How healthy is Facebook?

Exactly how healthy is facebook? This has been the question I’ve been pondering lately on many levels. Mainly because I’ve caught myself spending more and more time online instead of with my child, just so I can bake cakes, plant corn and harvest trees. But I feel that this question has also taken on another meaning lately with all the heated political debates.


Tim and I try to be tolerant to everyone. We don’t claim to be perfect, we do screw up, but for the most part, we’d like to consider ourselves pretty opened minded and accepting. Most of the times, we like to sit in the “middle of the road”, so to speak, and watch both sides. But lately, I’ve been saddened with people’s inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to do the same. Which brings me back to my original question, is this really healthy for us?

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the social interaction, almost to the point of addiction. I get a strange personal high when someone comments on my pictures or “likes” my status. This makes me feel accepted and accomplished, like “Hey, they agreed with me!” or “I made them laugh!” But lately, I’ve seen a much uglier side and this is usually from people I least expected it from. It’s the hurtfulness a negative and/or abrasive comment can bring. Facebook makes it almost feel personal at times. Say you’re having a good day, and you log on just to find a wall full of stasus’ that do nothing but bitch and moan. Even if these comments are directly related to you, wouldn’t that bring you down?

Now, I know life isn’t all puppies, rainbows and butterflies but I am also a firm believer in owning one’s happiness. What good does passing your negativity on to someone else do? Gives you an outlet to vent? Well, yes but rarely to people stop to think about how the person they’re venting to feel.

I guess what I am trying to say is I am deeply saddened at people’s inability to relate to one another. Blame it on Farmville, blame it on chronic status updates, blame it on current events, I am a victim to all this as well, and what has it taught me? I’ve lost several friendships over my “tone” in emails. Some might say I’m better off but what have I gained in return?

Why stay tied to anger? Why push that off on other’s?

I truly feel that when 90% of my friends update their page, they never once, stop to think about what affect that update might have. Case in point, the health care bill. I am personally for it, but quite a few of my friends are not and yet that doesn’t stop them from blowing up facebook with an insane amount of hatred and anger towards it. Whatever happened to civility? Whatever happened to Tolerance? I blame facebook for keeping us so disconnected from one another that we can’t see past our own opinions.

This is the part that saddens me the most. It’s not just a “website”, it’s our voice to the world and all I see is hostility. This just brings me down each and every day and I have regrettably given it the power to do so.

So moving forward, I will be attempting to spend less time online and more time in the real world. And in return, all I ask from you is to keep in mind what Sir Isaac Newton once stated: ''To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction”. I feel this could apply also to our personal opinions. For every opinion you have about something, 9/10, one of your Facebook “Friends” have an equal and opposite opinion on the same thing. Keep this in mind next time you hit the “Share” button.