The Facebook Front
By: Martie Sirois
Tags: Society, Mental Health, Culture, Self, Social Media

I joined Facebook in 2006 when a lifelong, trustworthy friend sent me a “friend request” over email. Simon wants to be your friend, the message conveyed. I was confused. “What? We’re already friends,” I thought. “What is this?”

Simon was a bit older than me, well-rounded, in that he was both extremely well-educated and artistic — a man of immense talent and wisdom. He was always articulate, and certainly not the type of person to spread chain mail, debunked hoaxes, or questionable links. As a gay man who disliked the option of online dating services, he often relayed his weariness of “things on the internet.” He especially disliked having an inbox overflowing with spam. “Inkjets and penises,” he’d repeat in a sing-song way, his exaggerated southern lilt lending the phrase extra comedic effect. “That’s all the mail I get anymore. Spam. Always the same stuff. Folks trying to sell me ink jets and penises!”

I decided to follow Simon’s link and check out “the Facebook” (back when Facebook still used “the” in front of its name), and found it was actually pretty cool. It had the look of LinkedIn, but the feel of a more casual, fun climate — nothing stuffy or professional. It definitely had the potential to be a huge time-waster with its endless rabbit holes and simple, mind-numbing games.

But it also had the special power of doing the whole ‘six degrees of separation’ thing for you, because it would suggest other “friends” who were already in your network, but whom you might not have known had an online presence anywhere. As you invited more people to be your Facebook friend, more people joined and got hooked, and in turn, invited even more people. It was a whole new concept for connecting—and finding people.

The potential was astronomical.

The very first post on my “wall” was from Simon. I remember getting the notification and the ridiculousness of feeling important for a moment. The message read, “Welcome to the face book! This can be kind of addictive!”

Right he was.

Simon’s no longer living, but every year that post shows up in my memories and makes me smile.

Image by Simon Steinberger from Pixabay

In 2006 when I joined “the face book,” I’d just given birth to my third child. I’d been fanatical about taking photos of all three kids, but had no efficient way of picking only the best ones, sorting them, compiling albums, and then sharing with family and friends spread out across the country.

Online photo services were not always user-friendly at the time, or they came and went. Nothing seemed to stick around. We’d only discovered YouTube and Blogger about a year prior. We found those to be great outlets for sharing news or home videos, and in return, I could enjoy videos of my baby nieces four states away, taking their first steps—all from the comfort of my own home. This was the next best thing…

Only, there wasn’t one platform where you could share all of it together, in the same place. I couldn’t embed YouTube videos on Blogger, for example. Adding good quality photos to a blog post wasn’t the one-step insert like it is now. Nonetheless, we embraced and enjoyed this new age of technology and sharing. It was something we couldn’t have even dreamed of having in the 80s (which, in hindsight, was definitely a good thing).

Around the time social media really exploded — about a year or two after Simon invited me to join—I noticed that a lot of folks’ portrayal of life in general seemed to explode. Towards the end of the decade, a trend was evident: the #humblebrag was exploding in popularity.

The more you scrolled, the more you saw people across social media who were overwhelmingly happy, like, all the time! Nothing bad ever happened to anyone! Everyone loved their super-satisfying jobs, their happy relationships, their immaculate homes, their loving families, their perfect pregnancies, their perfect kids, their perfect parties, their perfect vacations (which always looked expensive and lavish). It was enough to make you feel like a nobody, like your life simply paled in comparison.

This was, at least, one area of life where my psychology degree (and common sense) came in handy. I realized it was pointless to ever feel bad about my current station in life, because deep down, I knew I was doing just fine. And because I saw most of these Facebook friends in real life, I knew that they weren’t necessarily doing so fine — at least not all the time.

It didn’t make sense to believe everyone else out there was being real and honest when they showcased nothing but Brady Bunch bliss all the time. It defied all logic. What were they not sharing? What were they hiding? I realized Facebook was becoming merely a convenient “front,” a rose-tinted lens, and I started calling it “the Facebook front.”

