According to the Associated Press and NBC News, doctors are warning parents about something called “Facebook depression” in teens. The articles discusses how teens who are are already suffering from low self-esteem and depression are most at risk of the social media-induced disease.
I’m, uh, gonna go out on a limb here, though, and suggest that teens aren’t the only people suffering from Facebook depression. I’ve heard of marriages breaking up over Facebook addictions, I’ve listened to acquaintances talk about what’s on everyone else’s Facebook pages (creepy) and blinked when they acted surprised that I wasn’t cyber stalking them (creepier). And, we’ve all witnessed the bastardizing of the word “friend” as people collect virtual ones like points in some unwinnable massive multi-player online game. That’s not even getting into all of the privacy and security concerns we ignore, or the people who spazz out over imaginary cows for their imaginary farms.
Personally, I hate Facebook … yet I still have a page and manage a couple others. So, perhaps I have a different type of Facebook depression — I’m-tangled-up-in-this-Web-I-don’t-want-to-be-in depression. For me, Facebook has become like work in many ways. In others, it’s a guilt factory. There’s the chick from third grade that keeps trying to friend me. (Lady! I haven’t seen or heard from you since we were eight years old. Move on.) There’s my distant family, who sometimes passively aggressively report back to my immediate family — who’s not on social media — when they don’t agree with something I post. (Hey, distant family! Haven’t seen you since I was twelve. Shut it.)
Even as I’m writing this post, I’m going back and forth to Facebook looking for the “delete account” button. But when I bring it up, people act like I’m abandoning them. I mean, really? Remember before Facebook when we actually hung out with each other or talked on the phone or sent long, rambling e-mails venting our troubles?
I do. I miss those types of real friendship experiences with my actual friends.
So, I did it. In the midst of writing this post, I deactivated my Facebook account — which isn’t the same as deleting it (I can log back in if I change my mind). I sent a few e-mails alerting people in the groups I manage that someone else will have to take over, and, besides feeling immediately lighter and better, that’s it for Facebook for me. (I don’t imagine that I’ll change my mind.)
When the site asked my why I was leaving, I clicked “other” and responded: “Because I’m just not that into you.”
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2011.
I took about a month off from twitter and facebook and really, I didn’t miss it that much. Nor did many people miss me.
How is twitter different from FB though? People collect friends just the same. And a lot of the time, with twitter I feel like I’m just talking to myself.
But like you, I wish people would get offline and spend more time in the real world. I can’t tell you how many people I would like to have met but have given up on because they are “too busy”, but then I see all the time they spend tending a farm on fb or whatever.
I disagree that people collect friends in the same way. On Twitter, I can follow you but you don’t have to follow me — and vice versa.
Personally, as an information and news junkie, I prefer Twitter, which I often describe as sticking your face in front of a wide-open fire hydrant of information. There, I meet new people from around the globe. On Facebook, I’m reconnected with people I didn’t necessarily want to be connected with in the first place.
And, yes, I would like to see people spend less time with their screens and more time with humans doing things outside. Maybe that’s because I long to spend less time with my screens and more time outside.
Thank you for your comment, Tina.
Rhi
That’s true that you don’t have to connect with people on twitter like you do on fb.
I do get a lot of my news on twitter as well. Definitely more often than on fb.
I’m more myself on FB. Most of my friends on FB are moms and I can’t be quite as open all the time. On twitter I pretty much let it all hang out.
I’m with you – let’s spend less time online.
I dunno. Personally, I use Facebook and Twitter in similar ways — Twitter, the firehose that you describe, to dip into the information stream and pull out what interests me (and, occasionally, to participate in a conversation about it or to push some significant piece of it) and Facebook, to see what my friends, who are generally really friends, are reading and thinking about and to get their reactions to things I’m reading and thinking about. Occasionally, to share some personal news, if it’s really something I think my social circle might want to know. I suspect it’s a function of my middle-agedness, but I’m a long way from wanting to use any of these media to “collect” friends (if I’ve never met you, this is a pretty bad place to meet and become friends) or to use it for any of the popularity/status-building games that we all generally start slowly growing out of after HS. My kids have hundreds of “friends” — I have about 70, which is approaching the limit of people I’m capable of carrying on real conversations with. I still like to talk to people by phone or email — this doesn’t replace that, though it is a way to keep in touch with some people I wouldn’t have time to call once a week or a month. Kind of like reading their holiday newsletter, only on a monthly basis. I recognize though that my way of looking at it is, as I said before, somewhat old-fogeyish.
