Hi, my name is Bonnie and I was a Facebook addict.
While it's embarrassing to actually type those words, it's true. It took me awhile to catch on to the whole FB phenomenon, but once I figured it all out, I was hooked. Initially, it was the rush of finding friends, former classmates and former co-workers and sending or accepting friend requests. Then I loved the quizzes like "What is your Harry Potter patronus?" or "Which Disney princess are you?" Eventually the new-ness of FB wore off and I felt like I had caught up on the lives of the roughly 200 friends I had. That's when I turned to games like Farkle, Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, Bejeweled-and my favorite, Zuma Blitz. The fact was that no matter what I was doing on FB, it was too much. Too much lost time on something that had little value.
Over the three years I was a registered user, my husband and I argued about it off and on. He did not understand why I wasted so much time on it and I found myself defending my position. In the last year, I definitely limited my time on it, although in hindsight, it was still excessive.
Over the same three years, I thought about privacy and security issues. Honestly, there was a little nudge in my heart and mind that made me wonder if this was really a secure thing to do. Posting pictures of my family and statuses that revealed personal information was probably questionable. Once I put things out there, they were out there forever. And I worried about it more and more. So when my husband approached me earlier this month and urged me to reconsider FB altogether for security reasons, I had to agree. At his work, my husband had been approached by some pretty high officials urging him and others in his work group (and their family members) to get off social networking sites. Seemed to me it was confirmation of something I had considered myself but did not have the courage to do.
Part of me was sad when I deleted my account but another part of me was relieved. In the short 10 days that I've been a recovered FB'er I have learned a lot about myself and have found this to be a mostly positive experience. Maybe what I discovered about myself is not typical. I suppose a more secure person with a more balanced approach would not relate. Still, I imagine I am not alone.
Insecurity
The biggest thing I learned is that all the insecurities I had as a child, teenager and young adult are still with me today. In fact, I think FB surfaced a lot of those insecurities that I did not realize I still harboured . Nothing like a social networking site to highlight your popularity factor. Not to say I did not have friends--I actually had 250 at one point. Of course, define 'friend'. Three quarters of my friends probably wouldn't cross a street to greet me so do they really count? There is something rather depressing about posting a status you think is funny, entertaining, poignant or profound and get almost zero response. And how many pictures do people really want to see of me or my kids? The fact remains that whether or not I am on FB, true friends will keep in touch and are genuinely interested in my life and seeing pictures of my family. The fact also remains that my self worth is based on my life itself and should never be based on a shallow Internet experience like Facebook. No longer am I rushing to check my notifications to see how well liked I am. Relief.
Voyeurism
My husband would tease me that FB was nothing more than socially acceptable voyeurism and I agreed. In hindsight, it seems kind of creepy to me that to expose so much of our lives to a number of people we barely know. No offense, but do I really care how wonderful your elementary school is where you teach or that you are working as a fitness trainer and have to be awake at 4 a.m. Or that you audition regularly for bit parts in television commercials. Probably no more than you caring about my day to day life. It seems to me FB is just a way to toot our own horns and scream out in a silent way "Look at ME, Look at ME".
Contentment
Each person fights personal demons and silent battles. Struggling with depression, I am no stranger to the ups and downs in my own life. But I noticed that almost instantly after disconnecting from FB, I became much more content with my own life. Maybe this falls in-between voyeurism and insecurity, but how easy is it to get caught up in comparing your life to others based on what they post as statuses or in picture or video form? Don't we all paint our lives in the best tone possible for our social networking followers to see? No one is happy ALL the time with the lives they lead. I had to tell myself to stop comparing my marriage to that of my newlywed friends or with the overachieving friends across town, I know everyone has struggles in their lives but living in the FB bubble, it was easy to fall into the trap that every one's lives were better than mine. And I do have a pretty sweet life.
Time
One of the positives I've witnessed in my own life in the last 10 days is in regards to time. The first thing I would do in the morning was grab my first cup of java and sit down in front of the computer and lose at least an hour on FB. Easily, I would find myself spending 15 or 30 minutes playing the various games and checking out the statuses on the scrolling home page, several times a day. Shameful as it was, I could conservatively estimate I lost 3 or more hours a day to the networking site. Certainly I had better things to do. Still, in my addictive personality way, I would keep coming back to the computer several times a day. In my defense I still accomplished a lot and never neglected my children or my responsibilities at home. But, I can say that I often felt overwhelmed at how rushed I always felt to complete everything I wanted to in one day. Having the extra hours in my day not sucked away by the computer is making me feel more at ease and much more even-tempered emotionally. When I think of the hours lost, I am almost sick at how much I could have otherwise accomplished. What about my down time? I still have it. I spend some time watching TV shows I don't otherwise make the time to watch, or reading a novel I've been wanting to read. And writing for fun.
