I did one of those silly Facebook things today, you
know the ones that are doing the circuits. Everybody does them, shares and then
inanely ‘likes’ everybody else’s post from the same app without even looking at
their results. There are lots at the moment. They will tell you how Scottish,
northern, welsh or heathen you are (same thing really). I kept doing the Welsh one until it said I
was 0% Welsh! Result! The latest tell
which Star Wars/Toy Story/ Glee/ Crossroads Motel character you are. Don’t
bother doing the quiz. You’re Benny! This one today, by Time magazine (so it
must be reliable!!!) calculated how many days you had spent on Facebook based
on when you joined, the number of posts posted and how many minutes you said
you spent a day on Facebook. I said 60 minutes a day. I lied. I’ve done every soddin’
Facebook quiz going! (I lie on all of them!) It announced ‘You’ve wasted 97 days 13 hours 9 minutes since
joining’. Wasted that time posting 8,314 things to my feed. It didn’t calculate
anything in my messages. It may have blown up the app if it had. I’ve messaged gratuitously on occasion! As
part of its 10 year anniversary Facebook has made your ‘Facebook movie’
available to share on your feed. It
lasts 1.02 minutes! That’s some f**king editing from 97 days!
I’m fairly certain it wasn’t happy coincidence that
Time also posted a video feed on how to delete your Facebook account. Top tip
for everyone who had wasted time finding out how much time they had wasted:
Don’t waste any more time, and delete 97 days of your life in seconds! I
actually considered deleting my account before the calculation. I didn’t need a
snazzy app to tell me I spend too much time on Facebook and not enough time
with real people.
Have I wasted my time?
Facebook has been with me on my 4-year journey through
5 house moves in 4 different countries (if you count Texas as a Republic). It
was an easy way to keep in touch and share what I was doing with friends and
family (without Facebook I would have had to phone 188 people to tell them I
was going shopping to Wal-Mart!). I know most of the people on my Facebook and
the ones I don’t it’s because I can’t remember them from school and am too
polite to say so. You could say, if I wanted to keep in touch with people I
could do so without Facebook but Facebook makes it easy to interact. I was able to share my journey post by post.
It got really exciting (for me) when I finally got an iPhone and could do
check-ins! Along the way I made new friends, rekindled old friendships, maintained
existing friends, had a few casualties and fatalities (the delete is grim!) and
I guess I have evaluated what those friendships mean.
I have had some amazing moments with people I haven’t
seen since school. Do I know them now beyond Facebook? Would I pick up the
phone and talk to them? I don’t even know their numbers but I it doesn’t alter
the fact that I have shared the most magical times of my life with them that may
have remained forgotten without reconnecting on Facebook. For example, an old
friend (I lived across the street from, as baby until I was 9 and went to
school with him from the age of 4 until I was 16) rediscovered on fb posted an
old school pic. Behind him was the school piano with a tapestry of a peacock on
it. I’d forgotten the tapestry. Instantly I was transported back to the hall of
my primary school: the smell of the parquet floor on my dirty little hands
after an assembly; the hymns I still love to sing as a devout atheist; the
special teachers who ignited in me a lifetime love of learning. I might not
have seen my school friend other than at a school reunion (which was the reason
I joined Facebook in the first place) in 30 years but we were able to message about
the memories that photo stirred like it was yesterday. Did I still know him?
Did he know me now? Many years ago we shared many of the things that make us
who we are. I might not have known what he had done for the last 30 years but
he, like many of my Facebook friends, are part of me, the essence of me. I love
that aspect of Facebook: the connections it creates or strengthens with people
that would have otherwise remained ‘someone that I used to know’.
There is lots of psychobabble research on the effects
of Facebook on people. Apparently it can affect self-esteem. That’s bollocks. I
for one don’t mind at all if no one likes a status I write or a photo I post. I don’t delete it and pretend I never said it
whist sniveling in a pool of my own wine induced vomit because no one loves me!
I don’t suffer from any ego driven narcissism based on the number of interactions
anything I do on Facebook generates. I never censor ugly pictures of myself!
I
post any old shite, me! I look like that all the time! I don’t feel hideously
depressed when I log on to Facebook and there are no little red notification
flags, or worse, I don’t feel murderous when those little flags turn out to be
f**king Farmville requests. There is something sadder than Facebook!!!
People apparently feel envious when looking at the online activity (postings,
check ins and photos) of those with lives that are much more exciting than those
of us who spend too long on Facebook (there’s an irony there I cant quite put
my finger on!). Facebook never affects my mood!
I don’t think Facebook is the generator of self-esteem.
It just reflects it. Facebook can be the most exciting place to connect and
share the exciting life you live or it can be the loneliest place. I might have
a modest 188 Facebook friends (I use the ‘Roses are red, Facebook is blue, no
mutual friends, Who the f**k are U?’ rhyme when it comes to responding to friend
requests) but sometimes you just need one real friend. Equally, surrounded by real people, I have
got the most life affirming and amazing interactions from Facebook friends!
Facebook can fortify friendships or destroy relationships. It allows for the pretence of friendship and
interaction with people who don’t want to be friends at all. They can voyeuristically
see what you are up to but never comment and never interact and leave you
feeling miserable because you know, if they were your friend, they would. Oddly
I don’t get this form people I haven’t seen for decades, I get this from people
who have been and who still should be close in my everyday real world. I’d like
to delete those people but that would expose the pretence.
People closest to me are not on Facebook at all.
Hubby refuses to engage. He travels a lot and I sometimes think it would be
easier if he was on Facebook but maybe that would be too easy and something
would be lost. I wish some friends were my 'friend' on Facebook though. I spend
such a lot of time there without them! I miss them.
Whatever Facebook gives and takes, I am not ready to
delete my account and I seem to have missed the point of Twitter. Perhaps I’m
too verbose to limit my outpourings to 140 characters per tweet. What I really
know is Facebook is no substitute for real life and if I’m feeling miserable or
spending too long in a virtual world it is because I need to engage more
positively with the real world and find something to do. Now I’m fairly certain
if I log on to Facebook there will be a quiz that will tell me what that should
be! I’ll be sure to share. Please be sure to ‘like’! (…and scroll past if you
are a heartless bastard and want all small animals to die… don’t you just hate
those posts!!!!)
