Roughly this time last year I wrote about how much I dislike Facebook and why I had started using it again despite myself. Well, the time has come to end this particular episode of my digital life, and this is why:
Yesterday I wrote a post on this blog entitled “Things I know about myself”. The title is fairly self explanatory, but the list I wrote was far from complete and, ironically enough, it has been another Facebook post that has drawn my attention to another thing I know about myself: I crave attention. I crave attention to the point where I often say or do things that are designed only to get me the attention I want. Facebook is designed for people like me. It’s designed for us to be able to shout at a vast number of people with minimal input and at supposedly no risk. It’s the modern day graffiti.
Except there is a risk, because this is graffiti aimed at people you know. People you care about, think about, worry about. People who you reach out to when you’re in trouble and who you want to be there for when they need you. People who, in turn, care, think and worry about you.
So what happens when things go wrong? This social platform we use to come closer together, regardless of the distances between us, becomes a soapbox, a way in which we can divide opinion, insight guilt and plant the seeds of anger. That’s fine if you’re trying to overthrow a tyrannical government. But amongst friends? The things we say on Facebook - the things I have said on Facebook - can never be taken back. They are a permanent statement by which we are saying to everyone we know - think about, care about, worry about - “This is what I think right now, and I am happy for all of you to judge me by it.”
Do I really think so little of my friends that I am willing to use them as a tool to make a point? Certainly I have in the past, and for that I am deeply ashamed. Could I trust myself not to do it again? To type a few keystrokes with the single aim of insighting an emotional response in the people I’m supposed to care about? To try and share whatever burden I have with a group of people who often live hundreds or even thousands of miles away from me and can therefore often not, in any real sense, help? I don’t know, but I doubt it.
I have taken a lot on recently; some say too much. I am out to prove the naysayers wrong, and to do that I need to focus myself on the tasks in hand. Every time I look at Facebook these days, I am left thinking about other things, unable to drag my fragile attention span to what I should be focusing on. Well, enough is enough.
Tomorrow I will deactivate my Facebook account (I would do it now but the link to this post would disappear and that would be a bit dumb). It’s not because I don’t care about you all; rather it is because I do, and I just can’t trust myself not to post things designed to do nothing more than make you think about me. If any of you need me, send me an email: mrlepus@gmail.com . Or if you’ve got my number text me, or call me. I will make the time for you, regardless of why you are calling, and I will always be very happy to hear from you. If you do not, then I will get on with the things I need to be getting on with, shielded from losing focus by the ignorance I have afforded myself.
I may still post on here from time to time. I may not.
Shout if ever you need me.
Yesterday I wrote a post on this blog entitled “Things I know about myself”. The title is fairly self explanatory, but the list I wrote was far from complete and, ironically enough, it has been another Facebook post that has drawn my attention to another thing I know about myself: I crave attention. I crave attention to the point where I often say or do things that are designed only to get me the attention I want. Facebook is designed for people like me. It’s designed for us to be able to shout at a vast number of people with minimal input and at supposedly no risk. It’s the modern day graffiti.
Except there is a risk, because this is graffiti aimed at people you know. People you care about, think about, worry about. People who you reach out to when you’re in trouble and who you want to be there for when they need you. People who, in turn, care, think and worry about you.
So what happens when things go wrong? This social platform we use to come closer together, regardless of the distances between us, becomes a soapbox, a way in which we can divide opinion, insight guilt and plant the seeds of anger. That’s fine if you’re trying to overthrow a tyrannical government. But amongst friends? The things we say on Facebook - the things I have said on Facebook - can never be taken back. They are a permanent statement by which we are saying to everyone we know - think about, care about, worry about - “This is what I think right now, and I am happy for all of you to judge me by it.”
Do I really think so little of my friends that I am willing to use them as a tool to make a point? Certainly I have in the past, and for that I am deeply ashamed. Could I trust myself not to do it again? To type a few keystrokes with the single aim of insighting an emotional response in the people I’m supposed to care about? To try and share whatever burden I have with a group of people who often live hundreds or even thousands of miles away from me and can therefore often not, in any real sense, help? I don’t know, but I doubt it.
I have taken a lot on recently; some say too much. I am out to prove the naysayers wrong, and to do that I need to focus myself on the tasks in hand. Every time I look at Facebook these days, I am left thinking about other things, unable to drag my fragile attention span to what I should be focusing on. Well, enough is enough.
Tomorrow I will deactivate my Facebook account (I would do it now but the link to this post would disappear and that would be a bit dumb). It’s not because I don’t care about you all; rather it is because I do, and I just can’t trust myself not to post things designed to do nothing more than make you think about me. If any of you need me, send me an email: mrlepus@gmail.com . Or if you’ve got my number text me, or call me. I will make the time for you, regardless of why you are calling, and I will always be very happy to hear from you. If you do not, then I will get on with the things I need to be getting on with, shielded from losing focus by the ignorance I have afforded myself.
I may still post on here from time to time. I may not.
Shout if ever you need me.
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