In the time that Facebook has been around, it has grown into the largest network in the world connecting more people than any other group. And yet it seems we’re all the more disconnected. What do I mean by that? I think it’s great that we can hop on FB and re-connect with friends from high school, old colleagues, or any other old “connection” that we had. But once we become “friends” again, do we actually believe we’ll talk again? Or is it a simple intention.

I think a lot of times people think that by using Facebook they will be able to be great friends again like in the past, but this isn’t the case. In an attempt to expand our networks and reach out to everyone we’ve ever known (including aunts and grandparents), we end up shallowing all our relationships and losing the deepest ones. The more time you spend on Facebook the less time you spend actually investing. By sending messages to 50 different people a day like “Hey how are you doing? It’s been so long!” you miss out on time with your current (real-life) friends.

Lots of people just spend an hour or so on Facebook a day, right? But think how that extra hour could have been spent with a close friend or spouse (and it’s even sadder when people actually communicate more on Facebook than in real life; that includes your good friends and–heaven forbid–your husband or wife). Of course this may be an “extreme” way of putting it.

If you’re like me then you check your account for about 5 minutes at the end of the day. You maybe look over a friend’s profile, leave a few comments and change your status. No harm no foul, and not a whole lot of time spent. But it’s important to remind yourself: Facebook is meant for low level, shallow conversations and catching up. The minute it starts to substitute real relationship, then that’s the moment you should probably log off forever.

And then go have a real life conversation with that friend you stopped spending as much time with.

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Entitlement.  It’s what just about everyone in America feels.  And when you take away or change something, people complain.  People will complain even if they paid nothing and did nothing to receive the benefits that are now changing.

This brings us to the every changing layouts of Facebook, Youtube, Gmail, and countless other free social websites.  Whenever a site changes, forums erupt with rage about how “they have no right” to change their own website.  It’s a case of users biting the hand that feeds them.  There is such a thing as constructive criticism, but most of the feedback from the changes is simply hate mail.

However, the irony of the situation becomes obvious when everything settles down and people get used to using the new layout.  The new layout is better than the old one!  It’s almost as if the good people of Facebook did research.  Of course it will take a while to get used to.  Of course it is confusing at first.  Just give it time, and you too will eventually admit that the new layouts are for the best.

Take some time before hating on something new.  If something still bothers you, fill out a survey, call the comment lines, send an email, and who knows!  Maybe your suggestion will be a part of the new layout.  But please don’t complain to the rest of us who actually enjoy an update.

I’ve tried facebook before. I thought it would be a good way to keep in touch with friends, or maybe even a way to network with future employers.  While using facebook, neither of these two happened. Instead I was constantly bombarded with friend requests, invitations to invents or groups that I didn’t want to attend, or tagged in pictures that should have been thrown in the trash. I felt like I needed to log on every day just to get rid of all the garbage that people were trying to push off on me. I also felt like this facebook reduced my real life relationships to a serious of friend requests.  So after some careful consideration (a few seconds worth) I deleted my profile.  I can honestly say that I feel no guilt for my actions.

Facebook has created entire new field in technology and business called Social Networks.  It has allowed millions of people to connect with people they hadn’t seen or heard from in years or new people they had never met.  People can know see what their friends are doing or how they are feeling even if they are on different continents.  People share photos, chat online, and wish each other happy birthday.  Technology has made it easier than it has ever been before to stay in touch with friends.  People spend hours each day looking at pictures of their friends, updating their status and talking to their friend through Facebook chat.  The reason Facebook has been so successful because it has attempted to solve one of the deepest problems humans struggle with.  Facebook attempted to give people a venue to solve the issue of feeling lonely and unwanted.  Acclaimed author Donald Miller who wrote Blue like Jazz called it the lifeboat complex.  Meaning that humans feel as though we are all on a life boat and there isn’t enough food for everyone.  The most unpopular and least useful will be thrown overboard, left alone to die.  Humans because of this, feel the constant need define their self-worth by other people’s opinions.  Facebook created a venue for people to attempt to solve this dilemma. People can proudly display the number of friends they have and post pictures of fun and exciting things happening in their lives.  It as if humans are saying, “Hey can you see how cool I am.  Please throw the other guy off the boat.” 

The problem is that I believe that Facebook only distracts people or attempts to hide the problem.  This is a very similar to what happen with television.  TV creates the illusion of have having fun and laughing, but it can’t change the fact that you are all by yourself.  It only distracts you.  T.S. Eliot said about TV “The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.”  Social Networks like facebook do not solve the problem they actually make it worst.  Facebook only allows you to have shallow relationships with people.  It doesn’t help to fill the void that each human has.  Facebook actually causes people to neglect real friendships because of these virtual friendships.  The more technology our society begins to use the more people continue to forget what a real friend is. Someone who would die for you, someone who would tell you what you are doing is wrong, who cares more for you then himself and would sacrifice the relationship if it would help you.  With texting, email, facebook, and other technologies people are losing their ability to talk and really listen to what is going on in another person’s life.  It leaves people discontent with their friendships.  Talking to people all day, but still lonely.  A Person can spend hours and hours on facebook attempting to get their fix of human interaction, but it is only distracts and wastes time that could be used to actually solve the problem.  Facebook is a place where a person can have 934 friends and on their birthday 246 people wish them happy birthday, and that same person could not have a single friend who knows or cares for them, and they cry themselves to sleep at night. 

By,

Ford Jordan

For more blogs written by Ford Jordan visit www.fordjordan.com.

It’s great! We should all try it.

You get to know your friends in a more personal way if you just take the time to talk with them face to face. People are just too lazy these days to get up out of their chairs and go have a face to face conversation with the person they are “chatting” with online. Our communication skills are on a downhill slope due to this whole “online chatting” community that has been created.

I have never had a facebook account and I believe twenty years from now I will look back and be glad that there aren’t photos of me all over the internet….unless of course it’s like the whole cell phone thing…….if you are going to advance in life you have to get one.

So I challenge you all to delete your facebook! Your life will become so much more enjoyable.