A Bunch of Busybodies
Standing at a bus stop recently, I absentmindedly checked my Facebook page for the fifth time that day, when it hit me. It has been a while since I could remember what it is like to not be aware of what 30 friends were thinking at any given time. I like Facebook. It is a great tool which has helped me categorize all my photos, keep in touch with family members scattered all over the world, and has sparked many fun conversations with my friends over the years, but I suddenly missed having my brain filled with only my own thoughts during the day.
As a person who has moved frequently throughout my life, the oddest thing about social media is that the thoughts, activities, photos, and political leanings of the friends I would normally leave behind and slowly drift from, are suddenly displayed daily for me to peruse. Don't get me wrong, I like keeping in touch with old friends, and as I said, I love being at least vaguely involved in the lives of my far flung family members via online tools such as these. At least for myself, though, I feel that the scale tips too easily from the "keeping in touch" tool, to the "keeping up with the Jones'", or worse, the "Let's all be busybodies together" nature of social media.
The definition of busybody is this:
a meddling or prying person
a person who is too interested in the private lives of other people (ahem, definition of Facebook right there)
or my favorite attempt at a definition from Urban Dictionary:
"The kind of person you just want to punch in the mouth for being so damn annoying. They have no life and way too much time on their hands. They frequently use their excessive amount of time to annoy and monitor others, tattletale for small meaningless crap, butt into everybody's business except their own, and spy on people as if they think they are a cop or an important person or something."
With these definitions, it is apparent that every one of us is a busybody at some point on social media. We even jocularly use the term "Facebook stalking". We are a nation of busybodies, a world of busybodies, which instead of peeping through our front window curtains to spy on our neighbor's "scandalous" deeds or to critique the way they let their kids play with Nerf guns, or wag a finger at the way they planted the petunias too close to the mailbox, we are peering at our screens and commenting on every minute thought expressed or life decision someone made.
The funny thing is, in diving into the world of social media, we are almost welcoming the busybody-ness of others. Why else do we share photos from the walk we took that morning, post articles about inane or inflammatory subjects, and run pell mell into the discussions these posts elicit? At the same time, this awareness of other people's thoughts and opinions of every facet of life is wearying. Even in the midst of our busybody ways, there is a sense that things get out of hand. Face to face friends suddenly say things to each other online that they wouldn't dream of saying in real life. Personal beliefs about one's life choices, normally non-threatening, mundane, or otherwise unnoticeable in day to day interactions with someone, suddenly become topics of debate and shame. My dad always said that "Opinions are like noses. Everyone has them, and they all smell", but now people's noses are being shoved into hundreds (thousands, millions) of people's business in the space of milliseconds! Talk about smelly!
"Wait a minute, where do you get the right to judge me on that issue?" is a common cry, but with life on the internet there is an unspoken expectation that you divulge your secret thoughts and have them discussed at large. It's a clever mirage of close interaction with other people that feels painful and sad when you come up even emptier than you felt previously. The problem is, humans are naturally obsessed with commenting on other people's lives and comparing themselves with others, with or without even more readily available means to do it. Because of this, I need to create stronger boundaries and limit myself further when using these tools.
Lately, I have grown more weary of "hearing" so many more voices in my head. No, I'm not going crazy, at least any more than you are, whether you see it or not. Those of you who frequent social media during the week, think about all the statuses and posts of articles you've read. Even this one! (Oh, the irony!) Now think about which ones were pleasant or made you feel happy or thoughtful about life, or truly connected you to a particular person. Now think about the ones that made you unreasonably ashamed or made you question whether a "friend" is really your friend, or whether you are making the right choice for your life or your family. Feel how noisy your mind is from all the extra thoughts and opinions, permutations of arguments, and then imagine you didn't read or hear those thoughts. What would you have felt and thought on your own during the week? Would it have maybe felt less stressful or disheartening in some ways? If yes, what can you do to regain some of your own inner silence and sense of autonomy? What can you do to curb your own busybody ways in the lives of your friends?
For myself, I keep my "friend" list low and am consistently culling the herd so to speak. My opinion is, I don't like all these people I hardly know anymore, privy to my personal life and thoughts. I don't want them to know what I think or feel, and honestly most of the time, I don't want to know what they think either. I block posts that stress me out or follow those friends who use their media pages in delightful ways. On my blog, I don't share anything I wouldn't share in general conversation. The topics are kept to the universally human variety and if I share anything personal, it is nothing that I wouldn't share if asked politely by a stranger. On Facebook, I mostly keep my statuses thoughtful, funny, or downright mundane and I don't post anything that would potentially start one of those dreaded Facebook wars. In fact, I'll share private opinions I have on life and politics more readily on my blog than on Facebook, because at least people comment less on my blog posts. Here I can have my thoughts and think them too, to play with a common cliche.
The hard part is, catching myself when I get too obsessed with mindlessly checking Facebook out of boredom. I need to remember what I used to do habitually as a teenager or child before the internet stepped into my day to day- read a book, create a story in my head, think of something constructive to say to the world, look at the sky, watch a squirrel eat a nut, contemplate people around me, strike up a conversation with a stranger, pray, write, paint, practice my cello for once. I know some people who stay off the grid and successfully refuse to use social media for personal reasons. Part of me wishes I could do the same, but by now, it is a hard part of my life to foreswear entirely. Although my dad finds it hard to believe, I honestly have friends who use social media tools four times more than I do, so this post is not meant to be a diatribe against the use of social media. I mean to remind myself and the proverbial "you" to check our busybody ways, to build into our use of social media that lost sense of personal boundaries, and to rediscover the inner silence that gets drowned out by reading 200 other people's thoughts in a given day. Relearning how to keep my thoughts to myself is a lesson I'm willing to undertake. I don't know about you, but I miss not knowing what ten of my friends are thinking about, or eating, during lunchtime.
Comments
I am becoming more and more curious as to what it's like to not care about what people post on Facebook.
For networking, yes. Oh how the line is crossed. And the friendships that have been ruined over the thing. I want out too.
Your dad analogues "nose"; mine uses "a-hole". Opposite ends of the spectrum, but the point well made. LOL