Sunday, December 18, 2011

Set Fire To The Rain

It hit me how much people rely on Facebook, myself included. I’m on Facebook on my way to school, right after class, while I feed a bottle to my son, before I go to bed, and when I wake up, completely groggy, at 3 am. Our obsession with Facebook is well, crazy. People open up more on social networking sites than in person. Some people open up a little too much, blowing up our news feed with obnoxious posts and pictures. Hence, earning their names of annoying Facebook people, or in my broaden research, the annoying Facebook girls. In a previous post, I had accepted the challenge of becoming an annoying Facebook girl for a week….and didn’t even last that. After 4 days of googling annoying statuses to post, taking numerous pictures of myself to get the perfect one, and leaving eye-rolling comments on people’s walls, I realized how skin deep it was to become an annoying Facebook girl. Not only was I updating my status every other hour to something annoying, I found the annoyance seeping into my real life, along with being short tempered, feistier than usual, more intolerable, and had no means of holding back any words that popped into my head.

From the friends I selected to give me feedback, I had only heard from five of them. I had asked them to explain how my posting made them feel, examples being angry, annoyed, entertaining, sorrow…etc., if they felt like unfriending me, or if they even paid attention to what I posted. Several of my friends told me I wasn’t annoying enough. Good lord, it was like pulling teeth already to post such unintelligent statuses and yet I wasn’t annoying enough? So I resorted to Google. I actually typed right into Google “annoying statuses” and found quite a bit. Some sites not only had annoying statuses to post but had suggestions on what makes an annoying status such as, complaining about life and/or stupid things, being vague, lyrics, and deliberately posting about someone but not using their name…I’m guilty of stealing that last one. In all, I had posted 13 status updates within 4 days, whew. Sadly, 3 to 4 statuses a day doesn’t even measure up to what an actual annoying Facebook girl would post daily.

Two of my friends had asked me if they could join in on the banter. My answer, “You sure can!”. Both would comment on my statuses and drove me to be more annoying. They also drew more attention to my statuses, perhaps because they became more amusing or people were actually intrigued what people had to say on my persistently annoying posts. With their help, I started to feel like a real annoying girl.

As I expected, I had friends who flat out told me I was annoying, but that is what I was going for. No one said I was annoying enough to delete but hated how I was blowing up their newsfeed. Then, I had friends that told me to keep them coming. They found my postings amusing, which I can relate to that because that is how I view annoying posts, as sheer entertainment. It is enjoyable to laugh at how much people crave attention and will post anything to get a few likes and comments.

Overall, this whole experience didn’t go as I had planned. I would have loved to have more input, especially from my male friends. I only had one male that participated while one of things I was researching was if men find these annoying Facebook girls more attractive. This one male did not, thank the lucky stars. I also wish I could have been more of the stereotypical annoying Facebook girl, it would have helped out this experiment even more. There were a handful of times where I would delete a status update or a photo for fear of what Facebook world would think of me. I just wish I was a tad bit more daring.

After this project, I’ve decided to take yet again another break from my Facebook. I have wasted so many hours of my time dedicating myself to the people of Facebook for what? What have I gained from these hours spent on a social networking site? Nothing. Sure, it is a great place to keep in touch with family and post pictures of my beautiful son for all to see but it has also turned me into someone who cares far too much. I have actually gotten a knot in my stomach from viewing a picture, became envious over a simple status update, sabotaged a potential relationship from reading wall posts, discovered a friend’s death through a tag, and learned the most about people through notes.

I’m going to all Gigi on my readers and ask what happened to the days of when “you had one phone number and one answering machine and that one answering machine has one cassette tape and that one cassette tape either had a message or it didn't.” We have slacked as a society by conforming to a social network. When we want to plan a party, we make an event on Facebook. When we want to announce that we are in a new relationship, engaged, pregnant, etc. everyone finds out from their newsfeed. I’ve been guilty of posting a question on a friend’s wall rather than actually calling her and speaking to her. How is it that we are more social on Facebook than in real life? It's because we are faulted.

Hopefully I will rediscover myself after my farewell to Facebook, it seemed to work the first time. I’m going to make it my goal to reconnect with friends through a phone call rather than on Facebook chat. The possibilities are endless of what I can do with the time that isn’t spent on social networking sites and for starters, I’m going to revamp my blog and blog again…I cannot get enough of pounding words out on a keyboard. So now I bid adieu to Facebook and my wonderful Facebook friends. Now remember, just because I virtually departed Facebook doesn’t mean I’m dead.

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