Yes I have just been to see The Social Network. Yes I did think it was a great movie. And yes I am moved enough by the subject matter to write something immediately.
I do not want this piece to be a film review. I am not intelligent enough, not have I seen enough films to even begin pretending that I am some how worthy enough to start preaching my own judgment of a film on the internet. Other than I thought it was good. Which it was.
No, this piece I want to be something different. Something that demonstrates a difficulty that I have been struggling with for, oh let’s say at least the last couple of years.
Facebook for me has become a part of my daily routine. I check it very regularly. I didn’t check it daily when I didn’t have the internet at home, and to be completely honest I preferred life that way. I never felt like I missed anything. People used to say “How can you not have the internet/Facebook at home?” and my answer would just be “I just don’t”. Nothing more. Now I have both the internet and Facebook at home and I really do think I’m worse off for it. Not the internet as such, it’s really useful. But Facebook has, again, taken over my life. I wish I could resist it- but I can’t. I’d like to try. And so I’m going to. Eventually.
It is the first week of study before exams for me. I only have one exam however and so my study will basically be reading the lecture slides for the subject and hoping for the best. But the importance of it being study week is that typically this is a week of high activity for my ‘friends’ on Facebook. Procrastination kicks into overload and people begin posting everything and anything they can think of. Names are changed, South Park clips are posted, quizzes about which hip hop star you are are taken, and insane babble is posted to everyone’s wall. I am not immune to this. I don’t even have 4 exams to ignore- just the one, and I’m still able to get involved with the study week insanity. I tried not to today. But I got to maybe…11.45am? I didn’t get involved earlier because I SPECIFICALLY left the house. But it shouldn’t be like that. I shouldn’t have to leave my own home just to ignore a website. A website which makes me smile sometimes, but at other times makes me want to die.
I remember in first year of uni when ‘Monday Night Facebook’ was something I used to look forward too. Everyone put up pictures of the weekend and you talked too the new ‘friends’ you had added/had added you and basically got to relive your own glory. This got stale quickly. Now, three years later, the idea makes me sick to my stomach. But I still check the photos tab for some reason. I still punish myself by looking at the pages of people I know to have a better social life than I do and getting self conscious about it. Why? I don’t know. It’s just part of the phenomenon. But I want it to stop.
My argument used to be “Oh no I stay on Facebook to talk to the people who don’t live in my city”. That’s a blatant lie now. The people I do genuinely want to talk too, I talk to daily- if not, weekly. These are the people I usually end up talking to on Facebook anyway. One of my good friends is far away in Europe, and not even that is a good enough excuse anymore to stay on Facebook. We have email, we can use that. Oh better yet we can get out the pen and write each other a letter. Rather than post that Iggy Pop video we’re just dying to show one another because we’re funny/cool.
I’m in a crisis. A modern crisis. A crisis that would never have eventuated without the internet/Facebook. Am I stressing about Facebook because I’m trying to be different, or is Facebook actually having an effect on who I am?
I’d like to think it doesn’t really matter, but unfortunately it does matter. The time this ‘activity’ takes up in my day is growing increasingly out-of-hand. I shouldn’t think about funny status updates when I hear them, but I do. I shouldn't look at that boy's page AGAIN, but I do. I shouldn’t wake up on a Sunday morning and panic because someone might post a photo/comment from the night before which is incriminating, but I do- not often, I’m not that much of a sicko, but it still happens.
My friend suggested to me the other day that when I get back from Europe in February I should delete my Facebook and I do think it’s a great idea. The people I want to talk to will still be there. And I like the idea that people aren’t meant to stay in your life forever so maybe we’re not supposed to stay ‘friends’ on Facebook. But what until that point? Do I keep facing this daily dilemma with a smile and just laugh at the modern condition? Or do I try and find out what it is that’s really bothering me?
Mark Zuckerberg, you’re a genius but I kinda hate you.
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