Personal Connection
Hands down, the best part of giving up FB is reconnecting with my family. No longer is my attention and loyalties divided. Even though my husband did not notice I was off FB until I actually told him yesterday, he did notice a change in our intimacy. And the kids are getting a lot more of my time. We read together and spend a lot of time just engaging one another. And they don't feel second best anymore. While I would never have considered myself neglectful in any form of the word, I also put my focus on the computer more than them at times. Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems to me that the kids are arguing less and seem happier. There just might be direct connection. Either way, home life has improved.
For all the arguments on why getting off FB has been a great thing, it doesn't mean I don't miss it. Sometimes I do. But rather than missing the abstract reasons of games and quizzes, I miss the ease of communicating with my friends. And the general curiosity of what is going on their lives, whether that is voyeuristic or not. Yet, all I need to do is remind myself that my true friends will still keep in touch and our relationship will be better for it. It's even a great excuse to go to Happy Hour together, or grab some dinner.
The bottom line is that FB was great for a season but it's time to move on. It was a very fun way to reconnect with people from my past and create new relationships for the present. Facebook account or not, my true friends will still want to be my friend. It may take more effort and the communication be more limited. But honest-to-goodness relationships beat Facebook any day of the week.
While it's embarrassing to actually type those words, it's true. It took me awhile to catch on to the whole FB phenomenon, but once I figured it all out, I was hooked. Initially, it was the rush of finding friends, former classmates and former co-workers and sending or accepting friend requests. Then I loved the quizzes like "What is your Harry Potter patronus?" or "Which Disney princess are you?" Eventually the new-ness of FB wore off and I felt like I had caught up on the lives of the roughly 200 friends I had. That's when I turned to games like Farkle, Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, Bejeweled-and my favorite, Zuma Blitz. The fact was that no matter what I was doing on FB, it was too much. Too much lost time on something that had little value.
Over the three years I was a registered user, my husband and I argued about it off and on. He did not understand why I wasted so much time on it and I found myself defending my position. In the last year, I definitely limited my time on it, although in hindsight, it was still excessive.
Over the same three years, I thought about privacy and security issues. Honestly, there was a little nudge in my heart and mind that made me wonder if this was really a secure thing to do. Posting pictures of my family and statuses that revealed personal information was probably questionable. Once I put things out there, they were out there forever. And I worried about it more and more. So when my husband approached me earlier this month and urged me to reconsider FB altogether for security reasons, I had to agree. At his work, my husband had been approached by some pretty high officials urging him and others in his work group (and their family members) to get off social networking sites. Seemed to me it was confirmation of something I had considered myself but did not have the courage to do.
Part of me was sad when I deleted my account but another part of me was relieved. In the short 10 days that I've been a recovered FB'er I have learned a lot about myself and have found this to be a mostly positive experience. Maybe what I discovered about myself is not typical. I suppose a more secure person with a more balanced approach would not relate. Still, I imagine I am not alone.
Insecurity
The biggest thing I learned is that all the insecurities I had as a child, teenager and young adult are still with me today. In fact, I think FB surfaced a lot of those insecurities that I did not realize I still harboured . Nothing like a social networking site to highlight your popularity factor. Not to say I did not have friends--I actually had 250 at one point. Of course, define 'friend'. Three quarters of my friends probably wouldn't cross a street to greet me so do they really count? There is something rather depressing about posting a status you think is funny, entertaining, poignant or profound and get almost zero response. And how many pictures do people really want to see of me or my kids? The fact remains that whether or not I am on FB, true friends will keep in touch and are genuinely interested in my life and seeing pictures of my family. The fact also remains that my self worth is based on my life itself and should never be based on a shallow Internet experience like Facebook. No longer am I rushing to check my notifications to see how well liked I am. Relief.
Voyeurism
My husband would tease me that FB was nothing more than socially acceptable voyeurism and I agreed. In hindsight, it seems kind of creepy to me that to expose so much of our lives to a number of people we barely know. No offense, but do I really care how wonderful your elementary school is where you teach or that you are working as a fitness trainer and have to be awake at 4 a.m. Or that you audition regularly for bit parts in television commercials. Probably no more than you caring about my day to day life. It seems to me FB is just a way to toot our own horns and scream out in a silent way "Look at ME, Look at ME".
Contentment
Each person fights personal demons and silent battles. Struggling with depression, I am no stranger to the ups and downs in my own life. But I noticed that almost instantly after disconnecting from FB, I became much more content with my own life. Maybe this falls in-between voyeurism and insecurity, but how easy is it to get caught up in comparing your life to others based on what they post as statuses or in picture or video form? Don't we all paint our lives in the best tone possible for our social networking followers to see? No one is happy ALL the time with the lives they lead. I had to tell myself to stop comparing my marriage to that of my newlywed friends or with the overachieving friends across town, I know everyone has struggles in their lives but living in the FB bubble, it was easy to fall into the trap that every one's lives were better than mine. And I do have a pretty sweet life.
