I like Facebook. I like that it hooks me up with old friends and keeps me in touch with some new ones. I like the funny people I know and the funny things they do with their status updates. I dig the pictures.
The few people I know who buy sheep for their virtual farm are annoying, but I just ‘hide’ them, so that’s all good. And sure, the ads are awful, especially for women – I laughed when a female friend of mine recently changed her gender to male and with it, changed her ads on Facebook from utterly dull, get-thinner type ads to some far more interesting technology related ones (so much for knowing everything about us eh?).
Lately it feels almost uncool to like Facebook, I mean, there’s even an ‘I hate Facebook’ page on Facebook. And I get why they seem to constantly find themselves up against harsh criticism. They get it wrong, a lot. It angers people. If it angered me half as much, I’d just leave and return smugly to my angry mob. Or would I?
Seriously. If Facebook sucks so hard, why is anybody still on there? Lately, I got to thinking about Stockholm Syndrome and whether we have some kind of love/loathe thing with Facebook so that even if we want to leave, we’re unable to do so.
Luckily for me I have Sharon, a friend who is an actual forensic psychologist*. She straightened out my thinking and drew some interesting parallels between our relationship with Facebook and, y’know, criminal pathology:
FACEBOOK IS A BIT LIKE PRISON – AND GUESS WHAT, LEAVING AIN’T EASY
It may feel counter-intuitive, but in Sharon’s experience, inmates struggle with leaving prison, even though they’ve long yearned for freedom. Within the prison walls they are taken care of, part of a community, have a social circle and by all accounts, a life. Often there is no job, no home, money or opportunity for them outside of prison. Leaving is often unappealing as inmates find themselves out, with nowhere to go.
Can that be said of Facebook? Perhaps to an extent. Your friends, news, invitations and pictures of long lost cousin’s babies are all on Facebook. How do you get that stuff without it? And does that keep us trapped there?
COPING MECHANISMS NEED TO BE REPLACED TO BE OVERCOME
Prison becomes part of the inmates coping strategy. It’s how they deal with the basic necessities of life. And just like methadone replaces heroine in the case of that coping mechanism, so there are provisions in place to help former inmates assimilate into the outside world.
What advice does Sharon have for those who really want to leave Facebook and find it tough to make the break?
- Figure out what role is has in your life as a coping mechanism (procrastination, nosiness, connectedness, sharing)
- Replace it (Twitter, blogging, Flickr) and then get the hell out of there.
What do you think? Think we’re Facebook inmates? Should we be on the hunt for Facebook methadone? I’d love to know your thoughts.
*Sharon is not just a forensic psyhychologist, she is also the entrepreneur behind tete-a-tea, the pop up afternoon tea experience. You can visit her Facebook page for more info (which fills me with mild amusement).
This is a brilliant piece. I was recently lambasted by someone for apparently posting, in their opinion, too many pictures of my son on Facebook. My response was:
1. Oh do piss off
2. It enables those who know Enzo (all over the world) keep up-to-date with his life
3. It enables me to celebrate my boy and our life’s adventures with ONLY those I have allowed.
Facebook continues to get it wrong, on a regular basis. Privacy is now a dirty word, but without Facebook the world would seem like a slightly bigger place and given that we has humans have no way of coping with size very well I support the use of interacting with and the using of these platforms.
As you rightly point out – if you don’t like it, leave.
I left facebook last week, it’s the best thing I ever did. Leave Now!!!
Thanks for the comments guys.
@PlanBStudio > Your point about sharing pics of your son is interesting. It is testament to the difficulty of doing the same job anywhere else with the level of convenience provided to us by Facebook i.e. everyone’s on there so it’s super-easy. There is no methadone for Facebook as a utility.
@simes
Bravo you – you took the step and you don’t seem to miss it. Out of curiosity, do you find yourself spending more time on other social sites? Or are you truly hardcore