the Fiction of Facebook Got You Down?

I recently told my bf that despite the supposedly notable things I’ve accomplished and continue to do, I still feel like a first class loser.  I am nowhere near as accomplished as I thought I would be at this point in my life.  When I was younger, I always thought I’d be so sure of myself and my life heading toward my 25th birthday.  (At my age, my parents were married and expecting their first child – me!)  But here I stand – confused, frustrated, and altogether, disappointed.

“¿Porque mi amiga?”  Until a few months ago, I thought that I had simply fallen back into my pessimistic habits (shhhh, don’t tell Lori!).  However, when asked, every tangible reason I named to my bf involved seeing what my classmates (and others whom I only communicate with via Facebook) were doing with their lives.  I haven’t seen 95% of them in decades, and many of them have since gotten married and started families.  It wasn’t any of my friends that I see everyday that made me feel bad about myself.  Instead it was the ones whose lives I only see through the peeping Tom window of Facebook that made me feel unaccomplished.

My Theory?  I blame the Fiction of Facebook.

(“the Fiction of Facebook”… Catchy little phrase there, huh?  I just Googled it and got no results.  So if someone uses this phrase for profit, how ’bout givin’ a sister a little cut, yea? ::grin:: )

What the hell is the “Fiction of Facebook”?  Simply put, it’s the way that the positive gets emphasized (maybe overemphasized, at times) on Facebook.  People update Facebook, often varying in detail and accuracy.  Everyone has their own style and taste when it comes to their coveted status updates.  But the main thing that shines through is the positive.

Perhaps this excerpt from EyeWeekly’s “Quarterlife Crisis” puts it more eloquently:

Twentysomethings are also inundated with constant but mostly empty communication, as the increasingly primary social sphere exists online instead of real life… “All these people you couldn’t give a shit about a couple of years ago are now these omnipresent benchmarks and counterpoints to measure against whatever you have or haven’t got going on in your life.”

Let me be clear that I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade and I am in no way advocating negativity (Lord knows how irritating emo updates are!).  I absolutely LOVE seeing my friends’ updates and accomplishments; frequently they serve as reminders of what possibilities lay ahead.  But one cannot deny that when reading a highlights-only version of everyone’s lives, it can get depressing when you might be dealing with a part of your own life that is not so full of highlights.

While I enjoy using social media (especially Twitter, because of all the motivated, driven, positive people on there!), it is too easy to forget that Facebook is like a collection of trailers for (mostly) average movies: a collection of selected excerpts from their lives… the good parts that are specifically chosen to be publicized.  Am I really the only one who feels this way?