I appreciate the irony of writing about this on my weblog, a link to which I shall no doubt post on my Twitter feed, comments upon which will arrive in my email account or to my mobile phone; However, in the absence of actual therapy I do find this blog to be extremely useful. So I shall begin.
There are two main reasons why I make the opening statement:
Firstly, there is no way to feel completely alone any more. Of course, I hear you say, "No! You can turn your mobile phone off, log off from the internet, delete your Facebook account". This is indeed the case, but who among us actually can do that, for more than a few hours at a time? I do go without actively posting on Twitter or on this blog, but scarce a day goes by (in fact I'm sure it doesn't) where I don't post/look on Facebook or send/receive a text. To be honest, this is probably a good thing for me, because being out of work and my natural anxiety combined means that I could go a whole day without communicating with anyone other than my boyfriend, my housemate and the cats.
But there is a part of me which misses the absolute peace and quiet of solitude - without wondering what the rest of the world/my friends/family were doing. It's that curiosity, nigh-on morbid, which has been born out of the world of social networking sites and skype and mobile phones and forums and blogs and so on and so forth...
Secondly your private life becomes so public. I'm not talking personally here, because the majority of my friends are thankfully mature enough not to air their dirty laundry in public, but I do see it on other people's Facebook walls. Nothing is sacred, nothing is private, everything is public property, every transgression, break-up or scandalous gossip-inducing incident. It makes me sick to my stomach. I honestly do wonder how much of it is done with malice, and how much gets splayed for the world to see simply because that's how things seem to be done nowadays...
More and more often I am grateful to my very core that social networking sites were not in existence/as widely used as they are now, as little as 5 years ago; things which happened to me, things I did or said were restricted to the community I was part of, not privy to all and sundry on the internet. Yes, gossip still had a way of spreading like wildfire, but still, it felt more human somehow...
The final part of this post is the rather sad thing I noticed the other day. As and when you fall out with someone or circumstances conspire to the point that you are "defriended" on Facebook (is that even a phrase? It probably is now) they quite literally disappear from your life. People that you don't see on a regular basis perhaps but who figure on your daily radar thanks to new photos and status updates, vanish. It hits harder than simply not seeing that person again as your friendship drifts apart. It's a very final, definite thing.
I think this blog post has rambled away from the original title a little, but it's too late in the evening for me to think of anything else.
5 comments:
But in the olden times (ie before 2006) when you lost touch with people, you just lost touch with people. This was normal. People move on, it's painful and it's hard but it's natural. You can't be friends with everyone forever. Being defriended on facebook is one thing, but it's better than the alternative: constantly reading updates (pictorially and via text) of people you don't actually see, or talk to, or write to any more.
I've said this to you before, but I say this to everyone: get rid of facebook. You'll be much happier. I was.
I do agree with you, losing touch was something which obviously happened and it was natural, but it didn't feel as weird as being "removed" from someone's life.
I honestly don't want to get rid of facebook, despite the occasional sadness it might cause me, because I do appreciate being able to keep in touch very easily with people I otherwise couldn't see. It's also a very handy tool for promoting our night Abandoned. Also, the people I choose to have on my friends list are around 90% real people that I genuinely do keep in touch with. I do appreciate that it isn't the case for everyone. xxx
I think the thing with the defriending is that it is a conscious decision, rather than a natural drifting apart (especially when someone you thought was a friend goes and *blocks* you), so it is more of a deliberate act.
I spend most of the summer away from any kind of internet and it was LOVELY but still nice to catch up with everyone when I got back - like you used to at school.
Kate - YES! I agree on both counts - letting go of the internet and even a mobile can be really refreshing if you can do it, even if it is for a few days (like at a festival for example). I always find I miss people though :)
On last week's Guardian Tech. podcast (31/8) Aleks Krotoski mentioned her break at a friend's cottage in the Yorkshire Dales for this reason - no internet or mobile reception. Don't suppose you have a friend with a rural cottage you could borrow.
As for Facebook, I just log in so infrequently I don't think anyone would mistake it for being the ideal way to contact me.
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