Transitions

BlueMem #4 The start of an addiction  :-/

        Facebook-I remember the first day I ever created an account. I had finally given up on the MySpace movement and was actually fine being off of the internet. When I first learned of Facebook, I really didn't understand what all the hype was about. I just couldn't wrap my head around how this website could possibly be better than MySpace. I mean you could personalize your background on MySpace, have pictures changing on your page, and best of all you could choose a song that almost always represented either your current mood, your current hate for someone or your new found love interest. Facebook didn't give you any of these options therefore I was no interested in creating an account!

                After being disconnected from social websites for about a month, my friends relentlessly harassed me about creating a Facebook account. I really didn't want to though; I mean I really, really didn't want to! Facebook just looked boring to me. After a while though I gave in and finally created an account. I rarely went on in the beginning, but after I started to get into the swing of things I found myself going on Facebook more and more every day. Before I knew it, I was on Facebook at least several times a day and then it just escalated from there to several times an hour. Facebook was like a very addictive drug to me. I had to be connected at all times.

                 I love the whole idea of Facebook- you know giving people the chance to stay connected with old friends and make new ones, but my like for Facebook kind of stops there.  I'd like to say that it changed my life for the better by giving me the opportunity to connect and say connected with new and old friends BUT…………. it didn't. All it did was enhance my procrastinating skills and trying to rid myself of it use to seem impossible. After about two years on the social network I have learned things get really redundant on Facebook really fast and that has reduced my desire to go on Facebook as much as I use to.   In his piece "Growing Up Tethered" Turkle describes the collaborative self as one that needs to connect to complete feelings or thoughts. Well when it comes to any of the social networks such as Facebook or MySpace, this claim has a lot of truth to it. People who are actively on Facebook or MySpace use these sites to evoke some kind of feeling or thought. This feeling or thought can be expressed explicitly or be expressed with a quote or a song. Using myself as an example, my collaborative self needed to be connected to something or someone to express a feeling or thought. Even if I didn't always use Facebook as an outlet, I needed and sometimes still need to connect to something to get emotions out.