munchy, giggly face eating… and why i hate facebook

I hate Facebook.

I gave it up about six months ago and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I know that ‘best ever’ sounds like I’m over-exaggerating a little, but I’m not. Facebook is a life sucker. It warps your sense of what’s important, it feeds the Fear of Missing Out, it plucks minutes hours from your life with the blink of an eye. It wasn’t just impacting my productivity, it was affecting my mental health.

Facebook makes successful people feel inadequate, active people feel lazy, and loving, committed stay at home parents feel as though they’ll never be as productive as the next guy. You’ll never be as fit, as clever, as connected, as much of a domestic goddess or as wealthy as your Facebook friends. Nor could you possibly be as sad, as hard done by or as busy as them either.

Of course, it is a great way to connect and reconnect… The thing is, you never know exactly how your friends *really are* by staking their timeline. You just don’t.

It’s not all bad though. Facebook pages are a great way to build a community, sell a product or promote a blog. Facebook groups unite individuals with common interests and causes, they allow the sharing of resources, they connect and inspire and motivate.

Pages and groups are the reason I got sucked back into Facebook land.

Before I deleted my account last year (have you ever tried? That’s a mission in itself!!) I set up a new account purely so that I could continue to run my blog page. I made a point of not uploading a photo, not using my real name, not personalising my profile at all.

For a while there Facebook was just servicing my blog page. My online habits were much more healthy and I removed all other social media from my phone. Then I needed to sell some cloth nappies so looked up a friend to re-add me to the group. I bought a woven wrap and joined the local baby wearing group for support. I missed my exercise buddies and reunited with my fitness communities. We moved to a new area and I joined the local buy sell swap groups. I really missed the girls from my old mums group so rejoined our private group. I added a few more friends as Facebook suggested them to me and told myself that it was great because now I could be really picky with who I connected with and what I shared.

Logging in once a week (on the computer only) lead to using iphone safari to access Facebook once a day (it doesn’t count if you don’t have the app), lead to all social media apps being reloaded on to my phone, lead to joining several buy sell swap groups, joining several baby wearing groups, sending and accepting many friend requests and checking in checking out several times a day hour…

All of a sudden Crackbook is ruling my life again and I DON’T EVEN LIKE IT. It bores me and it angers me that I am such a slave to the blue and white, life-sucking vortex. It worries me that I can come up with a million reasons why I can’t quit it just yet and once more I feel paralysed by the Fear of Missing Out. I’m downgrading to a dumbphone next month when my mobile contract runs out and I can’t help but think that on some level I’m having a bit of a final fling with my sexy smartphone before I do. It’s pathetic.

So. I’ve just removed myself from 12 (TWELVE!) groups and unliked a bunch of pages.

I’d like to quit it all together again, but I’m still not quite ready to let go of my mountain mummas and the Central Coast Babywearing Group is the closest thing that I have to a mums group here so I’m hesitant to remove myself from there too. Then there’s the Vitalogy Health & Fitness Facebook page (I’m well aware of the hypocrisy, but feel free to check it out and ‘like’ for updates)… do I keep it? Will I regret not having a Facebook presence sometime down the track? Can I have a blog and no FB page? And what about my friends? Will I actually keep in contact with them if we’re not friends online? Will they keep in contact with me? Will giving up Facebook lead to giving up twitter and giving up instagram and ERMAHGAWD IF I HAVE NO SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE DO I HAVE ANY PRESENCE AT ALL? Am I even real????

The thing is, I know that as long as I am a slave to Facebook, I watch my kids but don’t really see them. I hear them but don’t really listen. I’m physically present, but my presence is negligible. And what I am actually missing out on is a far greater tragedy than any bargain or meme or event or amusing anecdote from the interwebs.

As I finish this up I’m being mauled by my baby boy, who i’m sure was only born yesterday but is somehow already seven months old. He is mauling my face; coming at me with a big open mouth and suctioning onto my cheekbones while he pulls my fringe and tickles my neck. I love it. I giggle and he giggles and together we make munchy, giggly, face eating noises.

There’s no facebook group for that.

xxx