Out with courtesy, courage and consideration;
in with cruelty, conceit and cowardice.
**Edit - I didn't actually delete my account. I did, however, do a 200 person 'friend cull' and I have reduced my time on it significantly. I don't interact with anyone nearly as much as I used to and after a particular incident in which a cowardly piece of shit decided to post a venomous and unprovoked status about me publicly, my public face has been significantly reduced for self-preservation. I have instead decided to channel my Facebook use for good, not evil, helping the organisations I'm involved in, my musical endeavours and promoting overall positivity in my life and others. So far, it seems to be working, but only time will tell....
**Edit - I didn't actually delete my account. I did, however, do a 200 person 'friend cull' and I have reduced my time on it significantly. I don't interact with anyone nearly as much as I used to and after a particular incident in which a cowardly piece of shit decided to post a venomous and unprovoked status about me publicly, my public face has been significantly reduced for self-preservation. I have instead decided to channel my Facebook use for good, not evil, helping the organisations I'm involved in, my musical endeavours and promoting overall positivity in my life and others. So far, it seems to be working, but only time will tell....
I recently deactivated my Facebook account (although I wasn't exactly sure how to delete it entirely). I will need to go back on it to tidy up a few things such as downloading photos that I have nowhere else, ask for alternative contact details of the people I care about on there and let the people I care about on there know that I am getting out of the brainwashing cult that is this f***ed up "social networking" disaster but for now, I'm not even logging in!
I was sucked in, just like everybody else. I didn't realise its evil power until it was too late. What started out as mere curiosity - a growing wish to jump on the bandwagon, to pardon a cliche - became a totally ridiculous obsession. It caused me to spend mindless hours every day scaling the profiles of people I don't even really care about, who don't even like me, who I hadn't (and still haven't) seen in 10 years (and as a result of Facebook, I remember WHY I hadn't kept in contact). The people about whom I actually care are the same people I have or will make an effort to see outside of an online environment anyway, so what is the point? For every old friend I have happily reunited with and have been happy doing so, there are fifteen of whom I couldn't give a toss. Yes, it is nice to learn about the people in theatre with whom I work, or my work colleagues or other bandspeople but I think Facebook is just laziness on my part. If I cared enough, I would do this in person, not spend hours a day stalking profiles, mindlessly commenting on equally mindless statuses and scouring for information about them when I could simply ask them in person and learn who they really are behind the computer screen. And if those *hugs* and xxoo emoticons were real, the world would be one steamy, 'touchy feely' place!
I have justified for many months now why I have this stupid thing and why I continue to use it to my detriment and I can't use any of the following excuses anymore:
EXCUSE NO 1: "It keeps me in contact with family and old friends"
Are you kidding me? I can do that via email, via phone, via Skype or even better, in person. How impersonal and unfamily-like is an online social network. Facebook no more keeps me in contact with family than it did before - the only difference is that I can now learn what they had for breakfast - big deal! I still don't have a personal relationship with them. Communicating via Facebook is a world away from being as good as saving up to visit them and feeling that warm hug or having a friendly chat or a welcoming phone call. Or even an email which, unlike the other technological advances, seems to not have the same distasteful aura that something like Twitter or My Space have (combine Youtube with Twitter and Facebook and you get 'You Twit Face' - so true. Ha ha ha!). And email definitely appeals more than trying to have a face-to-face conversation with somebody who insists on burying their heads in their friggin' smart phone 23.75hrs a day, rudely checking their Newsfeed at dinner or during a performance or at the back of a lecture theatre (what is the point in spending $5000 a year on uni fees if you're just going to use the time to find out that Joe Bloggs just made toast). At least email is instant letter writing. Yes, it does have some negatives that can be off-putting but I can handle that. School Friends was better than Facebook in that at least you could target a specific person without appearing as if you were stalking them.
EXCUSE NO 2. "You can share photos"
Yes, indeed you can, but you can also do that via USB, via portable hard drive, by phone, by memory card, by CD or DVD, via email, in person or the most wonderful of all - print them and display them lovingly. The biggest negative with photo sharing on Facebook is the tagging. I am sick to death of being tagged in photos that are unflattering, pointless or uninteresting. Or my biggest pet hate: being tagged in a photo that isn't even of me! The risk of being tagged, for the world to see, in a photo of you dressed in a Playboy Bunny outfit that you wore 15 years ago to a 'tarts and vicars' party is just too high. By the time you untag yourself, thousands of people may have seen it. Or downloaded it or shared it. For every nice photo that is posted, there are ten that you would rather not see. There's that 'witch's nose' profile shot, that photo of you in a compromising position with the Rundle Mall bronze pigs, there's the obligatory 'large gut' shot and of course, the hundreds of "I'll get as close as I can to the camera and open my mouth as wide as I can because I'm drunk!" photos! Where will it end? If there are any good photos, I would hope that they would be shared privately between the owner and myself. If I want copies, I'll ask for them! And don't even get me started on the ridiculous number of 'new baby' photos from new parents. "Here's my baby at 1 hour; here's my baby at 1 hour and 3 minutes; oh look how cute my baby is; please comment on how beautiful my baby is! Here's what my baby threw up yesterday!" It's the world's worst family slide show!
