Back in October I tried going off facebook for a while to see how different my life might be being social network-less. Mainly, I needed to get off the computer and start doing homework, but getting rid of it entirely (not just abstaining until the work was done) happened partly because I was also interested in whatever else it might be able to do for me. I am worried that I have grown to find my self-affirmation in how many likes my photos get, how many people comment on my status, etc, especially in comparison to the likes/comments on others’ pages. And while affirmation isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, (I tend to be a self-conscious person and nice words from other people help keep me from wallowing in the I’m-not-good-enough thoughts for too long) I’m starting to think that it can’t really mean that much when it comes over the internet. People who like my status aren’t really liking me, they’re just liking whatever witty thought I happened to have/steal that day. And the way I constantly check to see how many people think my profile pictures are cute honestly sickens myself sometimes.
Since coming back to the world of social media – the stint lasted all of three days – I’ve returned again and again to the idea of quitting it for a more permanent amount of time. I’d do it for the reasons already mentioned, but I’d also do it because, quite frankly, I think some people share far too much information with the rest of us. And to be even franker I mean I am tired of seeing photos of my best friends hanging out with each other and, well, not me. Every time I think this, or feel a little (lot) jealous of them I also see myself reaching new depths of pettiness; I begin think I’m being a brat for not wanting them to have fun without me or dare to to be close to people I’m not close with.
Except that it isn’t that that’s bothering me. I couldn’t care less if the two or four of them see each other more often than me, if it wasn’t always just those two and those four rubbing it in my facebook. I actually doubt that they are trying to rub it in anyone’s face by making their profile pictures match for a week. But if they were trying to, they would be doing a grand job of it. I’m not the only one who thinks it’s awkward, either; so at least I am a little bit justified in knowing that yes, other people notice that their group of four seems to constantly be together…and constantly a group of four.
What I am trying to say, and I am not perfect at this, either, before you start calling me a hypocrite – is that facebook has eliminated, though perhaps without trying, the common courtesy that is called privacy, a.k.a. don’t talk about parties in front of people who weren’t invited. I find myself wondering if the sharers of information/uploaders of picture albums actually think that these pictures will be interesting to anyone who wasn’t at the event. I wonder it about myself. The nearest answer I can come up with is no, they are mainly meant for those who were there when the pictures were taken; but there are certainly ways I could get those pictures shared without sharing them to my entire news feed. So there I get stuck again: why do I still upload them?
I guess it is because I am eager to show the world that I am not the kind of loser who sits around online and complains about how everyone else is off having fun when I’m not, when really it isn’t so much that I don’t have as much fun because I sit around online instead, but I just appear not to have as much physical evidence of the fun. I hope.
I’ll conclude this (rather long) post by saying that while I go back and forth between deleting and keeping my facebook, one thing that keeps me from deleting it on the aforementioned grounds is that I think it would be a terribly self-centered reason for doing something that is supposed to make me less self-centered. How, exactly, am I supposed to explain to my best friends that the reason I no longer talk to them on facebook is that their facebook pictures make me jealous – oh, and I think it’ll make me less vain? Especially when I can have no idea what kind of effect my own photos have on my facebook friends. My account is staying for now.
