As a few of my less fortunate friends and family members know, I have a new soap-box regarding facebook. I've tried very hard for the most part, to NOT bombard everyone with my rant...but since this blog is partially my self-centered vent zone, all of cyberspace gets to have the opportunity to hear it. And then I will get to the fun part of this post. (I won't be at all offended if you want to skip past my rant!)
A couple of things happened recently that started all of this:
First, my aunt died. Not that we were super close or anything, but the ONLY reason I even heard the news was because my brother happened to see a random post about it on facebook. It was burried 3/4 of my page down, lost between peoples' game status updates. No one from that end of the family tree even called my mom. Not one single phone call! If my brother hadn't called to ask if my aunt had died, we never would have known. This was a terrible slap in the face to me.
Let me insert here, that I DO get it. At least to some degree. My cousins were grieving enough. This isn't something you feel like doing probably when you have just lost a close loved one. And how easy is it to just post it on facebook, anouncing in one single fell swoop the tragedy. Now, surely, everyone knows and you didn't even have to deal with all that messy, emotional business of actually telling anyone. But there are just certain things that are unacceptable to me here. At the very least, all of the sisters should have been notified. That has always been how the family newsline has worked. The sisters (meaning my aunts) are notified and then they tell their children, and on down the line.
Then, and this happened like 1 week later, I found out, from a random post, that one of my cousins' wife had left him with their 5 kids (only 1 of which was actually his, btw) and had a new boyfriend! Ok....now I DO realize this is family gossip. And in HIS defense, he doesn't actually facebook that I know of. It was one of his wife's random posts that I saw. But this is still family news.
These 2 events led me to questioning the general reliance on facebook. Are these "friendships" even real? Are we becoming so lazy, that real communication is becoming obsolete? Are we sacrificing our ability to effectively interact with the other humans on this planet all for convenience? I believe YES. YES WE ARE!!!
When was the last time you called your best friend? Or wrote a letter by hand to someone you love? Better yet, when was the last time you actually spent some time actually making new friends? Look at the lives around you. Seriously, it makes me want to cry! Especially teenagers, but society in general is falling into a pattern of non-interaction. It's all digital. From dating, friendships, even sex is a digital affair that no one really has to come face to face with anymore. You can have an entire alternate life on facebook. New job, games, friendships, and up to the minute updates on anything anyone in your virtual world is up too. "my dog pooped on the carpet" "my kid is so cute" "my job sucks" etc. etc. etc.
And that makes me wonder how many of my facebook friends and family actually care about me, or if it is simply convenient to stay "in touch" without the messy business of real interaction. Am I just their friend so they can tell me all about their life? Is it all just a digital facade? At least if we were communicating via email I would know they were talking to me and not just cyberspace in general.
*Sigh* So there you have it. My Facebook Rant.
Now....for the real purpose of this post! 30 days without facebook!
I'm going to extricate myself from facebook for 30 days. I'm not even going to check it. Instead I'm going to fill that time with more meaningful connections. I'm planning on posting as I go so that may be I can inspire anyone else who wants to do this with me too. If you do join me, let me know what you do with your "facebook" time. How do you plan on substituting your digital relationships for forming real ones? I'm curious. Anyone wanna do this too?
Here are some of my ideas so far:
Call a friend and make a plan to spend time together
Do some projects with my kids
Spend some time with my husband
clean my house
reach out to others and try to make some new friends
Those are just a few thoughts to get me started....I'll let you know how the reality sets in as I go!
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