I just came off a nine day Facebook Fast. I didn't check Facebook for nine days, and checked Instagram about twice during that time. That's pretty remarkable for me, considering that most of my daily adult interaction is via social media. I spend most of my waking hours with someone whose vocabulary is about 50 words, occasionally puts her words together into two-word phrases, and has used one three-word phrase exactly once in her life ("No, no, no" doesn't count.) Yeah, she's quite the conversationalist. During my Facebook fast, a few of my friends were the victims of my fast and furious texting, and my husband was the victim of my incessant chatter when he was home and awake. Maybe even when he was asleep. He'll never know. ;-)
Why a Facebook fast? Why not? Oh, I could list a myriad of reasons why I took a Facebook fast, but let's just discuss the big ones instead.
1. Our internet at home has been ridiculously slow lately. It's been taking forever to load the pics on Facebook. I got impatient and quit trying. If at first you don't succeed, give up. (I should be a motivational speaker.)
2. I had a busy couple of days with actual face-to-face adult interaction (!), realized I hadn't checked Facebook in a couple of days, then realized I didn't miss it. So I decided to stay off the Facecrack for a while longer. While I was away, I reflected on...
3. Facebook is one-sided. Everyone is posting what they want to share about their lives. I see pictures of my friends baking muffins and finger painting with their toddlers. Their yards are perfectly manicured. Their spouses come home from work every day at five, sometimes bearing surprise flowers. Everyone is smiling. Life is good. They don't include all the details in the captions. They left out details such as: the toddlers wrecked the kitchen during the baking project and have the direction following skills of gerbils, so poured the milk into the flour container, wouldn't wash their hands before nap, resulting in finger paint on their sheets, and didn't even nap, just spent an hour shouting in their cribs while the kitchen didn't get clean because the adult in the house was too annoyed by the shouting to feel like cleaning up. And the lawn? Yeah, they have a lawn service that charges and arm and a leg to use a bunch of toxic chemicals to get that beautiful green lawn. Spouses that come home every day at 5? Hmmm. That one just baffles me. Guess there's never heavy traffic or late meetings in their spouses' lives. So when you look at the one side of Facebook that most people are posting, your own life seems pretty crappy. Sometimes it's hard to remember all those other details that aren't included in the captions and status updates. While I was fasting, one of my friends mentioned that studies have shown that Facebook can contribute to depression because it's so one-sided. I found a couple articles online backing that up. And I totally believe them. Because it makes sense to me, not because everything you read online is true. C'mon now.
4. Facebook is vain. (D'oh). I'm vain. Aren't we all? Last night, I posted a bunch of pictures of my friends, family, and myself having fun. I didn't mention the pile of laundry and car cleaning project the fun created. (see #3). But the pictures are so vain. I looked at them as I was posting... "Oooh, that's a good one of my biceps. Geez, I don't like the way my chin looks in that pic, but it's a really good one of my daughter, so I'll post it anyway." One-sided and vain go kinda hand-in-hand, don't they? And isn't this whole post kind of vain? It's as if I'm assuming you noticed I was off Facebook for nine days, and that you cared, and that you're curious why I was gone.
5. False intimacy. A friend recently used this phrase to describe Facebook. Yup, we have intimate details of each other's lives. Pics of their kids, their homes, what they had for dinner, how they feel about their jobs, and when their grandmothers died. But many of these friends we barely know in person. Coworkers: as Facebook friends, we have all these details about them, but they've never shared them around the water cooler. Sometimes it seems weird to have seen pics of your coworker's dog being put down, when they didn't even mention it at work, y'know?
6. Group griefery. (Yeah, I think I made that word up.) Someone dies. Someone has a really sick child. We all hear about it via Facebook. (See #5.) I'm not knocking Facebook as a useful way to disseminate information, or as a way for the community to rally together to support folks going through tough times. I'm knocking everyone who is "so, so, very sad for your loss even though I never met him or heard of him before yesterday, I felt so connected to him. RIP, pal! Let know what I can do to help." Ummm, maybe you could allow the loved ones to grieve in private? Thanks for your concern though. The group griefery I'm talking about is wanting to be a part of something big. Even though it's something sad, it's wanting to "belong" to that big event, the big tragic illness that took a life too soon.
But I'm back now. Back to the dark side of Facebook. I started gradually. A couple days ago, I allowed myself exactly 15 minutes on Facebook. The only useful information I gained was who bought one of the local coffee shops. I don't even know what I'm going to do with that information, now that I'm thinking about it. I don't even know if it was useful information. It was just mildly interesting information. Nine days gone, 15 minutes back, and that's it. I wonder what enjoyable conversation and company I could have enjoyed with 15 minutes of face-to-face time with a friend instead of 15 minutes on Facebook.
