Dang Facebook

I  need to start out by saying that I am truly loath to write this post.  I have avoided it for weeks and weeks, and it won't go away. I'll preface it by saying that there will be nothing written here that hasn't been written a million times before. I am going to empty my head here and hopefully be done thinking about this subject.

At least for today. 

I hate to write this also because this post will definitely have an expiration date on it. 

I read another post the other day by someone who had a while ago written a post where they had at that time eschewed Facebook, and it rang hollow in light of this person's now fervent love for Facebook.

I don't want to do that either.

It's pretty simple, really.

I got off Facebook. 

It had started to be problematic for me. 

The first thing that was happening was I get getting my feelings hurt.

And I say that with the full maturity of a two year old, fully realizing how it sounds. 

It's true though, as much as I hate to admit it. 

I prayed through "why" and really tried to get past it. 

A lot of it was my fault for being too sensitive. I'll admit that. I confessed this to my very pragmatic husband and his response confirmed what I suspected: I probably needed to get over it. After further pondering it, though, I realized that it wasn't exactly just that. I think there are some things that go on with Facebook that never would go on in real life. We use it to manipulate people and situations and appearances to further our own selves. This was what I was getting tangled up in. 

And it made me really mad. 

I really tried to get around that but it became a glaring obstruction to anything good that Facebook offered. I never knew when I opened it up if something was going to jump out and hurt me.

Which still sounds ludicrous. 

I was talking over this with a friend, feeling her compassion and understanding even in the midst of the absurdity of it all. 

"You know that verse that says, 'be hard to offend'?" I asked.

"Is there one that says that?" her eyes lit up. "Really?"

I looked for it and couldn't find it. 

"No. There isn't. I thought there was..." I was a little relieved. I didn't like being hurt in these sensitive situations. And as I prayed through it, God showed me where my sensitivity is a good, positive gift and also where it fails me and makes me a pile of useless tears.

So that was good. 

I couldn't let it go, though. It wasn't just that. There is the time suck that Facebook is. And inevitably it leads to comparisons and sadness and frustrations and...

I also hated the thought of the time line. I have said a lot of dumb stuff, and the thought of it all being out there, laid out, seemed overwhelming. 

My friend texted me one day, before everyone had to have time line, and said, "Have you seen this time line thing? It makes it so easy to stalk people! I've been stalking myself for over an hour!"

And I did just that. I went way back in time to when her life was easier and I sobbed at the old statuses and pictures thought "if only she knew what was coming..."

And did I need to do this to other people? Did I need to do it to myself? And allow others to do it to me?

I felt uneasy about this.

I got so tired of thinking about it. 

And other things I won't even waste time putting here.

I just needed a break.

So I deleted my account. 

Unfortunately once you make a Facebook account, you can never not have a Facebook account.

That's sort of scary. It never goes away.

That made me feel uneasy too.

But whatever. It was done as much as it could be. The deleting, I mean.

And you know what the very first thing that happened once I selected "Deactivate Account"was?

I breathed a sigh of relief

How odd...

That told me that I had done the right thing. 

My phone rang with a ring tone that always makes me smile. I heard the familiar voice squeal of "Hi!" and I dissolved into a puddle. The words "I got off Facebook" poured out and I heard her catch her breath.

"God is wrestling with me there too..."

Is there any better feeling to know that you aren't alone? No matter how strange a spot, no matter how isolated a path, no matter how alternative the trek becomes, to have a single other person in that space is like a cool drink in a parched desert.

We talked it out for a long time, me pacing in the backyard in the sunshine in an effort to find enough peace and quiet to have a conversation. 

It was good. God's timing in offering comfort and confirmation was gracious and compassionate and absolutely stunningly beautiful. 

She said something that has haunted me relentlessly. My pastor said once that for Christians long ago, slavery was their "blind spot." (Among other issues. This is simply an example.) We look back into history and wonder how they could have ever owned human beings. His analogy was that blatant, flagrant, unrestrained and selfish materialism of today could likely be our blind spot. Generations later might indeed look back on us and wonder how we could have lived the way we do just as we look back on our Christian brothers and sisters and wonder the same about them.

I heard the sweet and gentle voice of this friend, referencing these analogies, say to me, "Amy, do you think that social media could be another of our blind spots?"

She went on to explain that a lot of what social media means and does to us could have ramifications that we simply don't see now or don't want to examine. 

I thought about that a lot. 

 Maybe the answer is "no."

Simple as that.

