So, I’m really starting to hate Facebook. Technically, I started to really hate Facebook somewhere 8-10 months ago. It came on slowly, and at first I largely wrote off my decreasing visits to the site as my just being “too busy,” but am now pin-pointing the many reasons. I read a great editorial on the WSJ the other day that said it well:
How Facebook Ruins Friendships by Elizabeth Bernstein.
Touche. And too true. I’ve realized recently that I have/had many friends who, as soon as my participation on Facebook (and Livejournal and AIM) declined, so did our friendships. What the hell?
To wit, one of my favorite bits from the article:
Here’s where you and I went wrong: We took our friendship online. First we began communicating more by email than by phone. Then we switched to “instant messaging” or “texting.” We “friended” each other on Facebook, and began communicating by “tweeting” our thoughts—in 140 characters or less—via Twitter.
It’s amazing how little I actually communicate with most of my friends online, let alone by traditional means. I scant run out of fingers counting the friends I actually speak to on a regular basis, and it pretty much takes the fingers of just one hand to count those I see on a regular basis, whom I’ve retained from college. They are the best of my friends, of course, who have transcended mine or their fall-off from online social networking tools, but I also had several very good ones who didn’t make it, and I’m kind of upset about it. What happened? One minute we were texting and instant messaging, updating each other’s Facebook walls and chatting on GTalk. But then maybe they went on vacation or I started working more hours (and stopped using AIM and/or started GTalking on different account etc. etc.), or I switched to Twitter but they refused to follow, and next thing you know, 6 months, 8 months, a year+ have gone by, and we’re no longer friends.
Internet, I blame you. And myself, of course.
Bernstein calls her current state “Facebook Fatigue,” and I would like to further extend that include to Facebook Jealousy, Facebook Angst and Facebook Rage. Facebook, where all of my high school, college and work colleagues have flocked, has the double-edged potential to be both a soapbox for trumpeting my own accomplishments for all to see, as well as a running catalog of all the ways in which the people I know are doing better than I am. When I’m not losing friendships by sheer default of being TOO BUSY WITH THE INTERNET, I’m staring at the damning updates that pop onto my newsfeed, grinding my teeth and trying not to cry.
The hyphenate last names started about a year-and-a-half ago. I’d log in to find Jane Jones had become Jane Jones-Smith over the weekend. Another one bites the dust, sings the (sometimes bitter, usually pretty damn thankful) Single Sally (ie: me). I have no desire to be married now, and had even less desire two years ago, but I, in my perpetually (tragically) single state can’t help feeling inadequate and increasingly alone as more and more of my Facebook friends couple up, change their names and start posting (damn annoying) status updates about picking out furniture with hubby. I can’t imagine being single and 30 on Facebook. I’d throw my computer at the wall.
And then there is the job section of the Info tab. Aka: the place I fear to tread. One curious click onto a college classmate’s page sent me into a two hour borderline panic-attack/state of depression, as I saw someone whose talents in school I had thought were merely adequate (mean, but true) had somehow become the Managing Editor of a major upscale lifestyle magazine in just three years. Thanks for reminding me I peaked at 22, old friend. Oh, and the blog posts! I really appreciate it every time an old “friend” links to their post on a major, commercial blogging site (part of either a major market magazine or TV network). And by “appreciate,” I mean secretly loathe with a blinding passion.
I was never this emotional. I was never this painfully and unattractively jealous. Facebook has turned me into a basket case, and with fewer friends to boot. I am (relatively) happy with my career prospects (if making a real effort to turn some things around, admittedly). I am not one of the post-feminist women who can’t live without a man and dreams of defining herself by her boyfriend/husband/baby/whatever. I am a remarkably content single woman. And yet, the relationship status updates and name changes really get to me, because they are Just. So. Many. Of. Them. My Facebook status has stayed on “single” for a really, really long time. The Match.com & Chemistry ads are really a comfort, too, Facebook. Gotta love intuitive advertising.
In short, I kind of hate Facebook. Or, at least, will until I can make a smug relationship/job update.