Regarding the health report that talked about “Facebook depression” in teens — since I’m almost an “anti-teen” by now (in other words, my social context is staid and lacks drama)there isn’t much about the impersonality and rough personal scrum of Facebook that can make me depressed. As the paper itself pointed out, being depressed about social striving is a basic part of adolescence and young adulthood, regardless of venue. Humans have been striving for social dominance in their adolescent years since we were loping around the savannah, using our knuckles as much as our feet. Non-dominant males and females (beta and gamma boys and girls) have always felt a bit depressed by their social state. One of the advantages of being human (as opposed to chimp) is that we have developed a larger culture that, as adults, we can find our place in and forget about the social struggle we went through as teenagers, as well as our families, our hometown gossips, even our old coworkers (if we didn’t get along well with any of the above). No matter how disasterous our youth, there is a life after it — and social media have a calmer, perhaps less emotionally-invested, place in that life too.
My $.02. I’ll miss you on Facebook, Rhi.
Here’s a rule you can apply to Facebook or anything else:
If Lloyd Blankfein & Goldman Sachs have any part of it, get the fuck away.
I admire you. Facebook is a time-sucking, drama-inducing vortex of discomfort most of the time. If it was not a place for you, you didn’t need to be there. I’ll miss you, but you need to do what’s best for you. Being overly connected isn’t good for anyone.
I agree with you. I was a late joiner and have since deactivated my account several times because of this nagging feeling that I was engaging in something extremely unhealthy or “dishonest”(for lack of a better term) on FB for a few reasons I’ve added below. I googled FB and came across this article and I’m glad there are others who feel the same.
1.It appears as if we’re all communicating “in askance” of each other rather than “with” and “to” each other. WHY???
2.I also wonder- actually I don’t wonder ,I know for a fact- that sincerity has been comprised for the sake of “convenience”, “efficiency” and contrivance, because that’s what it is- a huge contrivance. If you take privacy out of communication, it becomes a spectacle. How do you know others don’t have an agenda by posting something or others don’t impute motives to your efforts to communicate? There are all sorts of legal, moral and ethical issues which arise as well and are only just beginning to be addressed, and frankly not adequately enough.
3. I think the idea of communicating all our thoughts constantly, publicly, immediately to no one in particular and everyone at once is dysfunctional. It also seems cheap and not so classy. I like the old Chinese idea of preserving your fortune and happiness by hiding it. This spares the less fortunate any pain or offense and it spares you jealous rage from people who don’t wish you well. It also shows tact and grace and the recognition that you’re grateful for what you have and are not so insecure that you need constant attention or praise for your deeds, accomplishment, new boat, vacation, etc., etc.
4. A good friend of mine summed it up best when she said, ‘If I need a third party to communicate with you, then we probably shouldn’t know each other or stay in touch.” Seems harsh, but life really is too short to play games and waste time like that. What a big mess.
5.And FB is trumping up its own importance with cleverly placed pressed releases and bogus numbers so people feel as if they HAVE to be on it or they get “left out.” People forget it is a company and a profit driven entity that must survive by tweaking itself, expanding and drawing in more people and advertisers. Furthermore its CEO M.Zuckerberg slimy. Do you really want to patronize a company and entrust details about your personal life to him? When are people going to catch on? It doesn’t surprise me at all that Goldman Sachs teamed up with FB. I think dishonesty and predatory exploitation of people’s worst fears and instincts are common threads in both companies’ modus operandi. (play book).
Yes! You did it! I quit Facebook last year as a New Year’s resolution. I don’t miss it one bit, except when I hear about those cute baby pictures of my nephew my sister posted. Hey sis, ever hear of email? Think you can send some of those pics my way?
I used to have a FB like 3 years ago but I deleted cause I was annoyed and had the same problem as many other commenters (I have no social media, was gonna get a professional one but I had to pay). As a person now, on the outside looking in I see how it has taken over peoples lives, not just FB but a lot of stuff. Many times I have found myself talking to someone and they will stop listening all of a sudden to check and responds to a text or FB update or whatever. People need to realize that there is a world around them, and that a lot of this social media can wait and needs to be limited. Honestly if it takes you 1 hour to get out of bed (like on a saturday) because you were checking what happened on FB or whatever, I think you should recheck your priorities, unless this is the only time you check it. I know some people who do this and check it constantly throughout the day. It is like we have created an alternate reality on the internet that has a real basis but on a personal basis has little benefit.