For many reasons I love Facebook. I think it is an awesome email platform- it is certainly not nearly as formal as email- if you can call email formal. And also, I love Facebook because it allows me to keep all my friends and family, at the very least, in my periphery. I especially love that about Facebook. I also love that it allows me to keep an online photo album.
What I do not love about Facebook is that not everyone remembers how incredibly public it is. This goes two ways. The first is most obvious- some of my friends over share. I mean, some things should not be broadcast on social media. Seriously. There are some aspects of your life that should be kept private. People, for the most part, are not sharing their hardest struggles on Facebook. As public as it is, there is still a major element of personal discretion- but, some people need to employ a little more discretion!
Facebook stalking, I wonder if that is in the dictionary yet? I would wager that a majority of people with Facebook accounts have done a little stalking. Sometimes, Facebook stalking is unintentional- sometimes you are just reading your News Feed and that leads you down a rabbit hole. This is kinda what happened to me this week that got me thinking about all this.
A friend of mine was talking about all this this past weekend. She is vacationing with her husband and children several beach towns over and was explaining that while she will be posting tons of vacation pictures, she did not want to fool anyone. She, at 32 weeks pregnant with her sixth child, drove 2 days from Dallas to the panhandle of Florida with 5 kids in tow BY HERSELF! Her husband flew out to meet them. She explained that even though she would be posting lots of cute beach photos, she had already changed a myriad of diapers, done several loads of laundry, mopped, vacuumed and been to the grocery store with 5 kids, all by herself. If she had not been forth coming with that info, I would have never known any of that.
I have another friend who is the world’s worst at comparing her station in life with other people’s Facebook page. I love her dearly, but it drives me crazy.
So, this brings me back to how public Facebook is. Lots of people understand that and only share their proudest moments. When my friend starts stalking and comparing, she forgets she is only getting, in large part, everybody’s highlight reel not their behind the scenes.
I want to be as transparent, in my life, as possible. I want to be who I say I am. But, there are things I do not publicize on Facebook- there’s no need. My life goal is to be a good human and along side Bub to rear a good human. At the end of the day, that is all I am after. This brings me to the final reason I love Facebook. I love that Facebook allows me to help celebrate my friends’ lives and that my friends can help me celebrate my life.
How about you, what is your take on Facebook? Do you love it? Do you hate it?
All the best,
Coralie >
I have to remind myself about this on the reg. Very few people willingly present their ugly underbelly on Facebook, that quote is a great reminder. Then there are those who ONLY present their ugly underbelly… and I wish they would stop. Facebook. What a weird, strange beast that is!