A Facebook vacation

Today I made the decision to take a vacation from Facebook for a while. What ‘a while’ is I won’t know until it is over.  We’ll see how long I last. There are quite a few reasons why I’m doing this besides giving myself more time for the things that really matter. IE: Hubby, cat, family, cat, friends, cat, words with friends, cat. You know, all the important things in life.

Ch-ch-ch-changes exaggerating Lincoln

When I first signed up for FB it was as MySpace started to go south. Remember all of the glittery butterfly wing-fairy-sticker type things you could put on your friends’ walls with sickly sweet sayings? (How 7^th grade-1991-that felt like.) So FB was nice with its clean and formulaic design.  But over the last 5 years I’ve noticed changes. Changes affecting how we act and react on FB. In the beginning people posted infrequently. It was mostly tame and congenial. But then like most things people started sharing too much and manners flew out the window. I think it is because unlike in person (or even on the phone) on FB you can’t tell if you’re having a one sided conversation. You just keep talking.  Needless to say how we saw Facebook changed, less catching up with friends, more over sharing.

“They”- the people who work to keep FB up to date- keep changing different parts of it. Change with the times or die. People don’t handle change well when it is thrust upon them. In fact this is what causes many regurgitated troll-created posts to end up on your wall.  ‘Facebook is going to start charging you next month!’ (I’d like to see them TRY to do that.) Along with a myriad of misattributed political quotes (Robin Williams said what?!) and Photoshopped giant spider pictures.  Posts created to incite panic by those wishing to create chaos and spread misinformation. Deep down it is change that people really fear and those wishing to create chaos prey upon that.

The toilet paper roll goes UNDER dagnabbit!

I live in an area where my opinions on some explosive topics are different than the norm. This makes life difficult sometimes. Most of my friends who do share my opinions rarely make them known on FB. Keeping the peace I imagine. Too many times instead of a good debate it boils down to angry retorts and name calling. Honest to God I see on a daily basis people posting pictures and sharing forwards that demean other people and their beliefs.  I see fear of the unknown in those posts and it makes me so sad. I seem to get sucked into hot button posts meant to incite anger. You know the type of subjects. Toilet paper rolls -do they go UNDER or OVER?! People this is a highly explosive topic! ‘Under people are just treacherous scum! Over losers need to shut their pie hole!’  Okay, so I’m joking. Btw, thanks to my mom I’m of the TP roll ‘under’ side in case you desperately needed to know. Over losers shut your pie hole! :-D

Guilt trip--Jesus doesn’t love you unless you share this post.

 I’m sure if anyone reads my blog (highly doubt it) I’m gonna make someone mad Okay I said it. I don’t forward the Gospel of the Spammy Forward. God, Jesus and I are buds and don’t need constant email forwards to solidify our relationship. Actions speak louder than mouse clicks in my opinion. This annoying fad of course has dual citizenship in FB and email worlds. Also I don’t care a whit if it is “friendship/sisterhood/sith lord/hairdresser appreciation week”. And the butterfly/sunset/spangly worded “I have a beautiful daughter who lights up my world” type posts are overdoing it. Obviously if you post that your daughter got 2^nd place in the spelling bee that would make a lot more personal news and MEAN something.  They just clog up the newsfeed. Remember the glittery MySpace pictures? Yeah some people never grow out of it. ow don’t get me wrong, there are some inspirational type word/picture posts that are fine. But there are so many out there now that they become meaningless. But don’t over do it. I’ve been at fault for overdoing it. I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t saturate your friend’s newsfeeds with the same thing. Like the funny pictures I did the other nite…….Um…. well. Yeah okay. Advice taken.

All in all the bad stuff outweighs the good stuff anymore. So I’m taking a vacation. A hiatus off of Facebook.  I'm sure I'll stay in the loop. But I would hope my friends would call with something more important than how drunk they were the other nite. Because oversharing is love, right?!