EXCUSE NO 3: "It's good for promoting events"
I am guilty of using that one a lot. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned promotion via flyer, email, print journalism, personalised invitation, word of mouth.... I find that advertising events on Facebook is a double-edged sword - whilst effective in some respects, it can also be counterproductive, frustrating and allows people to be rude and inconsiderate. The RSVP function on an event has allowed people to say 'yes, they are coming' to an event without officially committing to anything. It has allowed for lazy inconsiderate people to leave others' hanging by the 'maybe' response. It has allowed for impoliteness: for people to leave a 'no' attendance reply without even offering a reason to the person who has kindly invited them. But more on that issue later.
I can see that there are people who have RSVP'd favourably to an event that is happening quite soon who I know aren't even in the state at the time! But apparently, they are flying back the six hour round trip JUST for this event?? The RSVP system is stupid and pointless and so is the promotion of the event. Email the details, send a personal invitation to me and I will do my best to attend, due to your individual effort to invite me instead of being one of a mass 'invite list' just because I happen to be one of your 827 'friends'. And let's not even go into the whole let's create an event that isn't actually an event phenomenon! I mean, the 'Christine has lost her phone' event was the social soiree of the century!
EXCUSE NO 4. "I can organise to meet with people easier - it's good for getting details out to people if I don't have their contact details"
But if they don't have my number, are they really my friends? I would have given it to them if they were. If I don't have their number, is it really worth my time to meet these people anyway? If they haven't been bothered to give my their number, they obviously aren't too fussed about me so why have I even added them/accepted their friend request? And I have a mobile phone, a home phone, several email addresses and a mailing address that I check regularly. You can contact me that way without having every detail of where I'm going to be and at what time I'm going to be there advertised on Facebook. Someone I know was burgled only this week: could it have been because it was plastered all over Facebook that she wasn't going to be home? It is a possible scenario - who knows!
EXCUSE NO 5: "Everybody has Facebook - so should I"
This is the most pathetic one of them all and I have heard this in my own head which is the reason I started in the first place. It's truly awful peer-pressure and prompts the age-old saying "If your friends jumped off a building, would you jump too?" You know, there are so many people on Facebook now that the term "I'll facebook you" is becoming the most common technological vernacular.
And then there's the number of friends issue. There is nothing more sad than a battle for who has the most friends. Do I care that you have 1075 friends? How many of them do you actually know? And who know you? How many of them do you actually have a true blue conversation with? There are people I have had on Facebook who have not communicated with me once since they added me, other than to send me endless requests to play Texas Hold'Em Poker or to farm a non-existent crop (!) or join their Cause which does nothing to help said 'cause'.
***Off the subject: Does anyone seriously believe that posting a status such as "I am posting this because I care about cancer research" is going to do anything for that poor kid in the oncology ward of a local hospital? How about getting out there and visiting that kid or donating money or volunteering to make that kids' life just a little bit better instead of sitting on your fat ass in front of the computer claiming you care so much about the fight against cancer. But I digress...
I even have an ex-boyfriend as a 'friend' on Facebook. We have hardly spoken to each other for 6 or 7 years now. We are both happier and in better relationships. He doesn't appear to care about keeping in contact with me (or he would have bothered to do so) and I am positive that his other half would care even LESS about him keeping in contact with me. So why do I bother? I have no intention of 'stalking' his profile and we have nothing in common anymore. So it's even more pointless pretending we are still 'friends'. Is Facebook becoming the ultimate voyeuristic tool? I have little interest in the online equivalent of a Peeping Tom!
