Sometimes I think quitting facebook would be a really, really wise decision. I read this article the other day and it has stuck with me – Instagram’s Envy Effect. If you don’t want to read it, allow me to summarize. When people post on social media [instagram, facebook, etc.], people share a partial truth about their lives. A perfect family photo … but not the fight that happened five minutes before. The perfectly decorated party … but not the mess that came afterwards. Etc, etc. It’s so true. I don’t instagram photos of hacked sewing jobs before I take the seam ripper to them.
The other part of this equation is that we refresh our twitter/facebook/instagram feeds [I’m guilty of all three.] when we’re bored or feeling sad or lonely [yup, occasionally all three]. Right?
When you’re laughing at a meal with friends, are you scrolling through Pinterest? When you’re in labor with your much-prayed-for-deeply-loved child, are you checking to see what’s happening on Instagram? Of course not. We check in with our phones when it seems like nothing fun is happening in our own lives—when we’re getting our oil changed or waiting for the coffee to brew.
It makes sense, then, that anyone else’s fun or beauty or sparkle gets under our skin. It magnifies our own dissatisfaction with that moment. When you’re waiting for your coffee to brew, the majority of your friends probably aren’t doing anything any more special.
But it only takes one friend at the Eiffel Tower to make you feel like a loser.
This happened to me this morning. I already wasn’t looking forward to my day. There were a couple things on my to-do list that weren’t real high on my I-want-to-spend-my-Saturday-doing-this scale. I checked facebook only to find glimpses of more people engaged, more people having cute babies, and more people traveling and doing fun things while I faced my Saturday with less than any enthusiasm. One more real life example of what the article articulated.
That being said, I’m not quitting facebook. But you won’t see me there any too often. We’re going to spend some time apart. I think it will be good for me. And then I’ll have more time to do other stuff. Like go to quilt shops and go for walks with Mabel and call my mommy, all of which I did today and all of which were very good additions to my Saturday. See, it wasn’t all bad. But at 8am this morning when I was catching up with facebook happenings – those small, perfect glances into friends’ and acquaintances’ lives that make mine feel boring and behind compared to my age demographic – you would have thought the world was ending by my reaction. Enough of that, lady.
Enough of that.
there's no place like gnome. 
Leave a Reply