Once again, I have removed myself from Facebook. It won’t last, but I desire a respite from the fray. Once I am “in” the Facebook activity stream, I am hooked on it and can’t seem to get away from it. It’s like an addiction…an addiction to the artificial sense of camaraderie the site produces; people care about me, so all must be right with the world. But, in truth, people care about the activity stream, not so much the people in it.
I do not like feeling “needy.” And that’s the sensation I experience at times when I’m checking Facebook. I “need” to see the latest updates. Pre-Facebook, I didn’t get 24/7 updates from people I’ve never met; somehow, I now require them in order to be a whole person.
Perhaps the online silence will spur me to write more. I’ve been taking an unearned break from the mindset necessary to write something worth reading. Back to work.
I feel the same way, Juan. I will miss the people with whom I want to interact. I will not miss the rest. But the noise is the issue; I think I need to hear silence for a while. I’m afraid I’ll become like the Donald Trump supporters who need nothing but noise to latch on to hatred as their mantra. I won’t do that. I could, but I choose not to do it. I am no better than they are, though; I simply tune out the noise I don’t want to hear.
Noise. It’s the ongoing noise of FB that becomes so bothersome, I think.
Of course, when some leave, they take with them some of my own interests in posting. When I posted on FB, I always had you as my imagined audience. I wonder if that might be broken down into some percentage, in the sense that a few account for a large percentage value for interest in posting. I knew you are a writer, and as such my interest in posting a particularly “well done post” was with you in mind — not all posts, but the more serious, more thoughtful and lengthy ones were.
So for a few like yourself, those posts were valued like a “final examination percentage”– say 40%. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you think that 40% is a value attributed to a handful (maybe 5 people), it means a lot. Remember that I am 65 friends, though now it’s 64 since you’ve left.
FB is an interesting phenomena. I hate it and I love sometimes, but I think I mostly hate it because while I want to turn it into something like a silk purse, it can never be more than a sow’s ear.
No, I don’t think you’re a sociopath, I think you are willing to exhibit more bravery than I. Even when I don’t want others’ opinions of me to matter, I let their opinions matter. Your opinions, my friend, and a few others, matter. But now that I’m on a break from Facebook, I won’t worry about the opinions of those who, deep down, don’t matter in the least.
How could I disagree? It’s exactly what I’ve been feeling — and it comes in waves. Sometimes I get an inkling, and sometimes that inkling grows into a planned action. And then other times I’m as happy as a simple minded whore, plugging little winks and smiles and thumbs up, though often wishing the latter were more like “thumb up yer ass.”
But I get off the “activity stream” at least once a year, and I get back on when I feel the need to fill a hole with something “else.”
There are people I actually care about in my list of FB friends. You, Brother, are certainly one of them, but I suppose you were never in the background activity stream of it all anyway; you were more like one of the focal points, and there are several like this. Why?
Maybe something of what I can read between lines that in turn say something deeper about the other, maybe it’s just the liking of what those few will post: songs, pictures, thoughts — maybe just the way that person looks in any given photo.
And then others that I don’t feel an inclination of sharing with? I just “unfriend” them. I have no personal qualm with that because I don’t feel particularly needful of staying connected with some. — even if they are family. Maybe I’m a bit of a sociopath that way? 😉