Facebook Woes

Oh, Facebook! I definitely have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.

I am a very verbal person (if you've read my other posts, you've figured that out). I often have a hard time keeping my opinion to myself.

Facebook was a place that I had been sharing my thoughts for several years. I mean it is MY page after all. Right? That's what it's for - sharing your thoughts. Sharing my thoughts kept getting me into trouble, though. Let me explain. I'm VERY conservative, Christian, and some of my beliefs are considered extreme (extreme because most people believe that the bible is "interpretable" and only want to follow God's word if it doesn't interfere with the kind of life they want to live) even to my church family. I was causing problems. My "friends" (and sometimes family) on Facebook would often get offended by my posts and would tell me by commenting on my posts - and sometimes not in a very nice way. *Sigh* Causing trouble. Stirring the pot. Being a drama queen. These are not words I want people to think of when they think of me.

Enter December 2012. There was a lot going on in our nation and lots of young moms were voicing their concerns on Facebook about their fears of sending their children to public school when the time came. So, I made a post about my feelings on homeschooling. Oi Vey! Shoulda kept my mouth shut! Woohoo, did I stir it up with that one! So much so, that my then 18 year old daughter felt like she had to come to my defense and she was never homeschooled. So, I made the decision that it would just be better to shut my Facebook page down. I didn't want to be one of THOSE people. You know, like I mentioned above. I made a brief post stating that I was leaving, said I would miss everyone, and then said goodbye.

Now, imagine the next week or two. I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. I still reached for it from time to time, out of habit, to check in and see what everyone was doing. Then, all of a sudden, life became so much less stressful. Without reading everyone's business, seeing disturbing articles about politics, and just general nonsense, I felt much happier!

This bliss lasted for about 3 1/2 months. I decided to re-open my business. I had owned a small boutique when we lived in the city and had closed it more than a year before because of economic conditions. Of course, I see now, that it didn't really have anything to do with that at all. God had allowed me to follow that dream, but it was more important for me to be at home caring for and teaching my children. Back to the store - I wanted to see if I could do any business by offering the same products I had sold in my store in an online setting. I wanted to contribute to our family finances without interfering with my duties at home. The easiest place to do that without investing a dime is, you guessed it, Facebook. But, you can't have or run a Facebook business page without having a personal page.

I did give it a go for a while with my store online. Didn't work. Seems people are still broke. So, I gave that up. But, I had made a page for my bakery "business". It's not really a business, but I do bake for others from time to time. I wanted a place to share photos of available items if someone wanted to order something.

Facebook began getting under my skin again. Well, not really Facebook as much as my "friends" on Facebook. It is exhausting to see people who are "Christians" posting pictures of themselves doing very un-Christian like things. It makes my heart hurt. And, sometimes, I get downright mad. Add in all the political posts that come into my feed, the abortion discussions, articles about food companies poisoning the food we eat, videos of children dancing like strippers while adults watch and laugh, posts about drinking, drugs, partying and such. I had had enough. Now, I don't want to live with my head in the sand, but I also don't want to be bombarded with so much filth and negativity. Before you call me out, I did not have MOST of those listed things showing up in my newsfeed by MY choice. Most of those items were coming across because a "friend" had "liked" this page or that, or "liked" a post by someone else. I had cleaned up my "friends" list when I re-entered the world of Facebook a few months ago. I figured if some of the offenders thought I was gone forever anyway, they wouldn't notice if I "un-friended" them.

What to do? What to do? I was sick of seeing so much nonsense. The simplest thing to do was to de-activate my page again. Permanently. But.....what about my cousins that live thousands of miles away? What about my high school friends that live across the country and sometimes around the world? I would miss out on so much. A phone call is great, but.....pictures. I would miss seeing their lives through photos and posts. Some of my cousins have grandchildren already. I would likely never get to see these beautiful children without Facebook. I do NOT do high school reunions. And, neither would most of the friends from high school that I want to stay in touch with - some of them live hundreds and maybe even as far as thousands of miles away. I love seeing their lives and children on Facebook. If I de-activate, I lose the things about Facebook that make me smile, and sometimes even LOL!

Today, I decided that I would not let others ruin the Facebook experience for me. I logged on, hid myself from view (so no one would try to start a conversation with me) and started the horrid task of the BIG CLEAN-UP. I un-liked a LOT of pages of both big and small companies. If I didn't want to delete or un-like them, I hid their posts from my newsfeed. I only left the ones that I really, really wanted to see. On to my list of "friends". Some of these people are family. Since I had deleted people from that list a few months ago that were not either really close to me, or made a positive impact on my life, I did not delete anyone else. BUT, I did hide a LOT of these folks from showing up in my newsfeed any longer. They won't know that I hid them, so their feelings won't get hurt, and I don't have to see their nonsense anymore! I'm sad to say some of these people are my family members.

I feel so much better! Now, if I could just convince my husband that Facebook is not the devil! Ha! He HATES Facebook with a passion. He has never had a Facebook page and never will. He believes that Facebook is a cause for divorce. Based on a report I read the other day, he's right. A large percentage of divorce cases have the word FACEBOOK listed in their cause for divorce. For goodness sakes, don't let something as silly as Facebook come between you and your spouse. If Facebook is causing a problem in your marriage, shut your page down and walk away and don't look back. Ever. Please.

Since my arrival back on Facebook a few months ago, I have spent very little time on the site. My goal is to use Facebook even more sparingly now than I have recently. I want to use it as a positive tool for keeping in touch with those whom I don't see often.

I think my point is this.....Any social media can be good OR bad. It's how you choose to use it that makes the difference. It makes more sense to me to feel a little bad for deleting someone from your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever if they are filling that space in your life with negativity, than it is to feel bad EVERY time you decide to visit your social media sites because the stuff that OTHER people are posting hurts your heart or makes you mad. I don't want to be mad. Life is too short. If any social media site is causing you to rethink your presence there, consider a clean-up like I did. If it doesn't work, shut it down. You'll be surprised how little you'll miss it.