

Social Media - FaceBook is killing us - jkmurray

For over a year I've been a FaceBook-user. Not the one that uses it like Twitter and posts everything he's doing (like telling everyone what you have for dinner, the fact that your dog ate the newspaper of yesterday or you just found out that there's a new brand of toilet paper at the local store). I was more the 'reading' kind of guy. And it irritated me over time. Now the point came that I deleted my account (actually, you can't, you can just politely ask FaceBook to do that for you so they can backup all your information for further use). So why did I do it?<p>Privacy
Yeah, sure. If you want your life to be completely out there just open a FaceBook account, create a Google-account, get Twitter, Flickr and go online. Someone who really knows how to use this information has a nice overview of your life and everything you do. Counting in the fact that a huge amount of people do this, FaceBook becomes the place-to-be when you want to know something. Just imagine what would happen if this information would be freely available by the government or worse: the companies. Your life will be controlled by what you post and what you upload. And now I can hear you think: "But I'm only uploading the things I want." Here comes my second point.<p>Social
Being social these days means something different than a couple of years ago. Today it means having all the accounts, uploading everything you can and telling your friends all the nice things that happened to you that day. We share the nice parts of our life. We have over 100 friends who are all able to read it and react to it. A couple of years ago it meant that you and your friends went to a pub and talked about everything that happened in your lives. The good things and the bad things. It meant that you called a close friend and met each other to talk about the things that really matter. 
And that's where the whole difference is. For some reason we're not honest to ourselves when we are online. When we upload some images of our vacation, we just do that to show our so-called friends (more about that later) what a great time we can have with our loved-ones. Bought a new car? Upload it right now so the others can see how well you're doing. We're showing the world how well we're doing.<p>The last year hasn't been the best year for me personally. Some horrible things happened. And not the things like: my car broke down three times. Let's put it this way: I've been shown who really are my friends. In comparison to the huge friend-lists some people have, it's nothing. But for me it's the most valuable thing I have. Be honest. When you scroll through the list of people who like to be called 'Friends': how many of them are really friends as in: "I can trust them, they support me and they're here for me whenever I need it"? Found three? Delete your account, call them and meet up. Found none? Delete your account and call some people who were your friends. Found over five? Go through them again. Friends aren't made on FaceBook. They're made when they're there when you need them the most. And you will find out who are your friends when you're in need of them.<p>Currently the social media is nothing more than a way to show others how well you're doing and how great your life is. Nowhere you will read the real answer to: "What's on your mind" or "What are you doing". Sometimes there's a little glance of it, but there are not much reactions to those messages. Of course not. What should you answer. That you feel sorry for them? That you can't imagine how it must be to be in that position? It's not what FaceBook is made for.<p>If you feel the same, there's only one thing to do. Close those accounts and make your life better by calling and meeting your friends. You don't have to be that perfect person who has a perfect life. Just be honest to yourself.<p>John Murray<p>A little note:
Of course I know that social media offers the opportunity to meet new people, find old friends and make them friends. But those stories are not "all over the place". If you made some real friends: great. Just great. Call them now and meet them in real life. FaceBook can be the beginning. But don't let it become the end.
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sockfunk
John Murray,

I'm sorry to hear that you have had a horrible year last year. I'm even sorry
to hear that you have only had mostly encounters with fake people online.

When the telephone was invented, nobody thought that the phone was eventually
going to become the end to face-to-face meeting. Nothing will replace meeting
IRL. The internet and social media is just like the telephone, it is one tool
out of many.

I also don't know where you find all these perfect people with perfect lives
as your facebook friends. I have few facebook friends (less than 300) but they
are all genuine and legitimate friends and I do interact with them and they do
(all) provide some value to me by having this online connection. And no, their
lives are not perfect.

I have a friend who works on an oil rig. I can't just call him up and ask if I
could pop over. But we have lots of things to talk about. I like his
photography and he likes some articles that I post. We can email each other
but MANY other people enjoy his photos and my curation.

My family lives in 5 different time zones. We almost never get to have a 5 way
video skype at the same time. Cellphones, texting, social media provides with
the closest to real-time updates of my family. Once in a blue moon, we hit
jackpot and get everybody to conference together. That rarely happens. We have
individual emails but it's so much easier to share photos, videos and stuff
like that on social media. Not just to share all the good stuff that happens,
but also the not so good stuff.

I like to travel and make new friends (in real life), and we used to write
emails to each other but you don't write emails to each other every day/week.
And its so hard to like write your life summary once every few months
especially when events already passed. My Greek friends are NOT having perfect
lives at all. They keep me updated with the protests and riots that happen
around Athens, about the economy and politics over there. This is not merely
news from the media, these are genuine legitimate friends of mine.

Another friend of mine is a young Chicago native who quit his corporate job to
travel and is currently volunteering in Nepal. He builds schools and libraries
for kids. Recently he met a boy who needed heart surgery but his family could
not afford it, so he used his connections via social media, to ask his own
friends to help raise some money for this boy. We're not just internet
friends, we're friends in real life, we know him and trust him. So now this
boy got his heart surgery did.

In closing, I concur with your last statement. Facebook can be the beginning
but don't let it become the end. Certainly! I can't wait to be reunited with
my family and friends from all over the world and hear all about everything in
more details. Facebook serves as little bookmarks to keep tabs on everyone
until I get a chance to. As long as you don't add a bunch of random people,
having lots of legit friends on social media is certainly not going to 'kill'
you.

Best wishes

