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.”