Green-Eyed Face(book)
A piece I wrote April 25.
Green-Eyed Face(book)
By Deborah Stokol
I remember when it was new. When no one had heard of it. When no one was “on it.” When some classmate told me to join this cool new site just for college students and to “friend” him too. For some reason, we figured, keeping something “webby” at the college-level somehow made it less sketchy than were Myspace or the erstwhile Friendster. Faulty logic. Because, of course, college kids have never been creepy. Anyone heard of a rufie?
Frankly, I thought the whole thing, including the name, seemed kind of silly, but I joined on a lark. It was 2004, and we were amongst this new generation of soon-to-become social networking site junkies who signed up initially apathetic before quickly morphing into feverish, gibbering addicts.
Now, we’ve returned to that initial state of apathy. What’s more, many of us find it loathsome—a drain on our time and a recipe for insecurity and needless self-comparison.
I have begun to fear logging on to Facebook because of the way it makes me feel.
It’s not just that (legitimate) fear of invasion of privacy or of facing the mindless din friends make by posting how gleeful they are to “have done laundry!” or that they “have a headache 
“ Nor is it of reading the bad grammar, the inanity, the relentless over-sharing or the cryptic, self-pitying updates like “And what was the point? Why did I make this decision? So many changes, and now I’m wallowing in a pit of despair.”
It’s much more than that. The site’s constant reminder of others’ activities makes its users hyper-aware of insecurities that might otherwise remain latent.
Facebook is the home of self-aggrandizement and the shameless plug. Yet those uncertain of their professional standing, and those feeling they have not reached that chimera–“potential”–will cave to the near-primal envy evinced by such status updates as “[x] got her dream job!!!!!!! She’s soooo excited!!!!!”—especially if that “dream job” happens to be your dream job too.
Where we once relied on hearsay or more direct, if slower, means of communication, we may now voyeuristically view our peers’ progress at all times.
Those logging on view a page full of friends’ status updates as soon as they enter the site. So we can never escape our contacts’ accomplishments–or what we perceive as such.
Similarly, only with difficulty can those most affected rise above those angry reactions or the resentful feelings that that should have been them or that somehow, they veered off course.
I can’t count the number of texts friends have sent me running along the lines of “Omg*, Facebook just left me so depressed. Everyone’s married, happy and has adorable babies.”
It’s easy to feel like a “failure” if all you can see is that delicate, prismatic view people choose to present of their lives. And it’s easier still to fall into a trap—that of thinking their lives better, fuller, infinitely more exciting and more complete than is yours.
It got so bad for a close friend that she asked me to be the keeper of the keys. She gave me her password, and I had to change it to a new one she didn’t know. She requested I intervene that she not log onto what she termed an insidious site and feel the despondence that washes over the one who has weighed herself against others and found herself wanting.
I can be certain of my post-Facebook bad mood because if I compare myself to others and find myself somehow better off—literally or existentially—then I feel ashamed of my uncharitable thought processes and see myself as unkind.
If, on the other hand, I find myself worse off, the immediate dejection will set in.
Of course, there is a solution for the users who wish neither to deactivate their accounts nor to purge contacts.
I, and folks I know, have taken to “hiding” “friends.” This means you can prevent those contacts you’re not really sure you should have accepted or even really know or who—most relevantly—provoke that painful self-comparison and displeased reaction, but whom you don’t want to “de-friend” (a pointless insult, in my eyes), from showing up on that front page you see each time you enter Facebook.
The process is quick, painless and discreet. The hidees will never know. I’m sure friends have hidden me, but thankfully, I can’t be sure.
Unfortunately, it has come to this. It’s sad, really, that a site meant to foster human contact can encourage such jealousies and feelings of low self-worth.
But if it aims to mimic real life, it succeeds in including the gamut of multi-emotion-eliciting situations. And after all, it is the enemy we know. Until there’s something new.
*Omg has become the shortened vernacular for “Oh my God.”
Omg! please don’t de-friend me!
