5 Reasons You Should Stop Trying to Give Up Facebook
by Alaina Nielson
The other night I was at dinner with some friends, and someone brought up a meme they had seen on Facebook. Someone else immediately said, "Oh, we stopped doing Facebook over a year ago." With guilty faces, the rest of us made excuses: "Oh, I don't ever post. I just like to keep up with some friends." Or, "I just like to see what people are talking about." After a few more awkward excuses, the conversation moved on.
Especially in recent years, I feel confident that almost all of us have had similar experiences. In many circles (if we're not teenagers), admitting we are addicted to social media is like admitting we are addicted to drugs. We make fun of each other for engaging in social media activity, such as excessive tweeting or spending large amounts of time on Facebook, yet we all participate on some level (even if we're the ones sharing our experience of overcoming the social media drug and speaking of the liberation that followed thereafter).
Here's the thing, though. In a world where we are constantly looking for excuses to shame other people, I say it's time we stop social media shaming. That includes shaming those teens who always seem to be snapping, tweeting, or posting. Social Media is not a drug. I would even suggest it is an important part of modern conversation, emotional navigation, and connectivity. I'm not saying that social media does not have its detriments. It certainly does, and there are many problems associated with excessive use that should not be ignored or taken lightly, but treating it as taboo or a shameful behavior is not the way to overcome these problems. So if you're one of those people who just can't shake the social media habit, here's the validation you've been waiting for along with a list of a few of the reasons you shouldn't check into social media rehab.
1. Wanting to Share What Happens in Your Life is OK.
I’m going to talk about Freud for a minute, but please don’t run. On many levels, Freud gets a bad rap because he talked about sex all the time. However, he did talk about other things, too. At the core of Freud’s work, you’ll find a philosophy on the individual that suggests that we are all unique. We are all made up of our own history, which includes all our surroundings and all our experiences with those surroundings. Just because my sister and I grew up in the same house and witnessed the same events does not mean we had the same experiences. The way in which we as individuals experience life is completely and utterly unique.
The implication of this is we know nothing besides ourselves. As individuals, we all navigate the world and our experiences differently, even if we live in the same country, the same state, or even the same household. I think in our core, we all can feel our own uniqueness, even if we’ve never read Freud and other philosophers and put it into words. With that in mind, it makes sense that we would feel an urge to express our experiences, share our navigation, and care that people listened in some form or another.
Social media provides a great platform for this to happen. Is it perfect? No. We’ve all read the posts that don’t sound unique at all but rather drive home a certain stereotype, and we all have those friends who seem to do nothing but re-tweet or re-post, so this might not be an intuitive connection. However, I would argue that the posts aren’t as important as what is behind the posts. Somewhere, someone found something that resonated with them and added to their individual experience in a way it will add to no one else’s, and they decided to share. In my book, there is nothing about that action that calls for shaming.
(I’m including in that even those stupid posts that we all read that make us doubt the value of humanity itself. Navigation is hard, and we all have to do it differently. That’s still no reason to judge.)
Freud’s work was about helping people to navigate their existence, and what he discovered was that talking helped. Social media is a form of talking, and thus has the potential to act in therapeutic ways as we puzzle out our individual lives.
2. Social Media Doesn’t Have to Rule You - You Can Rule Social Media
We don’t have to become slaves to social media, even though it lends itself to mastery and we tend to lend ourselves to servitude when we use it. Maybe you’re a parent and thinking something like, “Yeah, your philosophies are all fine and dandy, but how can I expect my teenager or even my young child to grasp that and not become a social media junky who not only embarrasses themselves by oversharing but also puts themselves in danger?”
To you concerned parents out there, I would say you’re right. We can’t have a healthy social media existence without boundaries. Maybe this means you monitor your children’s social media activity and set appropriate guidelines. If you’re an adult who has felt enslaved by your social media use, maybe this means setting aside a set amount of time for social media and not letting yourself overindulge.
We can also take account management into our own hands. Maybe time isn’t so much the problem as is depressing content. In that case, try to balance your feed. Follow things that make you happy or you find interesting. I’m not saying cut out anything you don’t agree with, (I think that is dangerous in and of itself), but always try to find a way to end on a positive note. It’s also a good idea to protect your privacy by managing you share content with and what content you see. Remember—you are the master not the slave!
3. The Fantasy of Connectivity
I have no authority on the subject of why social media was created, but just by the nature of the beast, I would wager a guess that it had something to do with being connected to other people. This is my favorite thing about social media. My friends from the town where I grew up, from the foreign country where I lived briefly, and from the neighborhood down the street are all equally accessible. I can see what is going on in their lives. I can look at pictures, read funny stories, or get updated on big events taking place in their lives or in their community. In short, I am connected in a way I know I would not be otherwise.
Some of you are shaking your head sadly at this point, saying “What has the world come to that we can’t even be bothered to pick up a phone?” You’re right. It’s sad, but it doesn’t have to be sad because despite the fact we’ve degraded into lazitivy as a society, social media still provides a way for us to engage with friends and family. It offers connectivity.
I’m going to throw another name at you that may not be as familiar as Freud but is in the same realm of philosophy: Jacques Lacan. Lacan talked a lot about lack, about how once we engage in language, we are forever disconnected from what he calls the “real.” If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry too much about it. Basically what he goes on to argue is we can feel this “real,” but because we can never get to it, we spend our lives creating fantasies to cover up the lack we are experiencing. Fantasies can in a broad sense cover anything we are using to deal with life, whether that be religious beliefs, social beliefs, or anything.
