This week I decided to go without social networking. And I have to say, it has been absolutely fantastic to take a break from everyone else's lives (and its only been 1 day!). The only times I have even noticed not being connected was when I was bored waiting for someone to meet me and my first thought was to reach for my phone and check my news feed. But aside from that, I have found I do not really miss facebook and probably have been far more productive without it. Side note, I am apologizing in advance for all the words in quotes contained in this blog post (picture Ross teaching Joey how to correctly use air quotations from FRIENDS).
Facebook is a fantastic invention for making it effortless to keep in touch with friends, I will give it that. It is also a great conduit to inform friends and family of the things I have been up to- many of whom it would be impossible to otherwise keep updated. But as it has become more popular, the lines became blurred with what you decide to post based on who your "friends" are. I remember when my parents joined facebook and I was a little nervous. And then there was the friend's parents requesting your "friendship". How about the people you "knew" from high school, but never really talked to. Now they are also your "friends" on facebook. You get the picture.
Well, today I ran into one of those "friends" I vaguely knew from high school at a coffee shop and it was extremely awkward. We played the... do I know you?- stealing glances from my position across the room and her at the register. Finally, she walked my way and I said hello. It was the "oh heeeeey, how are you??" conversation that I thoroughly despise every time I am home. This time, made even more awkward by the fact that when I said I recently graduated from PT school, she said, "Yea, I saw that on facebook. Looks like you are moving back to Portland".
Oh jeeze. Well, in that case, I am not sure if I have anything else to update you about...
Now, these conversations do not happen very often. I actually regularly "defriend" people that I do not talk to or those that I was never real-life friends with to begin with. I think this is healthy and try to put a lot of thought into who I have on my "update list".
But following this conversation today, my eyes were really opened to how much I share on facebook. I have felt the same way about my blog. Do my friends read my blog and then feel like they do not need to call me because they are "all caught up"? But then there are the people that I would not necessarily call, but would like them to know what I am up to. And then there is all the talk about privacy settings. What information is public? All of it? I should probably just assume everything I post will be accessable by my future employers. Very blurred lines these days.
So what do you do? Seems like to me there a few options. 1) Manage your friends (but be at risk for hurting people's feelings for not friending them) 2). Post less frequently- only the really impressive things ;) I am interested how I will feel about this at the end of a full week away from facebook!
