Why Facebook Brings Out the Worst in Everyone

To begin with, I want to clarify that yes, I have a Facebook account and yes, I check it occasionally. So I know that I am including myself in this commentary. But this commentary wouldn’t exist if I didn’t hate myself a little every time I log onto Facebook and get lost in that news feed…come on, we’ve all been there.

Just today, I found myself reading a post and thinking to myself “haha, I have something clever to say to that.” I began typing, thinking to myself how people would laugh and think how witty I was. Then the backspace button saved my lame self from ever posting the ridiculous garbage – and I realized the world would be perfectly fine without my intelligent and slightly sarcastic quip. Which made me wonder: what is it all for? Or, more specifically, what is Facebook for? 

All it does is bring out the worst in everyone.

Example A: Young, technologically-savvy, Martha-Stewart-loving, blog-reading, exhausted moms. I love moms. I have a mom, I want to be a mom someday, and I know quite a few moms that blow my mind with how amazing they are. But sometimes my news feed picks up only on the worst in this life stage. Such as the “Look how cute my kid is – oh wait, I’m actually showing you a picture of how awesome it is that we got to go to Hawaii this summer” Instagram pictures. Or the “Please give me advice because my kid won’t use the potty – oh wait, I’m actually just trying to prove that I am the best parent ever because I am trying to potty train my 6 month old” posts.  Or worse, and more painfully obvious, the repost of funny picture/list/quiz/true statement about being a mom that only 57 other moms respond to and no one else on all of Facebook really wants to read because a) we feel like we are not part of the click and therefore would never understand what it’s like to have cheerios crunching around between our sheets – come on, like your 3 year old is the only one who eats cheerios in bed – or b) we are disturbed by the massive quantity of these “reposts” or “shares” and so avoid them at all cost.  I may love you as a person and love your children dearly, but it seems like for a lot of moms, Facebook functions like a backwards support group where instead of people bringing real problems to people facing similar problems, everyone brings their best solutions to problems that neither they, nor anyone else, really seem to be facing, and then they all high five and give each other attaboys.

But, I am currently not a mom, so I don’t want to sound judgmental. How about I pick on someone in my own stage of life.

Example B: The happy couple. This goes for any couple. On Facebook, stage of relationship doesn’t matter. If you are a couple, this applies to you. I am part of a couple. And do you know what I do? I use the “we.” You know what I’m talking about; the “we” posts. The posts that one person clearly writes but they use the word “we” even though you can only have a profile for one person. So you end up rubbing your relationship in everyone’s face. “Sorry we can’t make it Shelly! Have a great party.” The happy couple is also not immune to the indirect-envy-inducer post. In fact, happy couples mastered this before the moms even got started. Take a look at the profile picture of your fave happy couple. Is it some quirky photo of the person and a few friends? No. It’s a picture of them making googly eyes at their significant other; or it’s their most photo-shopped wedding photo that makes them look like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Or, it’s a picture of one or both of them on one of their super fabulous couple trips to somewhere exotic and oh-so-romantic (that last one is me…sorry everyone). Rubbing. It. In. Even when we don’t mean to. Even when we think we are just sharing our life with the people we love; it gets taken by the Facebook monster and made into some horrible, jealousy-inducing, comparison-causing, self-indulgent, self-absorbed thing that then rampages through everyone’s news feeds until we just can’t take it anymore and we have to log out and take a break from the amazingness of everyone else’s lives.

We will skip my commentary about Example C: Single people, flirting, and how Facebook enables you to name drop in a way that's classy -- er, at least socially acceptable -- and we will move on to…

Example D: General posting habits that don’t look good on anyone. Even if everyone is doing it. Let’s start with the check in. No one ever checks in when they are alone. Seriously. Unless they are alone somewhere really cool like a Buddhist temple or something. The constant stream of checking in is just an online version of the middle school playground. Who is hanging out with whom? Who said they didn’t want to hang out on Friday, but then “checked in” at that cool new bar downtown? Enough said. Next, witty quips and brain dumps. Or any comment really. Oh dear. This is a double-edged sword. First, Facebook is terrible because it gives people a chance to think. Really hard. About what to say about something that is usually completely irrelevant to life. Suddenly everyone is a comedian (whoever gets the most likes wins!). And perhaps even worse – Facebook is terrible because it gives people a chance to not think. At all. Before posting whatever pops into their brain. Then it is recorded for all of time, for people to read and examine and wonder and analyze and dissect and resent and add weird emoticons in response that try to communicate in some kind of bizarre short hand what should have just been a regular person to person conversation complete with real faces smiling, and real eyes winking, and real heads shaking, and fingers wagging, and the sound of real laughing out loud.

And that, my friends, is why Facebook brings out the worst in everyone. Now, I think I will post this on my wall.