A closer look at a double-edged sword

“All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

- William Shakespeare

Facebook, too, is a "stage" of sorts.

My life force appears to be plugged to the performing arts on this Facebook stage! I am a moderator of four Facebook pages, I am a member of over ten closed (interest) groups and then there's the management of the social aspect. Every moment of vacant self-awareness I have, I feel the urge to step into the Facebook universe. I look to it to be constantly entertained, validated and fed with information. If I don't log into Facebook, I feel like I've lost my crutches or forgotten my pills. "Liking" certain posts feels obligatory, but like the social rules in any society we live in, participation is a requirement. As citizens of this new social universe - which has no geographical boundaries - we have to let the world know what we see, what we do, where we go, what we eat, what we think and what we tell our closest people.

Sounds crazy? It should. And it's very stressful to both the party that feels obliged to keep reporting their life events and the party that has to react after getting bombarded with information about other people's lives. 

Smart phones replaced diaries, calendars, alarm clocks, cameras, calculators, GPS devices, pagers, radios, televisions, voice recorders, newspapers, books, albums, snail mail, typewriters, computers, modems, internet cafes, communication centres and even secretaries. Now we don't even have to step outside the home to get tasks like going to the bank, going to an IT store to get software and going to a clothing store done. Similarly, Facebook has also brought convenience to our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Maintaining social interactions, sending out greetings and sympathies, staying up to date with the latest news and entertainment, getting instant feedback on questions, gossiping, making new friends, spying on the lives of others, checking out potential love interests, joining various interest groups, fighting for causes, getting worked up over silly things that others post, finding something to laugh about, showing off and maintaining an "image" (almost always a positive one) is like a full time job. Facebook has over 2 billion active users as of 2017. Leaving out pseudo accounts and duplicate accounts, that still counts for a lot!

Hahaha.. yeah.

For example, let's take my profile. Now I use "Nomad. Shutter bug. Dreamer. Tree-hugger. Scribbler. Stalker of bugs" as an introduction to my profile. In real terms, it actually translates to "Mostly homeless and lives from a suitcase. Knows only how to take photographs in Auto-mode of the camera. Easily distracted, possibly suffering from adult ADHD. Dislikes humans in general and constantly reminds them to protect nature. Struggling writer. Stalker of bugs (this is true)."

Up until a few weeks ago, I used a quote I had ripped off from the internet "Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." This quote attempts to give the impression that I am an avid traveler who's not afraid of taking risks and moving out of comfort zones, and preaches others to do the same. This is not entirely true. To compliment this quote, my cover photo boasts one of me sitting calmly on the edge of a rocky cliff, looking into a deep valley, surrounded by stunning scenery.

What actually went on moments before I took that photo kind of went like this:

Me to Bro: Hey, can walk over to that cliff and take a photo of me sitting on this cliff? Then I can take a cool one of you standing on that cliff.

Bro: Okay.

Me: (inches to the edge of the cliff, as close as my nerves would allow) Okay, let me know when you are ready. And for goodness sake, be careful.

Bro: Okay I'm ready.

Me: (Poses) Did you take me with the whole scenery? Don't zoom into my face. Take another one!!

Bro: Okay, I took another one.

Me: Is it good?

Bro: Yes.

Me: Okay, now let me take yours.

See? Not as dramatic as the photo depicts.

Then comes maintenance of this "image" of "I am a cool, single girl, enjoying a carefree life, traveling, helping communities, fighting to protect nature, plays the violin, following my dreams and nothing can possibly go wrong". Truth is, I am as insecure as other girls out there (only varying in the degree of insecurity). I sometimes wonder if the life choices I made are good ones. I feel lonely occasionally. Traveling is not 100% fun (maybe just 70-90%) and it involves certain inconveniences, which we hardly mention on Facebook. If someone were to ask me to play a piece on the violin, I would freak out because I have no practice and no confidence or skill for an outstanding solo performance. Helping communities is also not so clear cut; sometimes they don't want to be helped, sometimes NGO's play out on grant money instead of helping communities, observing positive results of project work can take a long time and sometimes projects don't have the expected progress. Sometimes, it feels we use vulnerable people to boost our good samaritan image online.

In a paper published in 1986, psychologists Hazel Rose Markus and Paula Nurius claimed that a person has two selves; the “now self” and the “possible self”. The possible self is what we would like to become, what we could become, and what we are afraid of becoming. Social media platforms allow a person to become their possible self, or at least present a version of themselves that is closer to it.

After a photo or anything else is posted, any Facebook notification on the phone tempts me to go see what it is about. "Is it a "Like" for what I posted??" or "Did someone comment on it??" or "What did they say??" or "How many "Likes" did my post get?" or "How come I get more likes for pictures of me but less for something decent and thought provoking that I said??".  If  there are no notifications, I think "It's been about 2 hours, why hasn't anyone reacted to it?" or "Could I have posted something offensive?".

Some friends are opposed to having their photos posted on Facebook. Although they pose in all the photos with the group during the event, which in their mind is normal like in the 90's, they don't like their photos posted on social media. This situation can make a serial Facebook poster annoyed. "If you didn't want your face on Facebook, then WHY ON EARTH DID YOU POSE WITH US?". To be fair, a non-poster would not comprehend the level of desperation in people who want to publish everything that happens in their lives. 

I am not always needy for Facebook attention. Sometimes, I want my posts to be informative and carry a deeper message. Sometimes, I want people to be inspired and more appreciative of nature through the things I capture on camera. 

However, in a list of x number of Facebook friends, a significant number of them (me included) will post perfect family/ couple photos all the time, couples expressing their love for each other on a regular basis in front of the Facebook audience, people posing with their newly purchased luxury vehicles, holidays, travels, food, animals in their garden, promotions, various phases of their pregnancies leading to birth and growth of the child afterwards, how many kilometers they ran in the morning on which jogging route, parents announcing the many achievements of their children and some announcing illnesses and personal tragedies. Truth is, although some of our closest friends and family might be genuinely interested in our posts (or pretend to be), most people are not really interested in our lives, as much as we want them to be/ think them might be.

Facebook, the thoughtful application it is, has an "unfollow" option to stop following friends who keep sending a lot of unnecessary information to the news feed. Admittedly, I have "unfollowed" many Facebook friends to improve the quality of my news feed, but it's always work in progress to weed out people who may appear sensible and stable at first but break out into narcissists and attention seekers later.

The dark side to Facebook addiction, in addition to making us vulnerable to media bias and a tendency to tempt us to exercise deceit (exaggeration, if you may), is that our lives can stagnate in a superficial layer of skewed reality. According to this guy, even our self-talk can become too negative when bombarded with superficial information:

I feel that the connection I had with my deeper layers of thinking, which probably inspired and stimulated some of my blog posts in the past, has become somewhat severed. I wonder if my increasing occupation with Facebook has anything to do with it.

A good indicator of Shuri's brain function (for analytical thinking and focus) over the years. But hey, I think it's making a slow comeback!

Facebook and other social media can contribute to healthy relationships which are usually hindered by factors like distance and time differences. It can also be a massive source of information, social support and networks that can advance human potential. However, the biggest worry about Facebook is the tendency to be addictive and psychologically manipulative. Addictions can impair normal life, give additional stress, make people less productive, less healthy, less aware of their physical surroundings, trigger depression and, make people disengage with reality, meaningful relationships (with people who are near them) and other hobbies. If not used in a careful manner, Facebook also has the ability to stunt human potential.