I love Facebook, or at least I did 4 months ago. Now I am not so sure. Let me explain. When I was living in a city where I had a job, a church community and a group of really good friends that I saw on a regular basis I loved Facebook. It was a way to connect with people that I didn't get to see very often. I loved to snoop on what my friends where doing and to post superficial status updates about what I was watching, cooking or baking. I felt like Facebook was a good add on to the community I had in real life. I could ignore the overly dramatic 'vague-booking' statuses or the fear mongering news reports. I could block the game request and unfollow the few people whose status updates I found annoying without unfriending them (don't judge, we all do it). It was great when it was just the icing on the caking, not the cake itself.
Now that I have moved to a new city where I do not have a strong 'in-person' community yet I find that my feelings for Facebook have changed. I find that the same type of superficial status updates that I enjoyed before now make me sad, they leave me craving 'real' contact. At this point I would give almost anything to be able to call up a friend and meet for coffee or a glass of wine, that snooping on people who are engaging in those type of activities is hard. Listening to people complain on Facebook about their spouses, children, neighbours, jobs or salaries is frustrating. And being bombarded with 'end of days' media posts makes me feel ill, like I've eaten too much icing.
Now here is my problem. I still want to stay connected with many of the people on Facebook and I know, from experience that real community can be had through social media and I love it when it works well. I just can't have it be my only community. I know that having Facebook in my pocket, on my phone, wherever I go is not helping me create community, it is keeping me locked in a community I can only access online. It is too easy to sit in the church foyer after a service on Sunday checking my Facebook instead of engaging with the people around me. It is even easier to go to the park with my son and sit on my phone scrolling through statuses instead of trying to start a conversation with another mother at the park (realistically the other parents will be on their phones too, and there is no judgment here...I've done it many times) and the same goes on the bus, commuter train or in a coffee shop.
So here is what I am going to try to see if it helps me. I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone and removing Facebook from my phone. I am going to see if not having Facebook so readily accessible will help me engage a bit more with the world around me, at least when I am out in public. I believe you can not create community without engaging, so this is my experiment. I am not leaving Facebook altogether, as I still see the value in it, I am just not taking it with me wherever I go. I will check and update Facebook at home, at a computer. It does feel a bit strange, as I am still at this point keeping Instagram on my phone, as well as Twitter but at this moment I do not check those nearly as much as I check Facebook. I love and appreciate all those on my Facebook, and still look forward to keeping in touch.
I'll keep you all posted on how this works out for me.
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