowhere...it was an awkward situation waiting to happen. But add to it the ability for people to know who was friends with whom and what everyone else was doing...that made things downright complicated. I personally felt obligated to have every member of the cohort on Facebook, whether I liked them or not, while we were in school together (if for no other reason than to avoid the drama other people would stir up). That sucked. I didn't want to be mean, rude, or exclusionary towards anyone, but I also didn't want people I didn't like/feel close to to have so much access to me. (Especially when there was at least one person in the group who was developing a reputation as someone who would use anything and everything she could to elevate herself above you in the eyes of authority.) Once we graduated, I started deleting the people I wasn't close with. But you know what? In the four years since we graduated, every time I have seen someone from the cohort I have been genuinely interested to hear what they've been up to and how they are. Now, isn't that better than having them on my Facebook out of some perverse sense of obligation?
Grad school was nothing compared to the complexities of Facebook in the professional working world. What do you do when your supervisor's supervisor, whom you really don't like (personally or professionally), wants to friend you on Facebook? I deny the request, but I certainly have friends and colleagues who don't (which also affects me because it adds an element of censorship to our interactions online which I'm not interested in). It also breeds drama because it makes it easier to catch people being deceitful, like when so and so calls in sick and then posts photos of her great day off at the beach. Or when a colleague constantly belittles someone to you but then outwardly praises them on Facebook. It makes me furious, and has actually caused several of my "real" friendships to end, not just those on Facebook. (I guess the upside is that at least I learned the truth before it happened to me. Still, not very satisfying.)
Another complicated element is the issue of your partner's friends. Some of my partner's friends have added me to Facebook, regardless of whether we've actually met. I appreciate the gesture, but I also think "Why?" I don't like the feeling of obligation that comes with those requests. I don't want to be rude, but...we're not friends. And at this stage, my Facebook is reserved for my real friends and family; the people whom I make an effort to see (and vice versa). The people who have a vested interest in who I am and what I'm about. People who don't know me aren't invested in me. They may be invested in my partner, but not me. And you know what? That's ok!!! We're individuals - we don't have to have all of the same friends! Sure, it makes life easier if we all know each other and go out together, but in my experience, all of my partner's friends who have added me on Facebook have then proceeded to ignore me. What's the message there? I'm not into the illusion of frienship which has become so pervasive in our culture. We don't need to be friends with everyone - just respectful and polite to all. Let's keep Facebook for our real friends so it doesn't become another unwanted source of drama and stress in our lives. I shouldn't feel obligated to be "friends" with someone, and they shouldn't feel obligated to be "friends" with me. Let's just continue to live our lives...in peace.
So, that's why I now have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. Love it to keep in touch with family and friends oversees; hate feeling obligated to add/keep people who I'm really not close to. So, how does this factor into the personal inventory I'm undertaking with Every Last Feather? Simple: there is a real, valid reason why I stay on Facebook - it affords me the opportunity to keep in touch with people I love and care about in a quick and easy way. That's it. So, anything that stands in the way of my ability to achieve these outcomes has to go. For me, that means constantly, consciously inventorying my friend list, and really seriously considering the type of access I allow, and to whom. If I feel like I'm being judged, I ask myself why - is it because I'm saying/doing something I inherently know is wrong or unkind, or is it because I don't have the support of someone out there in Facebook land? If the latter, it's as simple as clicking a mouse. At the end of the day, I don't have the time or energy to devote to Facebook politics. I just want to get on with my life.
I think the "mattering" element is the hardest for me where social media is concerned. When I first logged on to Facebook (immediately following my last exam as an undergraduate), it was all about adding everyone I had ever known in my entire life. People who disappeared after elementary school, old teachers, people I knew from various summer camps and activities, random people I'd met one time at the bar or through friends. The only criteria I had was that I actually had to know the person - no accepted friend requests from complete strangers here!
From the beginning I wasn't really worried about the Facebook phenom because I didn't have anything to hide. Having worked in leadership positions all through university, I wasn't stupid enough to post anything scandalous, or to put myself in situations where something I said or did would be newsworthy within my Facebook circle. I believe one of the major contributing factors to my generally positive experience with Facebook is the simple fact of when I signed on - after undergrad was already finished. The work was done, the hard yards were over - everyone was excited for summer and the next chapter beyond. Facebook became a way to keep our tight-knit community alive as several of my close friends and I left Canada in search of new adventures. It helped us keep track of each other, and reminded us that no matter where we were in the world, there were people who were invested in us. Ah, the good old days. I feel for my younger cousins who - along with their friends - seem to use Facebook solely as a means to perpetuate cruelty and gossip. The things they say to each other - and the appalling lack of spelling and grammar employed in so doing - are truly disgusting. It makes me wonder if kids these days even understand what it means to have friends! From what I've seen, Facebook has been detrimental to the junior high/high school experience, because it does nothing more than allow gossip to travel at rates previously unheard of. And with pictures. It's just so messy and needlessly cruel...I really loathe it.
In grad school, Facebook became a constant in my life. I was living in the States, 15 or more hours away from my family, and missing Canada terribly. Being stuck in an uber conservative, impossibly small town was killing me, but when I was on Facebook, I felt like I was back in the big city with all of my friends. In my new reality, being able to create events and invite people en masse was incredibly helpful. No more calling around to make sure everyone knew the plan - everyone was on their Facebook 24/7, so that became the easiest way to communicate to multiple people at once. Unfortunately, the euphoria of Facebook as a great means of communication soon began to dissipate as I began to discover the inevitable obligations and expectations of putting your friendships in the public realm. This is the crux of why I have come to hate Facebook.
