This is the first post to the blog (see more on the ‘About’ page if you want an introduction) and I wasn’t sure what to put in it. I realised I was going to have to share it on facebook and thought about putting an apology in it that I was going to spam people, but thought instead I could write that as a first post!
Initially I didn’t like the idea of sharing it as some might consider it spam, but then I realised that if I’m not going to share something I’ve written which I think is interesting, what else am I going to share? Facebook generally has fairly boring and mundane things on it; not that this is bad, this is part of what it’s for, so even if people don’t care about what I’ve written on my blog, that just makes it part of the mass of facebook posts. And the couple of times I have shared a status which has a bit more to it, I’ve been surprised by the response. So if you have me on facebook, be prepared to receive my blog updates (and if you don’t want them, I don’t mind if you hide me or remove me).
What’s facebook for anyway? I’ve often thought about getting rid of it: it’s often a waste of time, and like many I’ll sit there for hours refreshing it; it’s a distraction from getting things done, to the point where I couldn’t sit down to work/study without checking it and there’d be something nagging in my mind if I hadn’t seen it for ten minutes. There’s also probably wider psychological effects: it can cause anxiety and exacerbate the thought that you might be missing out on something; it might give some feelings of inferiority by comparing yourself to other people. Bullying has become a lot worse because of social media (see various news stories about suicides following facebook hate campaigns, at its worst a girl who killed herself following a photo which got widely circulated of her being raped while vomiting out of a window). It’s got its uses too, obviously, keeping in touch with friends (both by actually using it to talk to them and share things or just because they’re part of your audience generally), sharing photos, and organising things, but the culture that comes with it doesn’t seem great.
(after writing that paragraph, I opened a new tab on my browser and was about to navigate to facebook, before remembering that I already had it open in another window so would’ve heard any notifications and that it had been less than five minutes since I last checked it. Oops.)