I am addicted to..... Facebook!
It's worse than cigarettes. It' s more perilous than beer and while I don't know any heroin addicts personally, I am pretty sure that the enslavement quality of Facebook must be right up there with it. It is the 21st century's equivalent to peeping through your front curtains into the house across the road from you or peering over your neighbours fence into their back garden to see what they are up to.
To concede that you like Facebook is pretty much the same as owning up to liking Big brother. You are admitting to the world that you have no life of your own so you are reduced to living vicariously through other people with the added bonus of being able to share pointless and meaningless information about yourself ("Rachael is getting ready to watch telly." "Rachael is eating a big mac for dinner" - that sort of thing).
It is just so completely and utterly self indulgent.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I have not gone back to work since my children were born and the highlight of my social life these days is the children's matinee in the cinema on a Saturday afternoon followed by a McDonald's. My pride left the building a long time ago so for anyone who is reading this - Facebook is my heroin and I am not ashamed to admit it.
I love hearing from people that I haven't spoken to in years. I have a friend who I will call Amy in case she is reading this (Hi Amy!!) who thinks that it is appalling to get in contact with someone that you haven't spoken to in twenty years or for them to get in touch with you. "How sad!" were her exact words.
"But why"? I spluttered, "What's wrong with saying hi to someone from your past and having a little nosey through their pics to see if they are still a spotty person with frizzy hair or have they at last discovered GHD hair straighteners and braces since you last met and are now dead ringers for Claudia Schiffer?" Amy answered, "Would it not make you feel a bit bad to hear from people you knew years ago who could be doing so much better than you are now. It could make you feel less appreciative for what you have yourself."
Now, I am nosey but I am not a begrudger. I love to see people doing well for themselves. I really and truly do no matter how unbelievable that sounds (I still think my kids are the nicest anyway). Claudia Schiffer lookalikes, I salute you!
I also have to point out that it's not like you fell out with or had an argument with these people and stormed away refusing to every darken their door again; circumstances such as jobs or families or moving away occurred and you drifted apart from these old friends and I think that it is just fantastic that Facebook exists to enable you to get in touch with them again.
I recently got in touch with a girl that I was friends with in primary school. This girl was a bit of a wild child and was just the coolest person ever. She smoked and drank and had boyfriends before we had even made it to sixth class (that was the sort of thing that counted as cool when I was ten) and I have her to thank for starting me on the road to lung cancer by introducing me to cigarettes before I had turned eleven (I managed to knock it on the head eventually but it took me about fifteen years). Thankfully we moved away as I absolutely adored this girl and would probably be a cocaine addict by now if I had stayed in her company. I was expecting to hear all about her days in rehab and I was all set to ask if she had met anyone famous like Kerry Katona or Shane McGowan while she was there but how shocked was I to discover that she is now a very respectable married woman with three children, lives behind our old school and is a member of the school parents association. She also works as a carer in a hospital for people with challenging behaviour. I hardly think that I need to point out the irony.
I also love the fact that you need only show the pleasant side of you to others if you wish. For example - keeping all your status updates cheery and upbeat like, "What a great today today" and "I'm going to have an even better night tonight" or "I can't stop laughing - my kids are just so funny", makes people think that you are a fun, animated, vivacious sort of person. No-one needs to know that you spent all day shouting at them for throwing all of your expensive make up down the toilet just so that they could see the water change colour. You need only concentrate on how you felt when they were finally asleep and there eventually was silence in the house.
Facebook also helps me keep in touch with my brother and sisters and cousins who I would only see twice a year at most at some family do where we are all a bit drunk and unsure of what to say as we don't really know what anyone else is up to and are worried about offending through ignorance. I once asked my cousin how her boyfriend Mark was and she said "Who's Mark? I've being going out with Sean for the last five years" and then I heard Sean say accusingly "Yeah - who's Mark?" ( I have changed the names here just in case my cousin is reading this and thinks "Oh my God - she still doesn't know his name"). Now thanks to Facebook we are in regular contact and embarrassing incidents like that one are kept to the bare minimum.
My hubby thinks that Facebook is the work of the devil. He only signed up to it because I wanted to put on my profile that I was married to him but the very same day that he signed up he got a friend request from someone that he has been avoiding for years asking him if he wanted to be in a band (This is a guy who used to rob houses as a teenager but fancied himself as a singer so tried to befriend hubby in the hope that hubby would play music for him). "Just ignore him, just ignore him" I soothed but it was too late. It just proved his point that Facebook is evil and designed to enslave your soul.
Hubby also told me recently that when I started to look at my sister's, friend's, brother's, girlfriend's pictures when I have never even met her or the people in them in my life that my addiction was completely getting out of control. However, he got me a new phone for Christmas that enables to me to pop in and out of Facebook all day long in the same manner that I would check my text messages. That was just feeding my dependency if you ask me.
I am completely against collecting people though. You know the people that you used to know years ago and ask you to be a friend but have no interest in talking to you whatsoever and ignore all of your "hello stranger" messages. They will have about five hundred friends in their friends list in an effort to convince themselves that they are popular. Grr - when it bothers a self confessed Facebook addict then it must be annoying. Stop it and get some real friends in the human world or see a councillor.
However, being on Facebook gives me the illusion that I am talking to people on a daily basis when in fact the only people that are I normally see are the kids and my hubby so maybe I need to work on this problem myself. Still, the kids will be in school in a year or two and I'm planning on curbing my Facebook enslavement then but until that day I am going to poke, prod and pry into your life via the great world of technology. You have been warned - feel free to poke back!
