Facebook Drain

I've grown tired of Facebook. Last week I called it "Fakebook." Yesterday when talking on the phone with a friend I stated, "Facebook is starting to drain me."

Yet, I don't feel that "Facebook drain" when I comment on blogs or on a couple online forum sites that I currently visit.

I've pondered, asking myself, "What is it, Carol, that you find irksome about the god of social internet connections, Facebook?"

Some of my thoughts have been....

Information overload. When I click on my FB timeline, a waterfall of information streams along on my computer screen. Some of these rolling tidbits are promotions for services that search engines have decided I might be interested in. Most are updates from my Facebook friends or conversations they are commenting on. Some are updates to conversations I have commented on.

Relationship overload. Or more succinctly put, emotionally-invested-relationship information overload, which ties in with the above "information overload." I feel some sort of obligation to respond to friends' updates about their personal lives. If I were face-to-face with people in a room, I wouldn't feel pressure to acknowledge/share with twenty folks almost simultaneously. This was one reason I deleted my first Facebook account a few years back...the feeling of obligation to respond to folks' updates. But with so much scrolling in front of me, I have to turn off the faucet.

Ticker spy (my term). Fakebook's damnable ticker feed on the right side of the screen. I don't like it. I can hide the feed so I personally can't see my ticker feed scrolling by giving me updates on which of my friends are posting where and liking what, but that's not what I dislike about it. My dislike? I don't want all my friends to know when I post on someone else's timeline or conversation or when I 'like' something. It irks the hell out of me. Again, if I were face-to-face, I'd be conversing with one to eight or ten people. That's about all a person can converse with at one time unless you are on a stage interacting with an audience

Facade. I am not as genuine on Facebook as I am on a forum or on my blog. I mean, I don't lie or anything like that. But on Facebook I share very few deep things going on in my life. I will share some depth on my blog and on the online poetry forum where I am a member. So what is the difference between those and Facebook? Facebook is actually private so only my Facebook friends can see it; my blog is public. Why do I feel I can't be myself on Facebook with my two hundred plus friends? Is it because I feel I can't be as genuine with them as I can with strangers on the world wide web whom I will probably never meet face to face? That seems crazy. Is my discomfort due to the old approval syndrome and caring too much what others might think about me? (Most folks are thinking about themselves, not others.) One thing may be that on my blog, readers have to come find me instead of my life rolling through on a newsfeed or ticker scroll. Hmmm...I guess when I post on Facebook, I feel like I am advertising my personal life. For some reason I don't feel like that on my blog. But, it is almost the same thing. Or is it? Hmmm.

Difficulty with and/or lack of options with Facebook. If I want only certain people to be able to see what I post on FB, I have to designate the not-seers instead of the seers. That's too much work. I'd love to be able to block my comments and likes on the ticker feed. But I don't think there is an option for that and even if there is, it's more detail work; most folks are already detailed beyond reasonable.

There are good things about Facebook...

I've connected with folks I may otherwise not have connected with.

I have had some fun conversations.

I get to read all sorts of weird news, but I could access that from a web search.

I can read my very liberal friends' updates to get the liberal viewpoint. I can then read my very conservative friends' updates to get their viewpoint. Both usually have links to articles, where I read more on political mishmash which (again) I could get from a web search.

Why do I feel the need to justify my irksome dislike with the Facebook machine? (rhetorically stated, mostly)

I realize the problem is not Facebook, but rather my interaction with Facebook for which I am totally responsible.

Facebook feels too invasive for me these days....like something prodding me to behave a certain way. Again, my issue, not Facebook's. (I am too easily influenced. Bah humbug.)

Drains. Probably time for some of my homemade drain cleaner. I make it with baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Vinegar and hot water swish the mix down the drain and gurgle the clogs away.

Vinegar, what an odd thing to use as a metaphor. Vinegar is used as an ingredient in natural insect repellents. Hmmm, I'm probably already naturally repellent.