Facebook Quandary

I have realized in recent months that the total failure of this blog can be attributed to transferring so much of my attention to facebook. If I feel the need to share my thoughts, I do it there instead of here.

There are many bummers resulting from that. I have people in my life who used to read this blog, and I'm pretty sure they aren't checking in any longer. And I don't blame them.

This has been a bummer for me, time after time, to see that bookmark button for my blog at the top of my browser and ignore it. Actively ignore it. I know better. There's nothing there. At least nothing new.

Facebook has the interactive thing down, but it also keeps everything very shallow. You're limited on how many characters you can put in a wall post, and in order to get a complete thought out, you have to spill over into comments.

Anyway, my husband is no longer on facebook. He was weirded out by the new facial recognition feature for when you upload pictures. I get that. It is creepy to have facebook telling me who is in the pictures I just uploaded. It's not the capability that's so bad, it's the potential for misuse that you can't control that is so bad. I generally have the feeling that I have nothing to hide, and I don't. But even in the heyday of this blog I left out details to protect my family and especially my children.

Facebook is designed to suck us in. After watching "Social Network" it was obvious that it was designed to keep people clicking. They know how long we are logged in and what we click, what keeps our interest. They are studying us by our interests, and our friends, and SELLING the information. Thinking about it in this light makes me want to delete my profile like my husband did to his.

The other side of the coin is that I know I have connected in person with people as a result of reconnecting on facebook. Friends from college or high school who are now in the area where I live are now a part of my life again because we found each other on facebook. That's a good thing. Real life is a good thing. Facebook can make communication easy, and improve real life.

Facebook can also feed a fantasy life, making us think we have connections to people beyond what is real. I know I don't really have 650+ friends. If I need something, there are not 650+ people coming to my aid. In a true crisis, I don't turn to all 650+ of those people and pour my heart out. There are not enough hours in the day to do such a thing. I know there are friends I can truly count as friends, and friends that are facebook friends. There is a difference, and in my adult understanding of life, I can see the difference. There are some people, young people mostly, and mentally ill adults, who may not see the difference. Facebook is dangerous for such people. They can put way too much emphasis on their friend count, and whether they feel good or bad about themselves can be based on something so arbitrary. It's like the facebook South Park episode. Funny, but sad.

And then there are the addictive games. I know that if I didn't play Bejeweled Blitz I'd have some other go-to game that I could play mindlessly any time I was bored at my computer. I can't blame facebook for that. But still. It's there and it keeps me going back because I'm competitive and I want to see my name in the top 5 for the week.

I am saddened when I think of all the other things I could be doing with that time. Let's limit this thinking to JUST what I can do on the computer. I could be blogging or making digital scrapbook pages. Either of those things require creativity and thought, and have more of a lasting impact on my life than facebook. The digital scrapbook pages are eventually printed and put into a book to be held and admired. My kids love looking at the pictures of themselves, and they even love it when I'm making the pages of them. They feel special. And it's a keepsake that will be treasured for as long as I live if not longer. And as for my blogging, it is a public journal. It's a verbal picture of what's going on in my life and the only place I really get to write freely. I really have missed it these last two years when I've been so bogged down by work and then frittering away my time on facebook.

So the question remains, "Is it worth-while to be on facebook?" I'm afraid the answer is yes. The connections are worth it. The fear part for me is that I know myself, and what's required for facebook to not take over my life is SELF-DISCIPLINE. I don't like self-discipline. It's hard and I'm a big, fat baby. I'm always better at making the good choices when I don't really have a choice.

Since the question was originally raised a week ago or so, I have taken a few photo albums off my profile and thought about culling my friends list. I haven't done it because I want to avoid the embarrassing re-add. You know, when someone you've taken off your friends list sends you another friend request... Yeah. I've been on both sides of that in the past. It's not a good situation.

I guess going forward, I want to resolve to live more fully in the real world and less in the facebook world. Will that happen? I guess time will tell.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most interesting part of this blog - THE SONG IN MY HEAD! I have had that dumb song, "Gives You Hell," in my head for the last few days. It's driving me nuts. At least you can trust that I'm being honest. Why else would I own up to knowing this song well enough that it gets stuck in my head?