How do I feel about social media?
Daily I open my account on Facebook and ask myself, why am I doing this? Out of almost 5,000 friends how many are truly friends? Most of these people are hardly known to me and if it were not for Facebook I probably would never refer to them as friends, or even acquaintances.
From another perspective, Facebook brings the news of what is happening in far off places, but how much accuracy does this news contain? We have to trust our judgement on all accounts.
Facebook is also addictive and this is indicative of a chronic need in society to connect to a power that is greater than ourselves. In the external world such powers are deemed unsafe and sometimes fraudulent. Facebook appears to be safe ground because everything happens at a distance, but Facebook is also discursive and it can eat into the emotions if one allows it to penetrate the mind too much. To this end, I ask myself, why have so many chosen to engage with Facebook.? The answer seems to be that in a time when we have lost touch with community we turn to virtual communities to fulfill those same social and emotional needs.
However, there is another question. Does Facebook truly fulfill those needs for connection? Can Facebook replace real friends and family, or the beauty of nature. The answer is no. Too much time spent on screen can be damaging in a myriad of ways. I open Face book once and day, but I choose nature for resilience, love and respect.