“They have their story, and I have mine.”
These words have been on my mind a lot over the last few months. The idea, as deftly explained in this blog post by a friend of Donald Miller’s, is that we can’t compare ourselves to others, since our respective paths through life are never so parallel. So these words make for a pretty good mantra when browsing Facebook.
I read an article on CNN’s website recently that really resonated with me. (Not something I frequently say about CNN, but hey.) It cited several studies as saying that the more time we spend browsing Facebook, the more likely we are to feel worse about our own lives:
In early 2012, a study out of Utah Valley University also found that many people had a case of the blues after checking Facebook. The researchers talked to a group of 425 students and found correlations between the amount of time people spent checking Facebook and negative feelings about their own lives. The more time their subjects spent on the social network, the higher probability that they would think their friends lived better, happier lives.
In January, a study from Germany found that a third of people felt worse after spending time on Facebook. Seeing updates of friends' successful careers, cute babies and fabulous vacations inspired feelings of envy, loneliness and even anger.
I can sympathize with this. When my Facebook friends post photos of cool vacations, cottage outings, excursions with friends, etc., it’s hard for this introvert to not feel like a pretty boring person by comparison, even though I know that my life is anything but boring. It seems to me that Facebook was designed more for extroverts than introverts, and that the constant pressure to share our experiences runs counter to the way introverts interact with each other.
People put their best foot forward on Facebook – I’m certainly no exception – but the result is that using Facebook has increasingly been feeling like performance art, like I’m trying to come off as a more interesting and extroverted person. When I post some sort of funny status or anecdote, or even a YouTube video of some obscure musical piece, it’s hard not to hope for some kind of reaction. This is an awkward feeling in that we’re usually told we should live life without being worried about what others think of us – but everything we do on Facebook provides the opportunity for “Likes” and comments from others, and it’s hard not to judge the success of one of my Facebook posts according to the number of “Likes” and quality of comments it receives. In other words, the value of what I post on Facebook seems inherently tied to what others think of it, since by definition, I’m posting it to a social media site, and I’m not posting it in a vacuum for my own use.
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Part of the problem, I think, is that Facebook has become a social destination in itself as opposed to a social tool. Ideally, social media should be part of a balanced social life: it provides the ultimate place to see and be seen, but it doesn’t always foster real connection on its own. After I post anything to Facebook, I check that browser tab frequently to see how many comments and “Likes” it's accumulated, but none of it is as satisfying or memorable as a good long-form conversation with a friend, or a dinner outing, or a university event. It’s hard to shake the feeling that I’ve spent too much time browsing and updating Facebook and not enough time being social.
And Facebook is indeed an addicting thing to browse and update: there’s lots of ways to update our profiles to reflect our interests, since it’s both a place to create an online identity and a place for advertisers to play to our interests. It occurred to me recently just how much junk from high school there is on my profile these days: bands I once had a passing interest in, books and movies I read and watched years ago and haven't revisited, and notes and status updates that don’t necessarily reflect who I am today. It’s almost as though Facebook expects you to constantly curate your profile as you change throughout life, but that’s pretty narcissistic in and of itself. Still, if I become Facebook friends nowadays with someone who maybe doesn’t know me all that well, and they look at this stuff, what message does it send about who I am today?
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There’s lots of other arguments to raise in regards to Facebook, such as the ethics of a profit model based on targeted advertisements, the constant cat-and-mouse game of privacy, the contradictions inherent in “Facebook creeping”, the ubiquity of cyber-bullying, etc. Maybe I’ll touch on some of these in a future post.
In the meantime, I’m planning to refocus my use of Facebook. I’ve been removing some of the junk from my profile, but I’ll also pay more attention to what I post and why, and give more attention to social opportunities outside of my computer screen. I might even post photos more frequently, if that proves to be a better way of using this tool to connect with people!
Facebook has certainly been a valuable tool for me: it’s the only way I’m still in touch with various people, and it’s been useful for sharing updates on my health situation (and receiving lots of lovely encouragement in return). But sometimes it feels like it comprises too large a portion of this introvert’s social life.
[Author’s note: This was the first post I started writing in this new wave of blog posts, around July 31st by the looks of it (and before the CNN article was published). It originally sounded a bit apprehensive and depressing, and I hope I’ve succeeded in minimizing this.]
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