Facebook Rant #1

I’ve thought about deleting my Facebook account several times. I once disabled it for a bit. A whole 24 hours, I think. I meant to go longer, but I got bored.

Usually my reasoning stems from one thing: it can be so incredibly depressing.

Studies have shown that Facebook can lead to depression. People see everyone else’s “perfect lives,” the lives they lead online, which are filled with trips, adventure, and non-stop fun.

But that’s only a small part of my reasoning.

Yes, I still get jealous of people traveling, spending every weekend with friends, or…uh…getting engaged. I think that applies to everyone, right?

You see, I’m a passive Facebook user. I prefer to watch than to participate. I will gladly leaf through dozens of pictures from someone’s trip, but I will hesitantly put up my own pictures—especially when I’m not sure the people in those pictures want them out in the cyber universe.

This is a result of my insecurities, which are many. I wrote a post about one of them once. Maybe I’ll get around to posting it.

Back to Facebook. Though I’m more of a passive user, sometimes I try to interact on Facebook, but I feel like I end up as that Facebook friend. You know, the annoying one who says something that is really stupid and kills the conversation. And then you hover over the unfriend button because you're not really sure why this person is even in your friends list.

Facebook is yet another opportunity for rejection. A rejection of friendship of sorts. Whenever you make a comment, you are trying to be a part of the conversation. However, when you aren’t acknowledged, it feels like rejection. You have been ignored by others in the conversation.

 

Sometimes it feels like when you’re at a party and you desperately try to be a part of the conversation but then you fail miserably when you say something like “Potatoes are my favorite thing ever” when everyone else was talking about Spider-Man reboot #12. Everyone stares and you're outed as awkward in front of people who don't really know you and don't have evidence to prove otherwise.

 

But then it's even more awkward to delete your awkward comment because everyone has seen it already.*

And when that rejection happens, you're just poor Andy Bernard. And that’s depressing.

 

 

*This instance may or may not have happened this week. And it may or may not have been on the post of a guy I've been slightly crushing on on and off for several years. Granted my comment was related, but by the time it posted, it was not related to the current conversation. Moral of the story: no late-night commenting on people's posts who are not close friends. It's just awkward.