Facebook

I have a love/hate thing going on with Facebook.  I don’t think I’m alone.  I overheard some parents talking recently about what they perceived as one of the dangerous side effects of Facebook – the social media website that functions as a bulletin board for all the world to see.  The danger, it seems, is that “kids these days” all want to have a “Facebook life,” which was defined to me as something that looks nearly perfect.  People get together with friends, whether to eat dinner, go on a hike or just have a cup of coffee, and a photo of it shows up soon thereafter on Facebook.  It tends to make those who aren’t currently getting together with friends feel lonely and isolated - especially if the ones in the photo are people they know well and see often.  They may begin to wonder why they aren’t in that picture, too.

The idea that every social event or minuscule aspect of a person’s life needs to be captured and posted on Facebook, makes an authentic life seem rather ordinary and boring.  I catch myself wanting to brag a bit on Facebook, too, like the other night when my husband was under the sink fixing a leaking faucet.  I was tempted to take a photo of him and post it with some great comment about how lucky I am to be married to a man who can fix anything – but then I wondered – what’s the point?  To make myself look good that I married such a man or to make others feel bad they didn’t? 

The problem is, I would never post a photo of him doing anything that irritates the heck out of me, so the image I’m portraying is very lopsided – and there’s the rub.  The “kids these days” - many don’t want to have much to do with the unpleasant or normal side of life – they just want to emphasize the good stuff and pretend the bad stuff isn’t there.  They want everyone to think their life is perfect, and that’s what makes some parents nervous.

It reminds me of the Better Homes and Gardens type magazines from the 1950s and 60s where a person might feel perfectly comfortable with the home they have, until they open the pages of a magazine that showcases a home worthy of drool.  What’s the point?  To make us want more? To be discontented with what we have? 

So many older women I know feel they spent more time than they should have keeping their houses clean back then, all the while robbing themselves of deeper relationships with their kids because they were too busy cleaning.  All because of the images portrayed in magazines and the idea they must “keep up with the Joneses.”

What goes around comes around.  The tables have turned, and now it’s reached into the younger generation via electronic media. It makes me wonder, as so many kids are trying to sculpt their lives around something worthy of a Facebook post, what they will look back on and realize they missed.  Reality, perhaps?