Archive for November, 2009
addicted to facebook
one time on facebook (heh), i was “married.” someone who was my “friend” on facebook called my dad and asked him when i got married. my dad called me and asked me when i got married. i immediately retorted with “of all people, when were YOU the one to believe everything on the internet?”
i’ve noticed this unbelievable dependence on facebook by people that i know. some people update their status every 15 minutes (which for some reason i can’t stop reading whether i care what they’re doing or not), and some hardly go near it for fear of information release. job recruiters lurk online and scout out their prospective employees, and we all have checked to see what the hot guy in high school is up to now.
this is complete and utter crap in my opinion. there have been countless articles written about how our dependence on social networking is actually making us less social. but when it all boils down to it, it makes us less personable and more picky. i work with this girl who is the sweetest thing ever. i’d love to be better friends with her and i think she deserves the absolute best of men. two other coworkers and myself are on a hunt to find a suitable man for her, and (guilty as charged) we turned to our friends list on facebook. we’re reliant on it! we’re dependent on it! why!? (what i should have done was gone through my phone because i only keep people in my phone that i will call at any given moment for anything, or whose numbers i need to know so that i can screen the call.) my “friends” on facebook are hardly that. i have 478 facebook friends. what the heck is up with that?
everyone has facebook!
alright, i am calling myself out in an attempt to explain the addiction. right now. i do not have 478 friends. at least not 478 real, true friends. i probably have 3. maybe 4 if i catch someone on a good day. so what the heck am i doing? in fact, i find myself annoyed when i have some of their crap pop up on my home screen.
a few years ago, benjamin and i would have a little competition to see who could cut down their facebook friend list to the fewest amount of people without lying or diminishing a friendship. we called it “the cut.” i think benjamin got down to 22, and i could only narrow it down to 31. but… i just said 3 to 4 true friends, right? i guess the point is that you’re either socially networking or you’re not, and going out of my way to say “here are my real friends” is not the way to do such a thing.
maybe i have 478 people because some of them want to keep tabs on me or see what i’ve been up to, otherwise they would have deleted me, right? maybe some of them want to look at my AWESOME (cough cough) pictures. surely some of them want to see who i’m dating now. some of them want to know where i live, or where i’m working. and maybe i want them to see this so that i have some sentiments of self-worth. having people interested in me definitely is appealing whether i want to admit it or not. i (and probably lots of people) like to be liked. so maybe facebook is my way of doing that. if i have 478 “friends” maybe that means that 478 people give a crap about what i’m doing… and that makes me feel wonderful.
too bad the truth is that only 3 or 4 of them care enough to keep up with it on a regular basis.
and i’m not saying that i’m free of this either. clearly i have friended people for the same reason. vicious cycle, i’d say. so is it social networking, or is it another way to give us little confidence boosts and a sense of importance?
i think i almost just convinced myself to delete my account…. but not quite. i’m still addicted to facebook, whether for its entertainment value or for my fix of self-esteem.