And maybe the answer is "yes."

I keep thinking about it. 

For the first days after I "pulled the plug," I felt lonely and sort of like I was missing an arm. 

That told me that it was a good thing that it was gone. 

 Then as the swirling settled down, I heard...

quiet.

It was quieter in my head. And in my heart. I didn't fear getting on the computer. I didn't feel the stress or trepidation or anything... things felt safe and happy.

That was really, really weird.

Then I felt the urge for real contact. I wanted to have phone conversations. I wanted to see friends. I wanted to text them to check on them. I felt more connected to fewer people. 

Adjustments. 

My sister had good insight. Her best friend had just deleted her account too. Her friend's thoughts were that instead of the gentle and natural rhythm of friends coming in to and out of our lives, Facebook keeps everyone we've ever known right in front of us all the time. Then, instead of us pouring into the people that are physically right in front of us, our time is divided as we put chunks of our time into a large pool of people that naturally would have moved out of our lives already. 

That made sense. I thought about if it was true and how it might have played into this. 

It also partially explained why I felt overwhelmed a lot of the time. It's totally my fault that I had 750+ friends. I knew every single one of them, and not all of them were active on Facebook, but still. That many people's thoughts and opinions and prayer requests and variety of problems and lifestyle choices and challenges were just overwhelming to me.

But I loved them and wanted to be a part of their lives. 

But not at the detriment of my own "real life" friendships. 

But then the fallout started. 

My mom texted me early one morning, "Dear, did you unfriend me on Facebook?"

I literally laughed out loud. 

"MOM! NO!!!!!"

I explained that I was gone. 

Someone said I should have told people I was leaving. Perhaps I should have. I honestly didn't want the ego stroke of even one person saying, "Oh, don't go..." This needed to be honest and real. I needed to just slip away, quietly and unnoticed. 

But there were repercussions. 

It made my sister in Idaho sad. Really sad. She felt connected to us this way.

 My cousin in England. This complicated our keeping in contact.

I used Facebook for email so much. 

I had far away friends that I kept up with. Sweet ladies I love so much. 

My old church friends. My old pastor was on Facebook. His sweet postings and his still deep and apparent love for the Lord brought tears to my eyes each time he posted.

A family member called me, "What the {&#*} did I do to {tick} you off so you unfriended me?"

Um. Nope. I didn't. But thankfully so or I would have been in big trouble, apparently. 

Or friends saying, "Well, how will you know when we're having an impromptu park date?" 

Or them texting, "Oh, yeah, so and so announced on Facebook last week that they are pregnant!"

Or getting texts and emails that say, "Oh yeah, I had to text you since you aren't on Facebook..."

Or "I had a really rough week, but it's all better now." I didn't know, or I could have been offering help and praying.

Or just the sweet friend saying gently, "I'm glad you are obeying, but I just miss you. I don't feel as close to you now..."

*sigh*

I struggled with these things.

I have found ways around some of these issues. My sister and I made up a very silly "AnnaBook" where I text her pictures and snippets from our days, and this makes her feel like she's here in a small way.

I am using real email again.

I Skype with my cousin. 

I miss a lot of information about the people I love, but I don't feel overwhelmed anymore. I get what I need to, I guess. And I'm trying to be more intentional about keeping in touch with them. 

Trying.

It's hard.

Facebook made things easier in a lot of ways.

But it took a lot from me too.

I mean, I was checking Facebook at red lights. 

Really? 

That's inexcusable. 

And for now, I'm enjoying the quiet. I'm enjoying investing my time in other places. No matter how responsible I was with Facebook, it still stole time from other things that were as equally, or more, important. 

I came across this verse in my study this week:

My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge... Hosea 4:6

Um, yeah. That's the Lord talking. 

And you can read it in context. It doesn't make it any easier to swallow. 

How does that correlate with Facebook?

For many people, maybe it doesn't. 

For me, today, at this moment, Facebook was something that was distracting me from Him.

And maybe that will change. 

I've thought through the changes I would make if I stepped back into Facebookworld. And maybe one day that will happen. For now, today, I don't even want to. 

And perhaps I'm trying to leave that door cracked so that if I tiptoe back in, there won't be any "Oh I thought you blasted Facebook back then and here you are again" type of responses. 

It can be a great thing, and there are things I still miss. That probably won't change. But for now, I'm sure this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I absolutely sure of it. And that's a good feeling. 

I'm enjoying doing more of these...

And fine... Some of this too...

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