Let me just start by saying I am 53 years old. I have had cancer, lost my only sibling, lost my husband, raised a family, started a business (or two) been a daughter, wife, mother, aunt, niece, cousin, friend and sibling. I have had real life friendships that cooled over time. Friendships that can go months or years with no contact and pick right up where they left off. Relationships with relatives that I rarely see but think about often. I even have “cyber” friendships with women that I will probably never meet in person but who mean the world to me. In other words, I think I have some grip on appropriate societal behavior. Never have I ever experienced anything so stupid as Facebook friendships. First of all.. who really “knows” 4728 people? Why are you collecting friends? Is it a contest? Secondly, show of hands.. who pays attention to who “likes” or comments on your posts? And for the love of God who, other than a 12 year old who shouldn’t be on FB to begin with, would cut a friend loose simply because they didn’t participate enough in the admiration of their dozens of daily posts? Is this normal? Am I too old to “get it”?
I am not saying the above actually happened to me *cough.. it totally did* because then I’d have to admit that I have been a participant in the whole social media circus and clearly I am above all of that.
Or maybe I’m not. Since I am only friends with people I actually know, with the exception of 1 or 2 people who probably friended me accidentally, I would hope it would be obvious that my lack of response to things like your political/religious posts would indicate that I probably think you’re insane but I love you too much to say so. If I don’t “like” the 27th cute kitty picture you’ve posted in the last 2 hours it’s because a) my eyes are bleeding from all the cuteness or b) I’m afraid to encourage you. If you post pictures of your adorable baby daily, no matter how much I enjoy them, I’m not going to gush over each and every picture. If it would make you feel better I will try to gush once and maybe post “ditto” once or twice, then my admiration of your progeny should be implied. Don’t care what you had for dinner and not afraid to admit that.
Please don’t keep announcing that you’ve found yourself. How the hell do you keep losing yourself? Where do you go? Do you need help with keeping track of your comings and goings? I’m not offering. Just wondering.
In closing, if you are reading this and take offense, please feel free to cut me loose. Who knows? It might just spawn a blog post in your honor. 
mainelyhopeful 
I gave up FB quite a few years ago for exactly the reasons you mentioned. The one you apparently haven’t had happen is people promoting their business. Their posts were nothing but ads.
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Oh yeah. Those don’t bother me too much. Unless the authors start getting upset that I don’t “like” them.
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Love your wit and writing style….I too don’t necessarily “like” everything I enjoy reading. I am occasionally guilty of posting things about food..but I don’t care if people necessarily “like” those posts either since i already have an intended target audience. I have one foodie child who likes that stuff and another I am trying to inspire to actually make a meal that isn’t paleo (I will let you guess which one is which 🙂 ). Anyway, I do like seeing stuff about you and Mel. Helps me feel still connected. Hope you keep on blogging and posting.
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I love seeing your food posts, Pat. I keep hoping I’ll find a delicious muffin in my mailbox one morning 😉
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I use it mainly to keep up with events (useful for organizing things) and bands. Most of the content on Facebook is people posting pictures of themselves and that’s not very interesting. I prefer blogging or message boards. I’ve had a lot more intelligent discussions there.
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Don’t even get me started on the selfies!
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I had this exact exchange with someone the other day. They are deeply religious and hard core pro life. That’s all fine but he posts multiple times and day. He wondered why people don’t like or comment on his posts, when he’s kind enough to do that for everyone else. First, who has that kind of time?? But I responded with many of the arguments here. I think there are many benefits to social media but let’s all be reasonable. Too many people taking too many things personally.
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exactly. Normally I wouldn’t even notice if someone unfriended me unless it was a close family member but this person regularly cleans house based on how active her friends are in their admiration. I guess it was my turn!
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Giggling here especially when you wrote ‘how the hell do you keep losing yourself?’ Oh my gosh…thank you. I needed that giggle! I hope you have a lovely Christmas…hope all is well with you. Sending you cyber healing hugs as always. Good to connect with you…
And FYI, I’ve been unfriended on FB as well and didn’t know it. To me, who cares, right? ♥
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I really didn’t care, but if this person thought I wouldn’t blog about it she never really knew me at all 😉 All kidding aside, we were members of a very small, private group (8 of us) so it was immediately noticeable and made posting in the group very uncomfortable. So I left, but only after announcing the betrayal. ha!
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I’ve just started reading your blog and I already love you. I wanted to yell “yes[ this” the minute I read it. I’m not on FB, but I use Twitter as a PLN (sorry – Personal Learning Network and to make the odd snarky comment about sports (I follow both Mikes from Mike and Mike).
I promised myself when I started using Twitter that I would never look at my mentions and never have. I love your attitude towards social media in general. It has its place, but …
Did you read about the woman who had someone on Facebook tell her not to post anymore pictures of her kid’s firsts? She got hammered the person in a post that went viral.
Teach
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Welcome 🙂 I did read about that woman. My personal feeling is if you are posting a million pictures of your kid, you should be set for friends only,not public. Hopefully friends and family are a little more tolerant.
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