To concede that you like Facebook is pretty much the same as owning up to liking Big brother. You are admitting to the world that you have no life of your own so you are reduced to living vicariously through other people with the added bonus of being able to share pointless and meaningless information about yourself ("Rachael is getting ready to watch telly." "Rachael is eating a big mac for dinner" - that sort of thing).
It is just so completely and utterly self indulgent.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I have not gone back to work since my children were born and the highlight of my social life these days is the children's matinee in the cinema on a Saturday afternoon followed by a McDonald's. My pride left the building a long time ago so for anyone who is reading this - Facebook is my heroin and I am not ashamed to admit it.
I love hearing from people that I haven't spoken to in years. I have a friend who I will call Amy in case she is reading this (Hi Amy!!) who thinks that it is appalling to get in contact with someone that you haven't spoken to in twenty years or for them to get in touch with you. "How sad!" were her exact words.
"But why"? I spluttered, "What's wrong with saying hi to someone from your past and having a little nosey through their pics to see if they are still a spotty person with frizzy hair or have they at last discovered GHD hair straighteners and braces since you last met and are now dead ringers for Claudia Schiffer?" Amy answered, "Would it not make you feel a bit bad to hear from people you knew years ago who could be doing so much better than you are now. It could make you feel less appreciative for what you have yourself."
Now, I am nosey but I am not a begrudger. I love to see people doing well for themselves. I really and truly do no matter how unbelievable that sounds (I still think my kids are the nicest anyway). Claudia Schiffer lookalikes, I salute you!
I also have to point out that it's not like you fell out with or had an argument with these people and stormed away refusing to every darken their door again; circumstances such as jobs or families or moving away occurred and you drifted apart from these old friends and I think that it is just fantastic that Facebook exists to enable you to get in touch with them again.
I recently got in touch with a girl that I was friends with in primary school. This girl was a bit of a wild child and was just the coolest person ever. She smoked and drank and had boyfriends before we had even made it to sixth class (that was the sort of thing that counted as cool when I was ten) and I have her to thank for starting me on the road to lung cancer by introducing me to cigarettes before I had turned eleven (I managed to knock it on the head eventually but it took me about fifteen years). Thankfully we moved away as I absolutely adored this girl and would probably be a cocaine addict by now if I had stayed in her company. I was expecting to hear all about her days in rehab and I was all set to ask if she had met anyone famous like Kerry Katona or Shane McGowan while she was there but how shocked was I to discover that she is now a very respectable married woman with three children, lives behind our old school and is a member of the school parents association. She also works as a carer in a hospital for people with challenging behaviour. I hardly think that I need to point out the irony.
I also love the fact that you need only show the pleasant side of you to others if you wish. For example - keeping all your status updates cheery and upbeat like, "What a great today today" and "I'm going to have an even better night tonight" or "I can't stop laughing - my kids are just so funny", makes people think that you are a fun, animated, vivacious sort of person. No-one needs to know that you spent all day shouting at them for throwing all of your expensive make up down the toilet just so that they could see the water change colour. You need only concentrate on how you felt when they were finally asleep and there eventually was silence in the house.
Facebook also helps me keep in touch with my brother and sisters and cousins who I would only see twice a year at most at some family do where we are all a bit drunk and unsure of what to say as we don't really know what anyone else is up to and are worried about offending through ignorance. I once asked my cousin how her boyfriend Mark was and she said "Who's Mark? I've being going out with Sean for the last five years" and then I heard Sean say accusingly "Yeah - who's Mark?" ( I have changed the names here just in case my cousin is reading this and thinks "Oh my God - she still doesn't know his name"). Now thanks to Facebook we are in regular contact and embarrassing incidents like that one are kept to the bare minimum.
My hubby thinks that Facebook is the work of the devil. He only signed up to it because I wanted to put on my profile that I was married to him but the very same day that he signed up he got a friend request from someone that he has been avoiding for years asking him if he wanted to be in a band (This is a guy who used to rob houses as a teenager but fancied himself as a singer so tried to befriend hubby in the hope that hubby would play music for him). "Just ignore him, just ignore him" I soothed but it was too late. It just proved his point that Facebook is evil and designed to enslave your soul.
Hubby also told me recently that when I started to look at my sister's, friend's, brother's, girlfriend's pictures when I have never even met her or the people in them in my life that my addiction was completely getting out of control. However, he got me a new phone for Christmas that enables to me to pop in and out of Facebook all day long in the same manner that I would check my text messages. That was just feeding my dependency if you ask me.
I am completely against collecting people though. You know the people that you used to know years ago and ask you to be a friend but have no interest in talking to you whatsoever and ignore all of your "hello stranger" messages. They will have about five hundred friends in their friends list in an effort to convince themselves that they are popular. Grr - when it bothers a self confessed Facebook addict then it must be annoying. Stop it and get some real friends in the human world or see a councillor.
However, being on Facebook gives me the illusion that I am talking to people on a daily basis when in fact the only people that are I normally see are the kids and my hubby so maybe I need to work on this problem myself. Still, the kids will be in school in a year or two and I'm planning on curbing my Facebook enslavement then but until that day I am going to poke, prod and pry into your life via the great world of technology. You have been warned - feel free to poke back!
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