Social Media

I use Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. 

I check each of them multiple times daily. I check to see what my friends (both real and online) are up to. 

I look at the highlight reel of their days. The funny tidbits, the recipes, the videos that they share. 

I post things too. And I am sure I do what everyone else does and thinks about their audience before they post. 

They think about how their grandma follows them on Facebook, so they post the dirty joke on Twitter. They think about what others will think, how others will react to the snipbit that they decide to share online.

I do the same thing. A Lot. Things I normally would post only to Twitter (the place I put my brain vomit) I put on Facebook because the boy I like is on Facebook and might see it (if he bothers to read Facebook and Facebook decides I am worthy of his news feed).

Stuff I don't want my mom or family to see goes on Twitter because it is not ok to be brutally honest. 

It's all so dumb. It's such a dumb way to hide who we are. A dumb way to only show our highlight reel. A dumb way to keep up with those around us. 

Social media has allowed me, has made it "ok" for me to go almost 3 years without talking to my college roommate because we are both getting each other's highlight reel online. 

It's not the internet's fault. 

It's my fault, it's your fault, it's our collective fault that we have allowed technology to fill this space in our lives. 

That we have taken this thing that could be used for such good. These tools for reaching out to each other havebecome blockades to each other. They create walls instead of bridges. They build up (by our doing) piece after piece of fake facade. That we are funny, that we are happy, that we travel all the time, love our jobs, know the perfect recipes and have these great families that love each other. 

They very rarely are a true door or window into our lives. Running late for work, forgetting to take out the trash, dirty dishes in the sink, dancing in the living room, crying on the bathroom floor. 

Those moments that make us wholly real, wholly human, wholly lovable.  

FaceSpace

I keep debating over my feelings for Facebook.
On one hand I love that it is an easy way for me to keep track (note: not in touch) with friends and people in my life.
On the other hand I do not like that everyone and everything is connected through it.
Some things to consider: (in no order what so ever)
1) I have been on Facebook since pretty early on. I remember the days when it was only for college students and when my friends at Iowa State had it but I had to wait for Northern Iowa to get it. It was a private club. I liked that, I felt special.
2) My dad is on Facebook. That is just weird.
3) As mentioned previously, I dont actually use Facebook to keep in touch with people. Keeping in touch implies more than just reading their statuses,  checking out their pictures and an occasional comment or like. It implies actual conversation, little to none of which I do. I religiously read statuses and always have to check out the pictures, but barely ever to I use Facebook for anything other than legal stalking.
4) I have often thought about friend requesting every person I have more than 2 mutual friends with. (Horrible grammer I know)  It would be a fascinating case in Its a Small World.  Everytime I think about I talk myself out of it. Mostly because by doing so it would allow these strangers into my world.
In a blog I have thought about, but not posted or written much of, are the truths about my fortress.  The elaborate system of walls, which I have built to protect myself. If I friend request every Tom, Dick, and Sally, I am allowing guest passes into Jannaland. I am not ok with that. (Confession: I have 3 different email accounts, a FB account (duh), a Twitter account (not connected in any way(on purpose)) and this blog, all so I can keep parts of my life separated)
Also it really annoys me when people I dont know ask to be my facebook friend.
5) I also often think about defriending most people on my current friend list. Those people from college who I never speak to, and if I ran into them at the mall, wouldn't know what to say to them. But I can usually justify most of the people staying. "They're family, if I unfriend them it would create family tension." "This is a good business contact." "If I ever find myself in XYZ city, I can use this person for info." "They always have funny posts." "I like seeing pictures of their cute kids" Nothing good, nothing valid. But yet they remain my "friends". Maybe I need to go back to my old thought of "If I would enjoy a meal with you, you can be my facebook friend."
6) I completely dislike that EVERYTHING has a Facebook page now. My favorite band, the grocery store, the bowling alley, the apartment complex. I do not like that so much of my world, of THE world is contained in one little website. (I almost called it an app, until I remembered that it does still exist mostly as a website.) If Facebook dies, so much dies with it. My trust issues are not ok with that.

But yet there it is, this thing that rules so much of my world, so much of the world period. There it sits and there it shall stay until I can learn to actually keep in touch with people and deal with a lack of information.

P.S. I got really distracted while typing this and starting thinking about comas, colons, and semi-colons, more than I should. I should probably learn how to use the last two better.