So my facebook is no more. I've grown tired of the xenophobes, the politics, the narcissism, the feuds, the games, the endless fishing of complements, the never ending pictures begging you to like them and by choosing to ignore them you hate Jesus/want death to America/hate your Mom/enjoy terrorism, etc... It's all become a chore.
I admit it, I've been addicted to facebook. I would check it daily, if not every other hour. My iPhone would notify me (not by choice, I just never changed that feature) and I always have my computer on at home. I didn't use it to self promote myself, but I did try to bring smiles to peoples faces. My main purpose was to keep in contact with my brother in Virginia, my best friend in San Francisco, and my other friends and family across the country. It was a really useful tool to keep in touch.
But for some reason our society thinks because we sit behind a computer that manners do not apply. Go to any website and see the comments people have left. People, in general, are not nice. Whether trolling to get your goat, looking for shock value, or just being a jerk because they can, the Internet seems to be overrun by loud mouth individuals.
It's ok to express yourself. It's ok to make a stand for what you believe. But what most lack in doing so is tact. So often people were not just talking about what they believe in, they would also disrespect, call out, and try to humiliate anyone with different ideals. It's rather sad. I've seen more racism, sexism, political nonsense, and good old fashion xenophobic behavior online than I ever have in person. People say things online that they'd never say to a stranger in person.
The worst part of all of that is, the people on your facebook are supposed to be your friends and family. Nothing like seeing the people closest to you saying ugly and nasty things. Am I guilt free of such behavior? No. I too would be drawn in and would fire back. But that is not how I was raised, and that is not how I want to raise my children. I was taught to respect others, especially family and close friends.
So instead of constantly blocking people, deleting friends, and hurting feelings, I took myself out of the situation. I've grown tired of it all. I'll find away to keep in contact with friends and family. You'll still get your Lucy photo fix. Heck, I may return to facebook sometime down the line. But for now, this fat kid has logged off.
3 comments:
You're fantastic :) And I love you
I am just some random person from the internet who stumbled across your wifes blog and now yours. I can't agree with you more on this. I mainly have facebook as a way to keep in touch with certain people in my life. There is a lot of convenience to it.
That being said, I am about to do a major sweep of my facebook friends. I am so tired of a lot of the things that go on on there. Like the people who do MLM things, post the "giveaways" that are clearly a scam, or like this if you think this posts, etc. While those are annoying I can look past them. What I can't get past though is people who spew so much hate it is amazing. My husband is Muslim and until I met him I didn't pay that much attention to what people were posting about muslims. Now that I am more aware and more sensitive to things it is unbelievable what people will post. It is amazing to me how bigoted so many people are and they just let it all hang out on facebook. I'm sure that they would never say many of these same things in public. Now I do see this as good and bad. I think it lets you see what a person is truly thinking and has led me to not want anything to do with certain people. I may not have know this about them if they didn't have the feeling of anonymity that facebook gives - which I will say is quite the oxymoron. I am all for people having different beliefs but posting things saying that you wish Obama was dead just because you don't agree with his politics is completely over the top for me. All of this long ramble to say that while I won't be deleting my facebook entirely, I am going to be doing a major sweep of my friends and continuing to delete people that spew negative things.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Thank you for your comments. It is crazy the way people behave on that site. It's like they have a free pass to act any way they'd like without any ramifications. I think you're doing it the right way be getting rid off the negative ones and keeping your own page. I do miss seeing my wife's post and pics. Perhaps I'll follow your lead now and start my page again buy without anyone bringing it down. Thanks again for your reply and for reading.
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