Time
One of the positives I've witnessed in my own life in the last 10 days is in regards to time. The first thing I would do in the morning was grab my first cup of java and sit down in front of the computer and lose at least an hour on FB. Easily, I would find myself spending 15 or 30 minutes playing the various games and checking out the statuses on the scrolling home page, several times a day. Shameful as it was, I could conservatively estimate I lost 3 or more hours a day to the networking site. Certainly I had better things to do. Still, in my addictive personality way, I would keep coming back to the computer several times a day. In my defense I still accomplished a lot and never neglected my children or my responsibilities at home. But, I can say that I often felt overwhelmed at how rushed I always felt to complete everything I wanted to in one day. Having the extra hours in my day not sucked away by the computer is making me feel more at ease and much more even-tempered emotionally. When I think of the hours lost, I am almost sick at how much I could have otherwise accomplished. What about my down time? I still have it. I spend some time watching TV shows I don't otherwise make the time to watch, or reading a novel I've been wanting to read. And writing for fun.
Personal Connection
Hands down, the best part of giving up FB is reconnecting with my family. No longer is my attention and loyalties divided. Even though my husband did not notice I was off FB until I actually told him yesterday, he did notice a change in our intimacy. And the kids are getting a lot more of my time. We read together and spend a lot of time just engaging one another. And they don't feel second best anymore. While I would never have considered myself neglectful in any form of the word, I also put my focus on the computer more than them at times. Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems to me that the kids are arguing less and seem happier. There just might be direct connection. Either way, home life has improved.
For all the arguments on why getting off FB has been a great thing, it doesn't mean I don't miss it. Sometimes I do. But rather than missing the abstract reasons of games and quizzes, I miss the ease of communicating with my friends. And the general curiosity of what is going on their lives, whether that is voyeuristic or not. Yet, all I need to do is remind myself that my true friends will still keep in touch and our relationship will be better for it. It's even a great excuse to go to Happy Hour together, or grab some dinner.
The bottom line is that FB was great for a season but it's time to move on. It was a very fun way to reconnect with people from my past and create new relationships for the present. Facebook account or not, my true friends will still want to be my friend. It may take more effort and the communication be more limited. But honest-to-goodness relationships beat Facebook any day of the week.
Hi Bonnie,
ReplyDeleteI love to read everything you write as you express yourself so well, and I can really relate to most if not all of what you say. I find myself a FB addict as well, and like your husband, my husband complains of all the time I spend in FB. I do find that other than bowling with my mom every Wednesday, it is my only downtime activity, and my husband even complains about me going bowling.
Do I spend hours on FB? Now that is where we differ. I will allow myself 15 minutes during break times from working on the computer and when the time is up, well it's up, and I move on. Usually, it is back to grading or writing a paper for a class.
I miss you on FB and am glad we found each other through it, but like you said, for you it was time to move on, and your true friends and those that have an interest in maintaining contact will stay in touch. I definitely will. Through your blog and e-mail we will keep in touch and I hope that you know that you and your family always have a place to stay if you visit the Ft. Lauderdale area.
Heidi
Bonnie --
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of what you have written here, but I must admit look at FB in a slightly different light. I have always tried to keep my number of "friends" to only those people whom I really have an interest (although I could easily remove at least 30 "friends" right now), or those whom I have missed over the years. Without FB, I almost certainly would not have known my long-time high school buddy was living in New York City, missing the chance to have a few beers with him on a recent business trip (and seeing him here in St. Louis on his trip.) I would have never known my old college roomate's brother was still attending games at Ohio State, allowing my son and myself to attend some great tailgate parties. Now Mitchell and I take an annual pilgrimage to Columbus to cook out with my old roomate and his younger brother.
And, yes, as creepy as it may sound, without Facebook being able to detect that there was another Olsen out there by looking at my Outlook address book, I probably would not have known about some awesome wine and a fun game called Farkle. For that alone, FB was worth it. ;)
Am I a FB addict? I doubt it...I am on the page, but do not post too often. I enjoy playing some of the games, but only for a brief period. Still, it is a nice socializing tool. You just have to be careful about who you include in your world.
Nice article Bonnie. I find technology, in general, computers, tv, cell phones rob us of our time. I am proud of you for making the break. You will find time to pursue more interests. You needed FB for a short time to reconnect and it has served its purpose for you. However, you will probably miss knowing when someone has mowed the lawn or opened a bottle of wine but somehow I think you will manage to get through it.
ReplyDeleteI will check your blog when I can and subscribed to STLfamilylife. I also have been blogging as a way to practice my craft of illustration (and writing).
Enjoy your cropping, workout and bible time all while being the great mom and wife you already are.
Thanks for sharing. ;o)
ReplyDeleteLucinda
Everyone's got to do what's best for them. I think facebook can be an effective tool for some people. ANd I think it can be a way to keep updated on the lives of friends/family. (I don't play the games. I use it to promote the site our writers and my writing gigs. ANd for a future endeavor I'm working on.) But yeah, you've got to be careful about what you post. I rarely post pics of my son or any features of where we live so someone could find us. Don't post my phone number either. I def don't post about my husband traveling or his work. Often my status updates are about as enlightening as declaring "I love Bacon." (But that is done on purpose.) Plus I limit my time on FB to about 20 minutes a day. If even.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm glad you learned more about yourself in this journey. Great post.