EXCUSE NO 6: "I enjoy reading peoples' statuses"
Yes, this is true. I probably do. There are some that are mildly amusing. But for every entertaining status, there are ten that are so mundane, they are puke-inducing. Guess what? I don't give a rats that you 'just had a shower' or that you 'have essays due and you are so stressed! (If you're so stressed, get the f*** off Facebook and fix it!) And the worst ones of all are the Too Much Information statuses ie. '*insert child's name here* just did a poo in the toilet' from a recent and sadly true status I read. Or fifty updates a day on your new baby or your wedding plans. Nobody cares!
SOOOO.....
The reason I have decided Facebook is no longer for me is simple; more simple than the notion of its bland-ness and ironically impersonal feel. I find that Facebook makes people cowardly, cruel, inconsiderate and lazy.
If someone is angry with you, it is very easy for them to slander you publicly on their 'wall' or other people's 'walls'. It is a simple task to say the cruellest things without have to see the expression on your face when they say something that hurts you deeply. People can hide behind Facebook when attacking someone but would never have the guts or consideration to face them in public. People can be misread, misjudged, misinterpreted and misunderstood online and as a result, pay the ultimate price of public humiliation and harassment and worst of all, it's public for everyone to see. This happens too, in email, but at least the audience is actively chosen. On Facebook, the sky's the limit with who has access to that, whether it is intended or not.
The clincher in rudeness is to be 'defriended' mid-dispute before one party has been given the opportunity to voice their objection, opinion or defend themselves. Facebook can be a medium for gang-ups and mob mentality ie. somebody says something cruel about you on their wall and inadvertently invites ten of their friends to 'like' their comment or pass judgement, often not even knowing the full story. It is easy to gang up on somebody when you don't have the target of your bullying in front of you - not having to look into their eyes and see the emerging product of your actions. It is much harder to say a cruel, callous and unjustified remark to somebody's face. It is easier to 'defriend' somebody, rather than have a truly restorative conversation to repair a relationship. And this is why Facebook is the true evil of today's society.
People become the worst version of themselves in the online form. Nobody is interested in anybody else - nobody truly cares if someone writes a comment like "So sad (with an obligatory sad face emoticon)" because in the digital form, this seems shallow and fishing for sympathy. I wouldn't be surprised if the growing dominance of the social networking medium has made people more lonely, depressed and socially inadequate than ever. Instant messaging functions provided by such networks add to this - people are forced to stay 'offline' to avoid people with whom they don't wish to speak. Why bother having these people on Facebook if you won't talk to them?! People talk about themselves constantly on Facebook and in the IM world. Half the time, polite greetings of 'hello' and 'goodbye' don't even appear! Grammar and punctuation are almost lost completelyy in online and instant messaging speak. If I see another sentence that reads "Your a good...." or abbreviated sentences such as "FML, jk, ROFL!", I will scream. So many will simply write LMAO on someone's not-even-funny status for want of an intelligent response. We can't even write in full sentences anymore! I saw a numberplate recently that read LOL. What the hell is our world coming to when somebody pays a premium for something that crass!
Facebook has offered a new medium for children to be bullied outside of school. In addition to the usual appearance, friends, parents, hobbies....., children can now be judged on how many 'friends' they have, teased if they have less than a peer, judged on their photos, on what online games they play, what groups they belong to, what pages they 'like' (pages that have titles like 98% of kids drink or smoke before 18. Join this group if you like bagels); all this opening them up to even more social threats than ever before and now outside of the normal school hours!
Facebook users are judged on their info page, their wall comments, their statuses, on their profile pictures, so many things. When applying for jobs, your potential employers are researching you via Facebook. Your profile picture or info page could be the difference between you earning a six-figure salary or lining up at Centrelink.
Today's Facebook-enabled population have become lazy, opting to write an eight-word 'Happy birthday so-and-so. Have a great day" on someone's wall, rather than ring them and have an actual live conversation or spend time with them or send them an actual birthday card that has a single ounce of meaning to them! Similarly, if someone's relative, friend or pet dies, how impersonal is a comment on Facebook that reads "I'm sorry. xx" rather than ringing or sending cards or flowers or something that requires more than 7 seconds of your time. I wonder how many people have been dumped simply by their partner changing their relationship status to Single. I wonder how many relationships have ended by private Facebook message (or even worse, public wall post!) I can imagine, there have been a few. It's digging unimaginably lower than a break-up via answering machine!
We have become a lazy, inconsiderate society, blatantly disrespectful, uncaring of what we say and do to each other and becoming more self-obsessed, conceited, critical and judgemental. And I am a part of that, continuing to use Stalkbook and contribute to the sad and ironically lonely society that such sites promote.
I have become something I don't want to become and, at the risk of sounding like a fish and chip lady from Ipswich, I don't like it.
