Sunday, November 13, 2016

Goodbye, FB!

So, I've decided to do it; I'm leaving Facebook. I've been considering it for over a year now. The reasons are multiple. Let me name a few. Primarily, I find it consumes too much of my attention. I don't know if it's me or the medium (or, probably, both), but too many hours are spent in less than productive scrolling and reading. The updates from friends are what I will miss the most, but they take up an increasingly diminishing proportion of what is actually happening on my feed. I've attempted to regulate and spend less time on it, but my resolves are always short-lived and ultimately thwarted. It is is taking attention away from my work, my family, my time I'd rather spend reading, etc.

But there are other reasons. Of course, this election cycle plays a huge role in pushing me over the edge, but it really was a small nudge on someone who was already teetering. I have a dear friend who just posted on FB encouraging people making decisions like mine not to go through with it, to stay the course, to have constructive dialogue with people with whom you disagree because of the palliative or healing effect and the promotion of diversity that would foster. S/he makes a great point. Those are all things I would love. But I'm not mature enough for that. It's too easy not to hear tone and to misunderstand. It's too easy to judge a person by her post or re-post; that reduction of WHO a person IS is always oversimplified and dehumanizing. And there's a chance I'm just as guilty of that as the people in whom I see it. And those constructive dialogues are too rare. I've tried to have them. Most often they are met with a refusal to engage with the complexity of an argument or deteriorate into name-calling or ad hominem arguments. Sometimes I have ended up in a sort of written-vomiting-tirade that hardly represents what I consider to be my true self. Sometimes, in attempts to avoid this, there have been invitations for a verbal dialogue on the telephone; these have been met with flat out refusals (as a scientist and someone who believes in the pursuit of truth or its approximation regardless of previously held beliefs, this is particularly irksome). My guess is this is a result of an increasingly polarized society with a decreasing propensity to perceive complexity and civility as necessary components of dialogue/arguments and understanding. I don't think this will be fixed if I decide to stay on FB. Ultimately, it (FB) has been a source of angst that is proving to be too much for my well-being. Those who know me well know I'm already naturally angsty without FB. So I'm out.

I will be keeping in touch in other ways. I hope to keep at this blog. At one time I was better at it. Expect to see more pictures of the kids here. Also, I hope to spend time writing letters, especially to family, each week. I have email, of course, and I actually prefer it. Somehow that medium allows for longer, more thoughtful discussions.

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