The entire world is on Facebook. Everyone! I had a 79 year old patient that was talking to me about watering plants in his farmville garden because "it reminded me of the one I had growing up that I would have to work on" ....I was thinking..."cool...you had a farmville garden when you were 7 years old? about..72 years ago?" no, no I'm being mean. But you get the idea i'm sure.
what an interesting trend...you can absolutely see the type of personality that a person has simply by the type of crap they put on their status updates.
Types of Facebookers:
1. Quote writers
2. Joke makers
3. Drama queens
4. Attention whores
5. Half thought
1. You have the quote writers that will put a daily quote on their facebook, usually something deep and meaningful..."the butterfly will only flap it's wings if the junebug in vietnam has sex with a grasshopper and cums into the wind"
Or they put something scary as a way to show how strong and manly they are..., "Ancient chinese wisdom: take the sword from your hilt and cut off his balls while drinking the blood gushing from his torn throat that your pet vampire did..."
2. then you have the joke makers "...I have a great vocabulary, except during sex- usually I only use three words...'oh'....'ah'....and 'Im sorry'"
3. Oh my favorite...the Drama queen....you'll read in the morning how wonderful and beautiful the day is "wow..the birds woke me up this morning" ..then by about mid afternoon it turns into, "oh someone gave me a dirty look when I stuck my finger in the cats ass" then towards the evening, "OH MY GOD...FML (fuck my life) I just want to die now that I stepped in gum..."
4. Finally the attention whores. those are the ones who will put up a new status every 5 minutes. "just got up..." "no, I went back to bed" "wait...i'll get up now..." "hmm should I have eggs or oatmeal?" "I decided to go back to bed...goodnight" "no wait i'm up now..." hahah...they put every moment in their life...then they use status updates as their personal therapist...right? they start to put things on there about their girlfriend that slept with their poodle and how horrible life is yet only minutes ago loving it.
5. The half thought guys are the ones that secretly want attention (although don't we all) but will not admit it...instead they like put a quote or statement that would require someone in the facebook world to say, "what are you talking about?" for example, "today is the day..." or even, "I saw this pigeon screwing another one so I went up to them and..." Although everyone wants to be acknowledged on facebook but secretly will not admit it...the "half thoughters" are the ones that will instead say something to pull your attention...to pull your acknowledgment.
PSYCH!SENSE tells us that being the social animal that we are we need to have that constant connection and life-feeling moments. The avenue to express ourselves. I'm not saying any of this is bad...I'm simply saying that our generation is part of a development of human psychology where we strive for connection and want to feel less lonely in our existance with status updates giving us the opportunity to do that.
We all want to be acknowledged with what we say too. Just like in regular conversation. You put something on your status and you feel great that someone hit the damn little "like" button or even that someone quotes/says something back...because in those moments we have been acknowledged.
PSYCH!SENSE says that Our drive to be acknowledged is what fuels our lust for status updates. Maybe the person that puts updates every 10 seconds never received the needed attention from parents or while growing up and so in their adulthood- they now have an opportunity to be heard and will make sure ot it. No one will regulate them on status updates.
Although it is fun to almost sit in the background reading facebook updates, find your balance. Find where you can put part of your life into a digital medium but also find those closest to you as a way to express your emotion, pain, happiness and life with.
Take the time to make real human connection...real friends...real emotional bridges...not with just anyone...but at least with someone where facebook status updates can be balanced with your psychological ties to others.
I've found that digital communication allows us to be socially inept without being completely socially deprived. Like with texting, facebook gives you another medium in which to broadcast how you feel without having to necessarily face someone's immediate reaction to what you have to say. Everything can be thought out and sanitized easiest through text than when compared to say... on the phone or face to face.
ReplyDeleteYou mention a desire for acknowledgement but there's also a fear of rejection at the same time. I know I've posted stuff on facebook before with the intention of stirring shit up or seeing who would respond to it. But that part of me is just the untrained therapist at work - observing who responds to what and what makes people tick. However, I also know a lot of these things I post would not work in any other medium. How strange would it be if I suddenly chimed up in the middle of a conversation about the world's apocalypse with a comment comparing grass growing to Twilight watching?
A Digital medium gives you a license to be something you wouldn't be in person. You are also given a mask with which to play certain roles and easily switch between them and between concurrent conversations. In college, I experienced a situation where there was some stupid drama over some student elections. Because of some very opinionated stances, one of my best friends was bombarded with anonymous emails involving death threats and insults. He had no choice but to take these in stride. Of course, given the same thing without a digital medium... things probably would've ended much differently.
Wow... omg... fml... you make me lol.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense that one would find it easier to say things on a social networking site because it always seems to be easier to say something when it's in written form as opposed to in person. People are very non-confrontational nowadays, and social networking sites do help up sometimes overcome shyness and allow us to be our "real selves" because you can't always hear the judgments being said about you. Unless you know, someone is a jerk and tells you to something mean.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I agree what what's been said, people do need to find a medium to balance their lives. If you have enough time to be on online and updating everyone on your every move, then shouldn't you be doing something a little more productive with your time? I'm not saying cut it off completely because sometimes we do need some mindless entertainment, but don't let it consume your world.