Unreality

I recently mentioned to an acquaintance (I am not using the word "friend" here, as the reason will soon be evident) that I was thinking of deleting my Facebook account (again). There wasn't one, specific reason for this, more so an accumulation of... dissatisfaction. Interactions (or lack thereof) on that particular social media platform have felt hollow for some time. And the Zuckerberg app, more than other outlets, tends to bring out the worst in my emotions for some reason.

"But how will I know what's going on with you?" the person asked. And there's the rub. This person has my phone number. They can call or text at any time, yet never do. In truth, they rarely interact with me on Facebook, yet I know they see what I put up there because they report back to various people some of the stuff I post. So it goes. At any rate, I reminded them of how they have my phone number. We'll see if they ever reach out.

My birthday last year was a revelation. It crystallized so much, though it wasn't always in the happiest of ways. The people who made a big deal out of my special day -- treating me to breakfast, lunch and dinner -- were folks whom I'd not done anything for in the past. They were just being good friends. Meanwhile, those whom I'd made a special point of celebrating their birthdays with in the past, well, some of them managed a happy birthday text. Others, I didn't even hear from. And the only contact from a few of those people came in the form of a Facebook 'Happy Birthday!' message on my wall. When you've recognized people's birthdays in the past, trying to make their day as special as possible, a brief half-sentence on Facebook is, to put it mildly, deflating.

So has social media made us lazy, or has it laid bare the truth in our relationships? Perhaps a bit of both? A lot of us probably spend too much time online. It has become convenient to handle much of our social interaction there, especially since the pandemic. And, at its best, something like Facebook should work as a way to keep up with the comings and goings of the people we know, and to stay in contact with them. Where it begins to break down is when it becomes the primary way to stay in contact with the people we know and love.

Social media is, at least for me, jumbled, busy, and often impersonal. It's easy to scroll through your feed, see something you enjoy, click the 'like' button, and move on. It's quick and easy. Meanwhile, in the real world, it takes effort to maintain relationships. Texting is convenient and, in certain ways, not hugely better than social media contact, but at least it feels a little more personal. Then there's e-mail (super-archaic, I know, but still nice). Phone calls are great. I've written in these pages before about my renewed affinity for talking with friends on the phone. It still doesn't happen nearly often enough, but I understand why. We live in an age of texting. Voice calls are so yesterday. Of course, meeting up with people in-person is the best there is. I don't like crowds, but I love a small, intimate gatherings with friends.

So, yeah, I might be leaving Facebook. Twitter has always felt somewhat impersonal to me, but Facebook... well, I think it rather insidiously presents itself as the most social of social mediums, yet has done much to damage our interpersonal relationships. It's made us lazy when it comes to our friendships, and that is perhaps one of its worst aspects. One of my friends left Facebook a few years ago, and we regularly keep in touch, and meet-up occasionally (she lives in a different town). It's nice. It feels like friendships ought to be. None of the cold, public artifice of an app.