Facebook Follies

Apropos my recent Twitter and Facebook "embargo," I've found it increasingly difficult to avoid Facebook entirely, especially now that I've been contracted as a media consultant to Diamond Dog Food and Bakery, a boutique dog food, drink and product store in Bayside Melbourne. (Please "like it" so I can access a custom URL!)

The experience thus far has given cause to put a personal "value" on the friends I keep on there. One Facebook contact I saw tried to passive-aggressively knock me down a peg - I had no care for his online "friendship" so I deleted him on the spot. I have no time to waste on people like that.

The Twitter hiatus has gone well, despite breaking it once to share a link to an interview I did with Jonas Renkse of Katatonia.

In a recent essay, I charged that Facebook and Twitter aren't just part of our media culture but a culture in and of themselves. I feel now that Facebook is borderline "unavoidable" if you wish to participate in commerce in any meaningful fashion.

Over time, I am becoming less and less enamored with both Twitter and Facebook and more likely to fight the urge to tweet or post. I caught myself thinking in 140 character "bites" to share with other people about 20-30 times over the last few days and had to actively stop myself from reaching into my pocket or firing up TweetDeck. If anything, it's shown me that I still have an attachment to being liked, being seen as witty or intelligent and as a good writer. If I can overcome those attachments, it lifts a massive burden from myself and eases a lot of self-imposed stress.

I don't feel disconnected from my friends - the connections on Facebook are devoid of intimacy and reality. The challenge is to find social relationships with substance in real life with real people, every day.