Hrm… At a personal level, I don’t really understand the e-envy, probably due to brainwashing in my impressionable youth that knowledge is the only truly valuable material commodity. There really aren’t that many Facebook updates “MUHAHAHAHA! My library is so awesome! I just added my four thousandth book.” So. I’m fine on that account. In real life on the other hand… Last week one of my coworkers told me she has over three thousand books in her house. She did not invite me to see them… Grrrr… I hate her! Nicely of course :’)
It was interesting reading how you’d manage with a “friends” list, although you should edit in, if possible, the approximate number of “friends” you have on Facebook. I have about 150 and it’s a very different experience (I’d imagine). The Feed is much less overwhelming in volume. I actually enjoy reading many of their status updates, since they are mostly from people I care about. As for trivialities, inanities, and banalities, well that’s what God invented ranting for (i.e. smiting Heathens). You don’t have to lie down and take it.
If you have a friend who consistently clutters your Facebook feed with garbage let him or her know (in nicer terms if you intend on staying friends). Suggest that there should be value to posts, and that people who no longer wear diapers should not be like chirping infants crying out for attention (and no, people wearing adult diapers are not off the hook unless they’re brain damaged, in which case they should be stinking up nursing homes, not Facebook). Solipsistic posting might be appropriate for special occasions, perhaps once or twice a year, but really, you can tell them politely or not so politely, to shut up because no one else wants to hear when they are brushing their teeth. In my opinion this is just a slippery slope to repulsively vivid Facebook descriptions of more private (and pointless) bodily functions— it’s just a matter of time before people start detailing their BMs in their status updates (actually, I’d be shocked if this new standard for civilizational decline hasn’t already begun, just wait until generation Y is wearing diapers again, that’s when the real deluge will begin).
I’d be more than happy to boot off at least half of the people on my “friends” list (except for the fact that every now and then someone I never talk to tells me that they’ve been reading and interested by some of the things I post, so I’d feel guilty excising them). I’m tempted to do it anyway, social conscience be damned, I want more privacy. I think a mass distribution of a well written (and polite i.e. not a copy pasting of this post) form email to everyone on my “friends” list who I’d like to kick off, explaining the situation and what I’m going to do about it might be in order. Oh, what joy it would be to have a friends list once again. And with less than a hundred people. Maybe even fifty. Bliss. … Nah. Fifty’s not going to happen.
A couple further considerations. If a giant “friends” list is being used for the purposes of advertising, then, by all means, never trim it or set it on fire. Also, keep a few really annoying people on the principle that the emotional prickling of self-mortification by an e-quivalent of a hair shirt is good for you. And of course, in addition to warding off pride (or narcissism in more modern terms), it keeps you grounded in reality. As much as I’d love to never hear from a few people about how Bush was the greatest president ever, and Sarah Palin is the the real Messiah (unlike that Obama Antichrist— I hear he’s a Muslim too… And he’s Black!), I don’t believe in living in a bubble shutting out vocal idiots (if only because of the historical principle that vocal idiots eventually mobilize with guns, or worse, if nothing is done about them). So… It helps keep me somewhat engaged with popular delusions, even when I’d rather disengage for the sake of my own mental health.
That being said, I can imagine other Internet residents preferring to live in self-constructed gated communities. Though I disapprove, it might be necessary for avoiding cardiac arrest before thirty. If one feels one’s life depends on it, by all means, indulge in a diet of sweetness, light, and treacle (while I make gagging sounds in my status updates).
Thank you, Debbie, for putting into words that awful feeling that creeps up and remains after a particularly depressing Facebook session (of which there are many.)
While I have tried to quash my own green-eyed monster by forced use of the “like” button (not in ALL cases, of course), I can’t help but think I’d be a better person if Facebook ceased to exist.
Now, my biggest problem with the site is the complete lack of sanctity with regard to life’s “precious” moments. Not only can I not control the news feed of births, deaths and marriages (even when they are my own), but I can’t control the visual evidence either. Everyone in the world seems to have a camera, or six, and enjoys tagging like it’s a sport. Is it too much to ask that the most intimate moments of my life not be shared with my cousin’s teacher’s boss’s son’s dog?
And, at the same time, I am completely trapped. Extinguishing my account would be like cutting out all the people I would otherwise have no means of contacting. And, in some cases at least, that would be a bad thing.
As Deb would say… sigh.