I’ve endured years of complaints from relatives, friends, and long-lost college bro’s: “Why aren’t you on Facebook? I thought you were techno-savvy. Why are you still living like it’s 2004?”
Yesterday, Facebook turned 5 years old. And there are lots of good reasons for lots of other people to be on Facebook. Just not me, at least not yet. Here are a few reasons why I’ve resisted so far:
- Most of my workday is spent in front of my laptop. When I’m not meeting with people or on the phone with people, I’m staring at a computer screen. I really like my Macbook, but not enough to spend another 30 minutes a day with it on Facebook.
- My ADD-like attention span is short enough already. I don’t think I would have the discipline to avoid stopping my work every 10 minutes to see if there’s anything new on any of my friends’ Facebook feeds.
- I have trouble finding the time to invest in the friendships I currently have. Do I really want to restart a friendship with someone I happened to sit next to for a year in 7th-grade math?
- The way Facebook is currently set up, it encourages lots of virtual shallow relationships rather than meaningful real ones. The kind of superficial small-talk that reigns on social networks like Facebook is necessary to initiate friendships, but real relationships can’t survive on superficiality for long.
The reason I say I’ve resisted “so far” is because I’ve heard there might be some developments coming to Facebook that would address my last concern. Better tools for people to build on the real flesh-and-blood relationships they have with the people in their church and in their neighborhood.
When that happens, I might be pinging you to be my Facebook friend. Maybe even you, 7th-grade-math-buddy.
UPDATE: Mark Galli, who admits he loves Facebook, writes this in Christianity Today:
While the popularity of Facebook facilitates broad connectivity, I believe it does so at the expense of intimacy. Intimacy is what we really want. But because we are lazy and fearful creatures, we’ll settle for connectivity, because connectivity suggests intimacy but without all the bother. It’s like fooling around before marriage: lots of fun but without the danger of pregnancy or the psychological commitment of intercourse.
While Facebook connects me to people at one level (I have more “friends” than I’ve ever had — I feel so popular!), at another level it makes it harder to really connect with people. This is especially true when I take my Facebook responsibilities seriously — that is, read friends’ status updates, regularly post my own, and send messages to friends. It’s a lot of fun when I have the time. But it’s a huge distraction.
There’s gotta be some way to redeem Facebook and use it to push beyond mere “connection” to real relational intimacy. When someone finds it, I’m in.