Social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, have become Web sites for people to promote themselves. Facebook allows the users to post “what’s on your mind.” Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but when I have someone’s statuses showing up on my news feed and they are disclosing everything about their lives, we have a little issue there.
These sites were created to network with others, to find long lost friends from elementary school, or to keep in touch with family, but now it has become a place for people to express total self-interest.
It is one thing when you’re posting about going out with friends or if you’re not looking forward to the week, but I don’t want to know that “my life is terrible, nothing ever goes my way.” Like they say, some things are just better left unsaid. People who do this are looking for attention. When they get 10 notifications of people liking their statuses and they have many people commenting, it gives them an ego boost.
Everyone is buying iPhones and the newest Blackberry, which both have Facebook and Twitter applications available for download. This accessibility just makes it easier for everyone to update their status all the time. When I look at some people’s Facebook pages, it consists of all their status updates from when they woke up to when they go to bed.
Talking about your life in so much detail via status updates cannot be emotionally healthy. But for my generation, it has become a part of our daily routines to regularly check our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
It has been my experience that this addiction to knowing what is going on is the biggest distraction from being able to complete my work. That’s why, during finals week, I usually deactivate my account for a few days. Usually, this ends up becoming an epic fail, because my mind tends to wander and I end up activating my account not even 24 hours later.
When my friends post something about getting a job, or getting accepted into graduate school or something monumental in their life, I will comment on it or “like it.” I know that this makes them feel good about themselves because they are promoting something that others want to hear about.
Now I can’t sit here and say that these particular status updates that pop up on my home page aren’t humorous to my friends and me. When we sit in our dorms and read them to one another, even though we are not “liking” or commenting on their statuses, they are still getting the attention they are seeking. We come to class asking one another if we read so-and-so’s statuses through out the day and we discuss them.
The moral of the story is that Facebook statuses have become a way for people to divulge their lives. Granted, that’s what Facebook is for, but some people need to realize that their entire network isn’t necessarily concerned about every little aspect of their lives.
