What I've learned.

At request, I am going to write a post about what I have learned from the Facebook quarantine. 


1. I am so much more productive. It was crazy how much more I was able to get done during the hour/s I would have spent surfing through hundreds of pictures and thinking of seemingly brilliant statuses. I was tempted once or twice to go to Facebook, but I would instead check my email or try to get a task done that was menial but I felt so much better once it was done.


2. I didn't know what was going on sometimes...but I was okay with it. It amazes me how much Facebook has affected the way we communicate. I would find myself in a normal conversation, and then something would pop in unexpectedly. "Did you see that so and so are in a relationship?!!! Oh...you haven't? Well it's on Facebook." I've realized that I sometimes prefer anonymity. Sometimes, I just like to keep my business to myself; to surf the wave of obscurity. I'm sure the same goes for other people. 


3. I wrote some letters. And it felt GOOD. Handwritten letters are a lost art form. Enough said.


4. Facebook has affected the way we perceive others and ourselves. Facebook was created to make networks. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, was recently named the TIME person of the year (2010). I skimmed this article in TIME (a gatrillion pages long. I had better things to do...like check Facebook). In the article, he states his purpose for Facebook. 


"We're trying to map out what exists in the world," he says. "In the world, there's trust. I think as humans we fundamentally parse the world through the people and relationships we have around us. So at its core, what we're trying to do is map out all of those trust relationships, which you can call, colloquially, most of the time, friendships."


First of all..."colloquially"? I don't quite know what to do with myself. I don't think I'm intelligent enough to even begin to describe the cosmic adventure within that word.


I think that Mark had a beautiful idea. I really do. But sometimes I wonder if we've lost sight of that. Are we really striving to build a community based on trust and a mapping of friendships, or have we fallen into a commercial idea of creating a false image of ourselves? Am I making any semblance of sense? Probably not. But I just feel that we have lost the point in it. It's about connectivity with those we know and love, not trying to build an "empire" of photos and friends.


What have I learned? That a one-on-one conversation with a best friend in a small coffee shop beats a wall post any day. That pictures are beautiful, but the memories within the pictures are even better. And spending hours singing off-key with your best friend in a car is better than hours spent on a chat trying to spew a witty repertoire of...wit. And that maybe Mark Zuckerberg, the analytical mind that is worth millions, can write codes all day...but it will never come close to personal, joyful, sorrowful, expressible, human interaction.