It's been almost two weeks since I deactivated my Facebook account. I have taken it off my phone before and taken long breaks from it but I've never actually deactivated it. My goal was to go a week without it and then I could take it from there. I was nervous about deactivating but after the first day I haven't even noticed I'm not on it.
When I first joined Facebook it was fun reconnecting with so many high school and college friends who I wouldn't normally see or get updates from. It was fun putting status updates and pictures and seeing everyone else's pictures. I loved (and still love) all the engagement, marriage and baby announcements. But in the past couple years it's seemed to me that Facebook has gotten so negative. Not only all the political and religious posts have gotten to be too much but all the comments about everything. When I deactivated, I think the latest trending news was about the mom who left her baby in the shopping cart at Wal-Mart for an hour. Some person who found the baby took a pic of the baby and posted it on the internet for everyone in the world to see and share their thoughts about what an awful mom she was! Seriously!? Not to mention how absurd it is to post a pic of this poor baby that isn't yours on the internet but what business is this of ours!? Why would someone feel the need to publicly shame some woman they don't know!? A women who is very clearly sleep deprived and was so upset for what she had done. Instead of shaming her, how about we step up and help her with running her errands or making her food or watching her kids so she can get some sleep? Another example from a couple months ago...some couple left their dog in the car and someone took a pic of them and blasted that on the internet where everyone shared the pic then again publicly shamed them as they supposedly were out enjoying a lunch while their dog was hot in the car. We have absolutely no idea if that story is even true. She could have been out of the car for 5 minutes and the dog was fine. We have no idea what really happened except that some person claimed on thing and then we think it's okay to post their pic on the internet for everyone to see. Regardless of what these people are doing wrong, it it no better of us to destroy their lives. (I still think back to Steve Bartman and what the media did to him pre-Facebook days! Poor guy!)
Sorry I've gone on a bit of a tangent...which just shows me again why I needed to deactivate and get myself away from Facebook all together. I'm tired of all the selective parts of people lives they chose to show. It's impossible not to compare your lives to what people portray is theirs even when you know their life isn't all perfect. I am sick of the million blog posts by moms covering every imaginable topic, organic vs processed, breast vs. bottle, stay at home mom vs working mom, home-schooling vs public schools, pre-school vs no pre-school. What NOT to say to a someone with XYZ, What TO say to someone with XYZ. What to say to a friend who lost their mom/dad/brother/grandma and what NOT to say. I'm a people pleaser so the more of these articles I read the more I'm afraid to open my mouth in fear of saying the wrong thing. But according to all these articles written by random people I will never meet, saying nothing is really the wrong thing. AHHH so what do I do?!
Its funny because when I have complained to Jason about all of this, he said his newsfeed is nothing like mine. So maybe it's just the type of things I have clicked on in the past and now they're constant;y showing up on my newsfeed. Maybe mines more negative than other peoples? All I know is that for me... I am so happy to take a break for a while. I look forward to when I go back it'll just like when I first signed up and I'll get to see all sorts of engagements, marriages, babyies and everything that drew me to Facebook in the beginning!
