Here We Go Again!

I know I have said this before but I have a Love/Hate relationship with Facebook. I’ve often wondered about the whole Facebook thing. When I first joined, Katie (my own daughter) would not “friend” me and I was offended. Ummmm…I think I was in my mid-50s, so I think my reaction was a bit immature. Once I became “cool” with her friends, she finally “friended” me and I felt like I had won a medal.

Fast forward to the various political elections in the past 10-15 years and I found myself commenting, regretting, commenting, regretting, and making a commitment to not comment on any political posts. Then I got weak and got back to making comments again. Got mad, regretted, promised to stay positive, yadda yadda yadda.

Then, more politics and Covid and posts and regrets and loss and all the rest! Finally, I think I have learned to manage those posts, mainly by just scrolling on by! Most of the time, these things just leave my mind. Recently, however, I’ve found myself mystified by some Facebook activity.

This activity has nothing to do with politics or Covid, but rather how people are treating people via Facebook. I follow a few groups. Two in particular have shown an ugly side.

One group is geared to women over 60. What could go wrong? There are some great stories, humor and situations that are presented by these women and sometimes, just a fun meme that hits a chord for the over 60 crowd. There is talk about not wearing heels anymore, talk about grandchildren (manners & behavior), talk about goals at 75, ie. doing a ½ marathon, talk about decluttering so children won’t have to when the time comes, sometimes talk about husbands, or finding love after the death of a spouse, and lot more. Most of the time, I enjoy the humorous posts and find people in similar situations as me. It has been a good group to follow. Recently, though, there have been some backtalk on various posts, coming across as mean girl comments.

When I see these, there is always a stream of back and forth with women that I refer to as digital cat-fighting. Normally, I don’t have much time (or tolerance) for this banging around on women, by other women. So, I scroll past.

Then, when I log on next, a see a long-winded post about how someone posted something and the space was supposed to be positive and it has gone down and become negative, so the person announces that she is leaving the site. I HATE THAT! If you are feeling unhappy about the criticism, just leave…you don’t have to make an announcement about it. I have left a handful of groups but with hundreds or even thousands of members in a group, no one ever noticed and I didn’t need to say goodbye in a passive aggressive way.

I haven’t shared much on the site, just a few comments when something makes me laugh or someone has a similar situation as me. But I am not obsessed with it. In fact, I’m not obsessed with Facebook at all.

It is something I use to keep connected, share funny/interesting things, but usually, I’m looking at the latest sale items on The Grommet or playing a game on my phone while my parents are watching their reruns on TV.

Facebook can be fun, it can bring a smile, it can re-connect people, and overall, it is just fine. However, Facebook gives people freedom to hide behind cruel words, hurting people, enabling people to do/say things they would never do face to face.

My advice is keep it light! Make Facebook fun again! If you don’t like a group, just leave the group. Learn to scroll by if you can’t take it. My Mom always said, “don’t put it in writing because it can come back to haunt you.” Maybe this post will do that…and maybe it is just a reminder that I’m almost 65 and Facebook is not that important in the big picture of my life.

I’m glad you can connect to my blogposts through Facebook and I do enjoy seeing pictures of you and the fun you’re having so keep it up! I’m not signing out just yet…xoxoxox