Adventurous April

Friday, January 3, 2014

A Facebook Wake-up Call

How many of you use Facebook on a regular (or not so regular) basis?  If you're like me, it has become a handy way to connect with distant friends and relatives, plus a way to reconnect with old friends who scattered to the four corners of the earth after high school and college.  I'm careful with it, but I will admit that I enjoy it.  So I was a little surprised when a friend of mine announced that she was stepping away from Facebook permanently because - and this is the part that surprised me - it was throwing her into depression.  Totally unexpected.  Let me provide a little background:  this friend was widowed two years ago thanks to cancer.  She took an early retirement from her job as a teacher.  She's deeply involved with her large family and volunteer work.  She travels.  Her life is active and busy.  Her statement was followed by an explanation:  "I can't stand going on Facebook and reading how perfect and wonderful everyone else's life is anymore.  It leaves me feeling depressed and hopeless in comparison."  This is not what I expected to hear. Since then, I've read the status entries (esp. those from the friends we share) with a more critical eye.  Some people come across as very real, with a mixture of good times and bad.  There are those, however, who do read like a Karo syrup IV drip.  Every blessed thing is perfect and wonderful, and they are so happy with their wonderful life.  I could pick out the very people who pushed my friend into depression.  It's sad.  I understand though.  When we compare our lives to others, and we often do, we often find our own lives "wanting."  I know there are many people who believe in being positive in all instances.  That's fine, but now I can see what an impact this can have on someone who is struggling.  You feel bad to start with, and now you can feel even worse by comparison.  I have to give my friend a great deal of credit for recognizing that this is a problem for her right now, and making the decision to walk away from it until she is in a better place.  I hope we all have the strength to recognize when something in our lives is detrimental, and the courage to walk away from it.  On the flip side, maybe we should find a happy medium and strive for a healthy dose of reality in our posts.  Sometimes life is challenging, and it should be okay to express that frustration which accompanies it.  Sometimes life is joyous, we should celebrate that.  I guess what I'm saying is that we need to perhaps take off the masks we wear on Facebook and seek to be ourselves - with all our faults, successes, and baggage.  Are we on FB to share our lives with others, or are we there to play the "my life is better than yours" game?  Something to think about. 

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