As Facebook became less real, it became less fun.

As we Americans became more obsessed with living our lives on social media, studies started being released regarding the impact of social media on mental health. Time and again, a direct correlation was found among people who consumed lots of social media and also suffered depression or anxiety. In fact, social media was often identified as causation, or at least an accelerant, for those suffering the effects of depression and anxiety.

What became evident was that most people were merely showcasing the highlight reels of their lives, and even then, those were frequently edited, filtered, or exaggerated — if not totally fabricated.

It was all smoke and mirrors.

By using images and words that portrayed only the things people could use as #humblebrag fodder, it became apparent that people were carefully crafting their own personal brands. They were choosing this over honesty, and in the process, withholding the unfiltered, imperfect images and stories that would have more authentically reflected everyone’s reality.

We’ve all been complicit at some point. I try to keep myself in check, but fail miserably at times. I do occasionally keep it real by posting exactly how shitty things are—no filter. Surprisingly, those are the posts that resonate the most with others. Those are the posts that seem to help foster empathy. Those are the posts where people who don’t usually write anything on social media suddenly feel led to speak up and comment, “me too.”

Trying to juggle social media when you use it for your work is almost impossible. Especially if you’re a writer, actor, artist, or anyone more in the public eye, or even if you’re just job-seeking, in many cases, you need to have a digital footprint everywhere—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Since each platform uses different algorithms and methods for sharing the most relevant content in order to give each unique user the most personally-tailored experience, you have to approach each platform differently. Which is time-consuming to figure out, and exhausting to apply.

As one example, through trial and error (and time), I’ve learned that Facebook users are less likely to share the work of anyone who self-promotes, whereas Twitter users fully embrace the shameless plug approach. Almost all traffic to pieces I’ve written that exist behind a paywall have come exclusively from Twitter links, shares, and retweets. (Plus—selfish perk — Twitter offers what Facebook doesn’t: the ability to communicate directly with your favorite celebs who actually run their own accounts. A few of my original tweets and links to my work have been retweeted by some pretty awesome folks — Rosie O’Donnell, John Cusack, Patricia Arquette, Jacob Tobia, and others. That’s my only #humblebrag here, I promise.)

But when it comes to keeping up with community or local news, Facebook is far better, because it’s so much smaller. And also because anyone can form discussion or interest groups around any topic under the sun. Communities can be built that don’t otherwise exist. Facebook is superior for this.

Though an excellent case can be made for mastering just one form of social media, sticking with just one, and doing it well, I like the variety that different social media platforms offer. When I’m in a hurry, I prefer Twitter because of the fast pace and brevity. When I need a happy escape, I go to Instagram or TikTok. When I want to catch up with my closest friends, I go to Facebook, or I pick up the phone and make a call, or text. (And these are all great options when you have social anxiety, and the thought of going out in public is simply too much some days.)

Image by ijmaki from Pixabay

I’ve also found it necessary to try and balance social media use with not using it, like, going “off the grid” completely for periods of time, for restorative purposes (or because maybe you just don’t have the time, energy, or interest). But the downfall there is you miss out on info that’s personally relevant to you. I swear, every time I take a Facebook break, I seem to miss about 5 major illness or surgery events, 4 birth or death announcements, 3 major life changes, 2 career updates, and 1 person who suddenly uprooted and moved to Russia.

Like it or not, the majority of people live life on social media now.

Of course, all of social media is a delicate balancing act; you can’t post only negative stuff all the time because that’s just depressing for everyone. I’ve found that what works best is a mix of everything — everything that’s real. Glimpses of hope, especially when presented along with authentic pain, struggle, or suffering — things we all experience more often than we’d like to admit—can especially resonate with many. Which can go a really long way in cultivating and nurturing empathy. And empathy, I believe, is the one ingredient that’s largely absent in our society right now. We can all afford kindness. Even occasionally. Especially on social media.