The Lent Experiment

The other day, I posted a somewhat ranting post about how I believe the tone of Facebook has changed over the past year or so. Dreading the possibility of being maimed by soon to be mothers or being reminded of Thumper’s philosophy in Bambi (If you can’t something nice….don’t say nothing at all), instead I was, suffice to say, surprised. I actually had people agreeing with me, claiming that I had a fair point. Agreement then led me to realise that whilst I complain I have actually not taken any decisive action to separate myself from this toxic form of bragging. Until now.

The 40 days and 40 nights of lent are generally seen, in its most modern form, as a period of time to give up our life vices in exchange for….well not in exchange for anything, just to see if we are up for the challenge. (I hasten to add, obviously for the more religious, there is actually a point but us agnostic/atheist people just wanted to hop on the bandwagon.) In my younger years of 15 or 16 I once, successfully, gave up my vice of MSN for lent. Another, I rather less successfully, gave up chocolate. A couple years ago I participated in a different kind of lent where you spent 40 days and 40 nights simply doing kind things, or things that made you feel good. Apparently throughout all the other years I deemed myself too damn perfect to give anything up. Nonetheless, in the year circa 2006, my MSN fast was strangely a more positive experience than I had anticipated. Rather than scurrying home from school to chat to friends who I had seen 5 minutes prior, I spoke to my mother, socialised in person and if I wanted to catch up I sent emails or called my friends. I actually….communicated?! During the whole of the 40 days my inbox would be full of funny, private, personal messages and I spent so much more time constructing my emails. Our conversations were no longer based on infantile banter of ‘lol’ and emoticons. Despite the fact that I went straight back to using MSN after the 40 days were up, looking back, I realise that my contact with friends felt a lot more worthwhile when it was not constant and was not based on watching the little computer image of a pencil scribbling up and down as they typed.

So, learning from my 16 year old self, I have decided it is time to have a facebook fast. I have signed off, removed my app shortcut from my phone and have reverted back to simply using my phone to get in touch with people…and twitter. During the next 4o days I have no intention of signing back in to check the gossip or whatever is going on in my constantly updating newsfeed and instead I have every intention of actually….communicating?!It was also be a wonderful experiment to test just how much happier I will feel when the few weeks are up. No longer will I look at all the things that pissed me off in my previous rant and perhaps I might feel happy with my lot in life after I’ve stopped comparing it to everybody else’s.

That said…I’ll get back to you when I’ve had enough of staring at my phone praying for it to ring.

Bragbook

I know that I am not alone when I think that Facebook nowadays has stopped being a social networking device. Rather than being used to arrange events or communicate with old friends it has, over the past few months, nay, over the past year, become a bragging ground for those in relationships or for those with buns in the oven. Never, in my many years of being signed up to the website have I noticed such an influx of ‘relationship statues’ or the nauseating newsfeed clutter of ‘my baby’s progress’. Yes, I realise I sound bitter and yes this is probably because I have no such status changes coming up in the near future. However, in a society that is so fixated on modern technology and keeping in contact with people, it now feels like a race to share such life events online. The moment somebody feels a baby kick or the moment somebody says: ‘Will you be my girlfriend’ it HAS to be shared on Facebook to then await numerous ‘likes’ and congratulatory comments. Even negative news has to be put on Facebook to await sympathy remarks and pity textual hugs. (At this point I confess I ring the bell for a pity party; it’s too hard to resist when you’re sick and feeling, quite frankly, miserable) Nonetheless, the main point I am trying to get to, behind all of my cynical ranting is this. If these life events are so important, if they are so momentous, surely you only want to share them with the people who are closest to you, who know everything there is to know about you? Surely, not all of your 500+ friends want to know how big your bump is getting or how many roses your boyfriend shoved through the letter box.

The art of privacy is slowly fading and what is left is a bunch of depersonalised life moments, flaunted for the world to see that blend so intrinsically with everybody else’s moments that they no longer seem unique. Instead it seems to be a competition that we are all silently playing; a competition to be the best, have the best life and get the most positive looking ‘timeline’ there is on Facebook. Yet, ultimately, all that the timeline shows are relationships and holidays. A timeline does not reflect the bad moments in life or the minor moments that can change a person to their core. Whilst one person may look like they’ve lived because they’ve seen the world or they’ve had a child or they’ve got engaged, there is somebody else silently living a different existence. An existence that could potentially be more momentous, more significant and more life altering than anything that Facebook can think to make an app for or post on a timeline.

I realise I am up there with the rest of them. Posting my holiday pictures, throwing a status out there claiming how shit my dissertation is or how happy I am that exams are over. Indeed, in my first years of using the website I continuously made comments on such personal moments I’m ashamed I put them anywhere near the internet. But now, at the end of the day, no matter how many ‘likes’ I get, no matter how many event invites I receive, nothing cheers me up more than an unexpected phone call, a quick catch up coffee or a friend bringing me Ribena when I’m sick just because she felt like it. And I assure you I don’t feel the need to brag about all of those moments on Facebook because they are usually what mean most to me.