Hello, my name is…

Hello, my name is Erica and I’m a Facebook addict.  I have become one of those people who feels driven to post random snippets about myself for “everyone” to read. And, of course, I have to scroll through the pages of my news feed to make sure I haven’t missed someone’s all too important update on their life’s activities.  I’m now taking the first step and admitting my addiction in hopes that I can somehow be kept accountable and prevented from feeding it any more than absolutely necessary.  

Now, don’t get me wrong: Facebook has its benefits.  I love the fact that most of my friends are on there — my real friends, not just my “Facebook friends” — and it has become a nice central hub for communicating  with others.  Quick messages and updates are passed back and forth with an ease that isn’t easily achieved through “conventional” methods.  Most people check Facebook, these days, more often than standard email, so I can sometimes reach people faster on there than other methods.

What I don’t like about Facebook, and what I’m just coming to realize in a way, is just how “noisy” it is.  Strange, huh, to think of a digitally printed medium as being noisy, but to me, that’s exactly what it is.  As soon as you log on, you’re assaulted with the details of everyone’s personal lives:  grievances and frustrations, happiness and joys – it all ends up as a quick one or two sentence “status update” on the Facebook news feed.  I’ve been guilty of it.  But how much can you really learn about your true friends in that method.  Okay, maybe for some people, you can learn a bit more than you’d really like to…but I’d venture to guess that most people censor their status posts to either the most exciting or the most sensational areas of their lives.  For me, this has started to negatively affect my outlook on my own life.  I find myself reading all the posts and thinking, “Wow! That person has such an exciting life…I’m a bit boring compared to that.”  Or, “Oh, look at the cute couple and how happy they are.  What must be wrong with me that I’m not in that place yet.”

So, here is what I’m thinking…I’ve had this blog set up for quite some time now.  Usually it is an infrequently updated thing; with me only writing new posts when I’ve got something to say about some of the pictures that I’ve taken recently.  But with my recent thoughts about Facebook and my urge to express myself using devices longer than 2 sentences — some might think that strange — maybe, just maybe, this blog can be a tool to help me break free of the social media addiction.   Now, before you go getting excited about frequent updates (who am I kidding…like there’s anyone reading this), you should know that I’ve had similar thoughts to this before.  I’m really not much of a writer, and the discipline that it takes to construct something meaningful is sometimes beyond me.  However, I’m kind of hoping that anytime I feel the need to mindlessly blast out some factoid about my life on Facebook, I can turn here instead.  Here, I’ll be forced to consider a few things first:

• does it have merit?
• will I be embarrassed about this later?
• does anyone really care? (okay, maybe this last one won’t have high priority…after all, this is the world-wide-web where people post all kinds of things regardless of the general level of interest)