What I just described--that connected feeling--Lacan would ultimately call a fantasy. You could label it as some sort of coping mechanism that makes me think my life is worthwhile because I have people I care about and who care about me. In my mind, the question isn’t whether connectivity through social media is a fantasy or not (or whether or not you agree with the writings of Lacan), but rather, even if it is a fantasy, what is wrong with feeling like I’m connected to people? You may disagree, but here’s where I come down on this: It doesn’t matter if its “real” or “fantasy.” Maybe I’m just living under the illusion of being connected, but that illusion is not harming me, nor my friends in any way. Just because it is a fantasy doesn’t make it something to be ashamed of. Last I checked, coping with life was generally considered a good thing (it’s the need to cope that has the negative connotation, but I’m not going to dive into that wormhole in this article. This ridiculous notion that needing to cope somehow makes you less of an acceptable person is a topic for another day) and yielded good benefits. If social media helps you feel connected, then there is no reason to give it up. (Just exercise your use within boundaries, like we discussed earlier).
At Least “Slacktivism” is an “Ism.”
Maybe you’ve heard this term “slacktivism” before. It’s basically the concept that people post something on social media and feel like they’ve somehow contributed to a great cause and can now pat themselves on the back and go about their daily business. First of all, I think this unfairly categorizes all those who post sympathetic/supportive messages on social media into one large, unrepresentative group. Are there true slackivists out there? I’m sure of it. If you want something or someone to despise in this world, you’ll always find it. But I think the majority people are genuinely helping in the only way that seems accessible to them. And hey, it’s better than nothing.
Plus, I believe that any sort of involvement in social movements, social mourning, or social awareness has the potential to lead somewhere. If you’ve been that person sitting at your computer and feeling empathy connected to the latest tragedy that has reached social media, don’t feel like simply expressing your grief or your view through a digital medium somehow makes you an inadequate part of the human community. That pat on the back isn’t completely undeserved.
But please, then realize that the tragedy you’ve read about is not the sole tragedy taking place in the world. Recognize that we have limited news feeds, limited vision, and that we can do more that post a crying face on Facebook. I’m not saying you have to get involved in every great cause out there, but choose one or two. Research, understand, and then find out what you can do outside the boundaries of your keyboard. Also recognize that there is no reason to ridicule your first steps, just as we never say that a toddler who can now walk easily is somehow less worthy of walking because their first steps were tentative and clumsy. We all have to start somewhere.
5. Light helps Dispel the Dark
The biggest reason I hear my friends give for “getting out of” social media has to do with the negativity it brought into their lives. We’ve already addressed this slightly when we discussed controlling social media rather than letting it control us, but I want to stress a point I full-heartedly believe: light chases away the dark. Just because you are on social media does not mean you have to contribute to the negativity of it. It’s okay to express how you feel on a particularly bad day (I am strongly against pretending we are never sad or unhappy), but you can fight against hate and misunderstanding by promoting love and understanding. It may be just a drop in the bucket, but if instead of leaving Facebook a few more people would take it upon themselves to contribute in a positive way, it might be less prone to be a cesspool for despicable behavior. Social media was designed to allow for conversations. It’s easy to get discouraged because often the loudest and most sensational voices are the ones that get heard, but they will only be louder if all other voices retreat and don’t create any dissonance.
Some things that happen on social media or as a result of social media are truly awful. I had a friend and former student, a talented vivacious girl, take her own life as a result of what was said to her over social media. In my rage and sadness, I wanted to solve The Social Media Problem and stop anything like this from happening again. The question I constantly came up against was how?
I can’t pretend I’ve come to any great conclusions, but here’s what I know. A week before my friend took her life, her parents became aware of what was happening on social media and banned her from using it. They took away her phone, her computer, and established strict rules. Just taking away the social media didn’t help though. In a moment when no one was there to supervise her, she still took her own life. I am in no way criticizing her parents or her. I don’t claim to have any understanding of what was going on beneath the surface of that situation; however, I think we can still infer from this example that simply banning yourself from platforms where hate abounds is not going to protect you from the terrible influences that hate causes in our every day lives. Just because terrible things happen on social media doesn’t mean you should ignore good things that happen there too, and it definitely doesn’t mean you should give up trying to contribute to the good things taking place.
In the end:
The decision about how you contribute to social media is up to you. Because of the world we live in, it is impossible to exist without social media, even if we cancel all accounts and vow to never use the internet. Trying to run to a pedestal in a far corner and looking down your nose at all the small people typing away on their keyboards and their phones isn’t usually the right way to find the liberation we crave from social media. Rather, we have to be willing to recognize the good it is doing and set careful boundaries for ourselves. You can feel free to be a pessimist when it comes to the dark influences of social media on our society, but as for me, I choose hope and healthy engagement.
About the Author
Alaina grew up in a small town in Idaho where the idea of “high-speed internet” still remains a distant dream today. After switched out her small town in Idaho for a small town in Utah to attend Southern Utah University, she decided to give up the rural and spend just over a year living in Taiwan where she learned to speak Chinese, love biking, and push her stomach to abnormal eating capacity. Alaina is currently a senior at Utah Valley University studying English, interaction design, and Chinese. She enjoys hiking, spending time with her husband and two parakeets, and trying to articulate her methods of navigating human existence.