What a difference social media has made in my life. Yours too, I’m assuming. When I joined Facebook way back in 2004, back before photo albums, news feeds, applications, and all the other bells and whistles, it was just a cool networking tool between people at my university (and other universities, if you knew someone there).
Back then, you could send messages, write on people’s walls, poke each other, and change your profile picture. That was it. And we loved it. Then there were groups to join (which I did, and started way too many others) and photo albums to create. Facebook quickly became the biggest time suck of my life. My friends and I would spend hours trolling profile pages, sometimes of people we barely even knew. I’d even venture to say that I was addicted to it. I felt like I had to check it every hour. In order to break that addiction, I fasted from Facebook. It worked; I was no longer obsessed.
As Facebook continued to change, my love affair with it started to wane. There was a huge uproar among college students when Facebook was opened to high schoolers. And then an even larger one when Facebook was opened to the general public (and therefore potentially creepy people, a la Myspace, which is why my privacy settings are so high that people complain they can’t find me on Facebook.) As students, we almost revolted when Facebook started publishing the news feeds (which we’ve now accepted and some have accelerated with Twitter) and when rumors of creepy stalker applications spread.
And yet, it’s still one of the most useful tools I have for keeping up with friends who are now spread all over the country. It also proved pretty useful when some inappropriate photos popped up of my LifeGroup girls baking male “parts” with chocolate chip cookie dough. (I am not making this up!) I try to stay off their pages for the most part, but when photos like that pop up on my news feed, I figure it warrants a conversation. Facebook has also been positive for our LifeGroup in that I can post prayer requests to the group we started online, send messages to let girls know I’m praying for them, and get to know what they’re up to, what music they’re listening to, and who their current friends are.
So I’m looking for some feedback from you. Please leave a comment with your answer to the following poll: How has Facebook changed your life?
a.) I’m afraid I’m addicted to it. I’m on it incessantly. I’m friends with people I’ve never met who live in places I’ve never been.
b.) I check Facebook several times a day, just to see if anyone I know is doing anything interesting
c.) I check Facebook once a day or a few times a week, when I remember.
d.) I forgot I had Facebook! I’m rarely on it.
e.) I’m not a Facebooker.
C - I enjoy keeping up with far away friends through it BUT it is time consuming so I don't allow myself to get on there too often.
I started Facebooking last fall to keep up with my youth girls from church. It quickly turned into a time issue for me. I've recently "unfriended" a ton of people, even old high school folks who I haven't seen in 20 years and have nothing in common with. I've really been cutting back on my FB time lately, but I don't want to delete it altogether because I think it's a good way to keep up. I did delete my Twitter account, though. I just don't need to be bombarded by so much information.
I like Twitter, but only during the weekdays. (c) would be my answer for Facebook with only a couple times a week. I perfer my Google reader now to keep up with blogs.
B - I definitely think between Facebook, Twitter and Blogging I waste A LOT of time. I have recently considered fasting from them, but haven't done so yet. I created a page for my High School girls as well with the same purposes in mind but they haven't really taken to it yet.