Rachel Cunliffe

I go through definite phases of feeling very amicable about Facebook to then feeling rather annoyed by it. But it’s not Facebook’s fault though, is it?

I love that I can keep up with friends and have a day-to-day sense of community with fellow Facebook-friends and a virtual coffee shop (the water cooler metaphor never worked for me). I love being able to share the little moments in life – whether they be through photos, or links or status updates – no matter how mundane or serious.

But there’s things about Facebook which bother me deeply and I go through phases of wanting to take time out from it: to stop sharing, to want someone to ask rather than to be passively told.

When friends get together and someone starts to tell a story, there’s an awkward feeling when the story is cut short by “yeah, yeah I read that on Facebook…”. The embellishments to the story are lost, the status update conquers all.

I also get super-frustrated when some relationships end up living on only – or largely – through Facebook. I wrestle with the fact that this isn’t meant to be… but to stop sharing in the hope that someone stops to ask means you lose out from those coffee shop moments that keep you connected with others in the meantime. Of course, some friendships I’m completely satisfied with them being lived out through Facebook, but others not so much.

There’s just so many new scenarios around relationships thanks to Facebook. Who would have imagined things like this, even a few years ago:

“Will … notice that I didn’t click “like”?”
“I wish they’d do more than “like”.”

I feel a sense of responsibility when I see certain status updates from people when I’m not sure what to say or do in response. If there was such a thing as a “dislike” button, would that be our only response when someone is feeling down or having a rough day? Perhaps it was better when we were blissfully aware.

As a mum of two little boys while working running my own business, I’m becoming increasingly aware of the difficulties of friendships in this phase of life. It’s difficult to find time to meet up with others (mothers groups stress me out in general, plus I’m too busy for those during the working week). Weeknight evenings just don’t seem to work any more – especially when for many people strict bedtime routines with their young kids means you can’t just stay up late and have heart-to-hearts about the deeper things in life like you used to do. Weekends people book out so much in advance it’s not so spontaneous either.

We are quite social, but it’s often hard to get past the keep-one-eye-on-the-toddler-and-feed/change/hold/comfort-baby while out. Exceptions do happen, but more when you’re with people who aren’t so worried about bedtime routines. Conversations largely gravitate to those about children. As much as I adore my boys, I want to talk about other things too.

So it’s back to Facebook I go for the regular little chats during the week with some people but I have this longing for much more than status updates, comments and likes because it’s the easiest way to keep in touch…. but also sometimes too easy.

I started it off because I wanted to get back into writing on my own personal blog, rather than just working on other people’s blogs. I enjoy writing, I enjoy getting comments on my blog and feedback from people. It was a cool meme to be a part of and to learn from and discover other bloggers in New Zealand (when I first started blogging in 2002, there were practically no other kiwi blogs which weren’t political in nature!). Now, I just want to feel a sense of completion, even if it’s taken be about 100 days to complete, oops!

My friends are now located all over the world and I wish I could spend more time with them in person. I like having friends from lots of different parts of my life – I still have friends from when I was four years old, from primary school, from high school, university, past churches, YWAM, my travels, friends of friends, the internet, clients, workmates, you name it! I love spending time with friends over a meal or somewhere outside enjoying the scenery but it’s become harder to have those heart-to-heart talks now I have kids to keep an eye on. In the last few years, even though I’ve probably seen a bit less of my friends, they’ve really been there for me when I needed them most and for that, I know I have true friends :)

Nothing too exciting here: wallet, keys, sunglasses, phone hand sanitiser, baby wipes, hair tie, lip gloss, tissues, band aids, pen, and notepad.

I’ve been thinking a lot about something Karen Beilharz blogged recently and below are my somewhat unorganised thoughts in response.

“Being online involves speaking up because no one can see whether or not you’re there; it’s what you say/type/tweet that draws attention to you, because if you don’t speak, you’re not there.

It’s a thought-provoking blog post and well worth taking the time to read. She writes of how we speak negatively about attention seeking behaviour yet we as humans are in-built with recognition hunger:

“Recognition hunger is the genetically programmed human need for attention, which means having an impact on someone in a way that makes them respond. We all have a fundamental psychological need to feel that we can have an impact on the world, because, “If I have an impact, I know that I exist.”

There’s plenty of times I’ve rolled my eyes at certain status “my life sucks” updates on Facebook or Twitter, and it’s a pet peeve of mine which I’m having second thoughts about. Should I be so internally callous when someone is calling out for a connection?

“Such behaviour is contact-seeking, not attention-seeking. It’s as if [someone is] saying, “I need contact with you. I’ve lost that good feeling, and if I find you again I’ll feel that all is well in my world.”

Quite a while ago, I deleted some people off my Facebook friends list for all sorts of different reasons. I deleted a few people because I felt some sense of responsibility for knowing the information that they were providing via their status updates.

We do like to know what’s going on in other people’s lives – it’s fascinating and we feel connected — even if just though a thin communication thread by clicking “like” and the other person knowing that you’ve seen their photo or update. However, there’s a point where knowing too many details about an acquaintance’s life — details which you’d normally reserve for a friend to empathise with — and knowing too many details about too many people means we either become overwhelmed or numb to the information.

I felt a sense of responsibility when I saw someone’s status updates which were just plainly too much information for my level of relationship with the person. They were obviously going through a tough time and I felt responsible for overhearing their cries for help. I realised that I shouldn’t be in their virtual space and removed them from my list. It used to be that when someone shared a secret, you had a sense of responsibility for knowing that information, a sense of accountability with that person. Social networking is wonderful and can bring people together around someone in such a supportive way but it can also make someone feel lonely in a crowd.

Thinking again about this:

“Being online involves speaking up because no one can see whether or not you’re there; it’s what you say/type/tweet that draws attention to you, because if you don’t speak, you’re not there.

If we rely too much on the technology to tell us when someone needs our love, support and cheering up — if we wait for the status update – then we might just miss noticing when someone isn’t speaking up.

I’ve done a couple of social networking “experiments” this year (experiments in the loosest, non-scientific sense).

One was not doing anything except view content on Facebook for a whole week. I was having a rough time and was feeling a really down about life and I really was wanting someone to ask how I was without having to seek out attention. After a week, one person contacted me on Facebook via a private message to ask how I was doing and they had noticed that I hadn’t added anything to Facebook. The fascinating thing was who it was that contacted me. It wasn’t the most social person on Facebook – in fact they almost never commented on my photos or messaged me. I think that was what made it even more special. It was a stupid head-game I was playing though – “will anyone notice if I’m quiet”? I wonder how many people are saying that each day on Facebook or Twitter.

“Being online involves speaking up because no one can see whether or not you’re there; it’s what you say/type/tweet that draws attention to you, because if you don’t speak, you’re not there.

If more and more of our social lives are lived out online, how will we deliberately seek out the silent part of our social network?

It makes me wonder: am I so caught up in socialising with the socialisers on social networks that I miss the opportunity to notice the quiet one in the corner needing someone to go talk to them? Someone that I actually care about and if I saw them like that in a physical setting, I’d be right over there checking out what was going on.

I’ll talk about the other social networking “experiment” I did in another blog post.