Sunday, August 21, 2011

The Social Network Depression Machine

This summer has not been for me on Facebook. Between the emotionally charged aftermath of the Casey Anthony trial, to the debt ceiling debate, and the generously worded “wobbly” economy, posting an opinion on Facebook has become an action taken at your own peril. Lest you end up in an Facebook or Twitter smack down with one of your friends of a differing political persuasion. Everything is starting to wear just a little bit thin.

I even embroiled myself in a controversy by linking a post from this blog faintly tied to Harry Potter to my Facebook, which led one of my friends to post a comment back that left me feeling as though I wanted to crawl underneath the covers and never blog again because I’d rather have my friends than ten million page views on my blog. She’s a really sweet girl, strong in her opinions, and very passionate. These beautiful qualities that occasionally have unintended consequences. I now concede it was a mistake to post such a thing to Facebook in the manner I did.

I was therefore, less than stunned to see the study linking extended Facebook use to all these bad long term things. The reality is that words hurt, no matter what the old nursery rhyme says. And when your not meeting one on one to have the actual conversation things and intentions get read into things that may or may not be true. Furthermore, and I know I’ll be lampooned in comments for this, since I have this blog, but not everyone needs to know your opinion on every issue of the universe, how trashed you got last night, or how much you hate your family, boyfriend, and or husband.

The best Facebook conversations I had all summer where sitting with my friends Ryan and Jerrod talking baseball. Draw your own conclusions.

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