…Facebook Can Be Used Poorly…

May 12, 2013

Photo Credit: http://thebuzzbuilders.tumblr.com/post/17713322536/relationships-and-social-media-the-good-bad-and-ugly
Photo Credit: http://thebuzzbuilders.tumblr.com/post/17713322536/relationships-and-social-media-the-good-bad-and-ugly

Picking up from yesterday

So, Facebook is really for certain things. But, I realized that somewhere along the line, I started using it more for not great things.

For one thing, sometimes my self-worth got a bit wrapped up in Facebook – not totally, but a little. For instance, if a picture or event I thought was great only got a few likes, I would think, “Why don’t people like me?”

Of course, it’s not that they don’t like me. Maybe they’re not on the computer. Maybe I’m not on their newsfeed. Maybe they just don’t want to click like. Maybe a million different things. But it was almost as though an experience was only as good as the people on Facebook validated it to be.

I started being a little less present in my own life, and thinking kind of outside of my life. If something great would happen, sometimes instead of thinking how amazing it was, I’d think something along the lines of, “I bet a lot of people will ‘like’ this!”

Then if a lot of people didn’t like it, it would make me wonder – is the thing as cool as I thought it was? Well, guess what?! Everything in my own life is as cool or as uncool as I think it is. It’s my life and my experiences and I should enjoy them because I do – not because they impress anybody else. How could there be any tiny part of me that thinks some random internet group gets to decide what’s cool in my own life? That’s just silly.

I also allowed Facebook to kind of… I dunno, maybe hurt my feelings a bit. For instance, I had this friend who was always saying that we should hang out. But he was just “sooooo busy” that he couldn’t make time for me anytime in many months. But, we both went through a phase – maybe kind of around the holidays and even beginning of this year, where we were both almost living on Facebook. I’d see him on it all the time.

He’d be constantly liking and commenting on a million statuses. So, let me get this straight. You have time to watch 800 cat videos, but you don’t have time to have a simple coffee with me? Am I not more interesting than stupid internet crap?

The difference is - at least Darth Vader started out not on the dark side. (Not sure who to credit with this - just saw it floating around the internet.)
The difference is – at least Darth Vader started out not on the dark side.
(Not sure who to credit with this – just saw it floating around the internet.)

So, then I’d get a bit mad (or at least peeved) at him. But then I’d start to wonder – how can I possibly be mad at him?! This is insanely weird behavior to be able to see what so many of my friends are up to all the time. I shouldn’t be judging what they do with their time – ’cause I shouldn’t be watching! (Not that I’m watching more than anybody else is – it’s just odd that we have that ability.)

Also, I noticed some really bad behavior in myself. I started writing wall posts to my good friends. We have telephones! If I want to know what’s going on with an actual friend, why don’t I give a call – or at least a text? I mean, come on!

I’ve been going through a bunch of my old Facebook activity – trying to clean up my profile, get rid of some pictures – sort of generally streamline it all. (Thankfully, I’ve been pretty good since I’ve gotten it about usually deleting stuff once it’s been up for a while and has become a little obsolete. So, I never have too terribly much stuff to go though.)

(And yes, I know if I run for President someday, anything that had been posted at any time I’m sure will be able to be drudged up through some kind of internet craziness. So, I do my best to never put anything up that would cause a firestorm in the public eye – but I still like to clean out my Facebook timeline/photos/etc. every once in a while to clean it up a bit.)

Anyway, as I was going through the activity page to see things I’ve posted – I saw that when some of my former classmates were nominated for Tony Awards – that’s right nominated for freaking Tony awards – I wrote them congratulations on their Facebook walls!

What is wrong with me? If that is not a “send a card/flowers/whatever” type of moment, I don’t know what is!

And tomorrow, I will talk about fixing my Facebook behavior.

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?