Friday, October 8, 2010

Invisible shackles...


"First we make our habits, then our habits make us."
-Charles C Noble

'Good morning facebook'
'Eating'
'Hanging out with my friends'
'On my way to the supermarket'
'Ugh, what a headache'
'Good night facebook!'

Are you a slave?

Are you a facebook slave?

I have asked this several times to people and they have somehow felt offended. Its just a matter of analyzing oneself and producing a simple answer: 'Yes' or 'No'.
Most of us will say 'Of course not', but if we think clearly the answer will most likely be 'Of course I am'.

Please don't take me wrong, I have nothing against facebook. In fact it is great we can connect with people. Facebook is not the problem, the problem is us giving it a priority in our lives.
How many times a day do you log in to check facebook?
How many times a week do you update your status?
How many times do you post comments on people's every picture or comment?
How much time do you truly spend in a day on facebook?
How many times have you been logging in to facebook during a dinner? Or even worse, on a one-on-one dinner with someone, and not because you received a notice, but because unconsciously
it deserves more respect than the person facing you.

Can you stay a week without logging in to facebook? How about 24 hours? If you're able, how many times does facebook come to your mind? How crazy do you get when you log back in to try and 'catch up' with people's 'lives'.
We have a 'friends' list, which in the end many times is just a list of people we added because they look good. Are they truly our friends? Most likely not. Do they even care about all those 'Waking up', 'On my way to work' status updates? Again, most likely not.
But we delude ourselves, secretly believing we are popular and everyone wants to follow what we do every minute.

Maybe you disagree with me, or you may think it doesn't play such a big part in your life, for you have other priorities.

As a test, pick a friend on your facebook list and block them(or just become invisible to them). What happens next? They get offended...why? How would you feel if you were the one blocked from facebook? Probably offended too...why?

Because you haven't added facebook to your life, you have added your life
to facebook.

Some people have felt a little offended by the posting. Once again I say, facebook is not the problem. I have nothing against it. In fact, the word facebook can be substituted by video games, clothing, money, work, anything that takes the priority in your life. Someone even commented: 'ironic, you posted this on facebook'. It's not ironic. Then again, I decided facebook is a tool in my life, not a shackle.

If you're happy living as a slave by all means, please, stay a slave.

Lesson learned: If you give the leading role of your life to something other than yourself, don't feel bad people take less interest in the movie of your life.

1 comment:

sankoi said...

Hahaha... this is probably the reason I get depressed when I see facebook. It says that you'll be connected with the people dear to you that are very far away but it seems like I felt that facebook did otherwise. It only made them take me for granted as we are connected no matter where we are through this thing called facebook. T^T From now on, I'd rather make the most of the time I get to be with the people I love rather than log in facebook everyday and feel rather "away" from them though "connected". Thanks for this article. :3