I am not a person who believes we are meant to keep every single friend we ever make. In the normal course of life (prior to social media applications like Facebook), it was natural to part ways with people as your lives went in different directions. When you stopped having things to talk about, you stopped talking. You both moved forward, made other friends, and lived your lives. No hard feelings.
Not so with Facebook.
At the height of my "friending" on Facebook, I had over 1,000 peeps, all of whom I legitimately knew. (Trust me - I had details listed for each one, and as the ability to group people came into play, everyone was sorted into a category of some description.) Here's where things got tricky; while I did know every single person on my list, I didn't necessarily like every person on my list. Or, if that wasn't the case, maybe I knew someone but didn't think it was necessary to give them voyeuristic access to my innermost thoughts (status updates), romantic life, photos, and other friends. It got to the point where every time I went to post something, I felt like I was climbing up onto a stage in front of 1,000 people and yelling "Excuse me, everybody - I have something to say!" Now, if I had actually had to do that - go up onto a stage, I mean - in order to update my status, would I have done it? Fuck no. But ostensibly, that's what I was doing each time I completed the line "Audrey Maple is..."
The negative feelings I had about this felt counter-intuitive. I got Facebook to keep in touch with people I cared about and communicate my experience, but all of the sudden I felt like those people were judging everything I had to say. I literally felt like each status update was akin to someone shining a huge spotlight down on me. Who wants that stress and drama? Not me. The solution seemed simple enough. Give up Facebook? Hardly. Start deleting people!
With a few rare exceptions, the people I have deleted from my Facebook I genuinely like; they just aren't people I could see myself working to maintain a relationship with. (Which, ironically, is sort of what Facebook is all about anyway. How many people on your friend list do you actually communicate with in order to find out what they're up to? Probably not as many as you think. By catching someone's status updates and trolling their page/timeline, you can often find all of the information you're looking for, no conversation required) Before Facebook, we would have just gone our separate ways without issue. But now that everyone else can see how many friends you had and who they are, the process of adding and deleting people becomes another opportunity for unwarranted drama.
For example: my graduate school program was very small. I think there were 23 of us. We took all of the same classes together for two years, and many of us worked together as well. As I'm sure you can imagine, a small group like that, together so often, banished to a little shit town in the middle of nowhere...it was an awkward situation waiting to happen. But add to it the ability for people to know who was friends with whom and what everyone else was doing...that made things downright complicated. I personally felt obligated to have every member of the cohort on Facebook, whether I liked them or not, while we were in school together (if for no other reason than to avoid the drama other people would stir up). That sucked. I didn't want to be mean, rude, or exclusionary towards anyone, but I also didn't want people I didn't like/feel close to to have so much access to me. (Especially when there was at least one person in the group who was developing a reputation as someone who would use anything and everything she could to elevate herself above you in the eyes of authority.) Once we graduated, I started deleting the people I wasn't close with. But you know what? In the four years since we graduated, every time I have seen someone from the cohort I have been genuinely interested to hear what they've been up to and how they are. Now, isn't that better than having them on my Facebook out of some perverse sense of obligation?
Grad school was nothing compared to the complexities of Facebook in the professional working world. What do you do when your supervisor's supervisor, whom you really don't like (personally or professionally), wants to friend you on Facebook? I deny the request, but I certainly have friends and colleagues who don't (which also affects me because it adds an element of censorship to our interactions online which I'm not interested in). It also breeds drama because it makes it easier to catch people being deceitful, like when so and so calls in sick and then posts photos of her great day off at the beach. Or when a colleague constantly belittles someone to you but then outwardly praises them on Facebook. It makes me furious, and has actually caused several of my "real" friendships to end, not just those on Facebook. (I guess the upside is that at least I learned the truth before it happened to me. Still, not very satisfying.)
Another complicated element is the issue of your partner's friends. Some of my partner's friends have added me to Facebook, regardless of whether we've actually met. I appreciate the gesture, but I also think "Why?" I don't like the feeling of obligation that comes with those requests. I don't want to be rude, but...we're not friends. And at this stage, my Facebook is reserved for my real friends and family; the people whom I make an effort to see (and vice versa). The people who have a vested interest in who I am and what I'm about. People who don't know me aren't invested in me. They may be invested in my partner, but not me. And you know what? That's ok!!! We're individuals - we don't have to have all of the same friends! Sure, it makes life easier if we all know each other and go out together, but in my experience, all of my partner's friends who have added me on Facebook have then proceeded to ignore me. What's the message there? I'm not into the illusion of frienship which has become so pervasive in our culture. We don't need to be friends with everyone - just respectful and polite to all. Let's keep Facebook for our real friends so it doesn't become another unwanted source of drama and stress in our lives. I shouldn't feel obligated to be "friends" with someone, and they shouldn't feel obligated to be "friends" with me. Let's just continue to live our lives...in peace.
So, that's why I now have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. Love it to keep in touch with family and friends oversees; hate feeling obligated to add/keep people who I'm really not close to. So, how does this factor into the personal inventory I'm undertaking with Every Last Feather? Simple: there is a real, valid reason why I stay on Facebook - it affords me the opportunity to keep in touch with people I love and care about in a quick and easy way. That's it. So, anything that stands in the way of my ability to achieve these outcomes has to go. For me, that means constantly, consciously inventorying my friend list, and really seriously considering the type of access I allow, and to whom. If I feel like I'm being judged, I ask myself why - is it because I'm saying/doing something I inherently know is wrong or unkind, or is it because I don't have the support of someone out there in Facebook land? If the latter, it's as simple as clicking a mouse. At the end of the day, I don't have the time or energy to devote to Facebook politics. I just want to get on with my life.
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