Social Media

Recently, two negative things have happened to friends of mine on Facebook... GOOD friends of mine; IRL (In Real Life) Friends. These events make me question if staying on Social Media is worth it. Again. I question myself. Again. Bring out the Pro-Con List. Again. 

What kind of negative things, you ask? Well, this quote sums it up quite well.

 

To have a presence as a Real Estate Agent is one thing, but a professional page is much different than a personal page. And I have threatened to delete/deactivate my Facebook presence at least twice before. 

I bought the book "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier because I watched the documentary on Netflix last year, "The Social Dilemma" and I've mentioned it here before, but I believe that it is worth mentioning again ~ it's an eye-opening watch.

Now I really intend to read the book.

I've downloaded my Facebook Page twice previously - so I have my history, if you will. Messenger is a separate thing, so in theory I could keep that going, at least for a little while, in order to "catch" the friends who are only on FB once in awhile.

That said, as I'm obtaining more birthday candles every year, I realize that there isn't enough time to really *be* as good a friend as I would like to be. The phrase "a mile wide and an inch deep" comes to mind... 

Speaking of deeper friendships. I've tragically and unexpectedly lost another great friend in a car accident about a month ago - an accident from which he should have awoken. Dan and I sang together in high school in the Advanced Mixed Chorus as well as the 'elite' smaller group, Ensemble (aka 'The Sounds of Santa Rita'). He walked up to me in the hallway outside of the chorus room the first day of school our sophomore year and showed me a newspaper clipping and said, "my dad died." And that was my introduction to Dan. How we met. He was there, a fixture in my life from then up until I got married and moved away for 5-1/2 years. 

When I returned home, we were still friends, but it was different. Pre-Scotland, people who know, hinted to me that he "liked me" as more than a friend, but I had never felt that way about him... though I did consider it at one point... but realized it had always been and would always be, at least for me, a brother/sister love I had for him. 

My memories of Dan are so very many... I can't sum him up, or my memories in this post, which has, somehow, meandered into sharing this profound loss not just for me personally, but his incredible family and our community. For Dan was the definition of "Community-Minded" or "Community-Focused." He worked as the Community Outreach Director first for Casa de los Ninos and then later for The Southern Arizona Children's Advocacy Center. 

But... going back to the point - I've lost 2 incredible people that were significant to me and impactful to my life (helping me become who I am today) and I didn't know them or meet them because of Social Media. Neither of them put much time or thought into those platforms, come to think of it.

With such big changes happening in my life, I'm thinking I don't need to have 1.7K friends. Or 90 followers. My dad once asked if I actually knew all those people... and that was a number of years ago when I was only at the under 1,000 friends mark, I think. I actually now have a Facebook Group in my friends list that I named "People I Don't Actually Know IRL" lol! They are people who were (or are) part of my former singing organization, which I don't care much about anymore as an organization... or other Real Estate Agents that are in my local community, or part of the network from the RE Coaching Company to which I belong.

I've started unfriending people when their birthdays come up if I have no idea who they are, how I know them, or how we became FB Friends. I'm thinking if I don't know who they are, they are not likely to know who I am, either. I figure if I continue doing this, then in a year's time my friends list will be significantly reduced. A good thing.

I have another friend, a person I've known since my middle 20s, who is only friends with 70 people on FB. She goes through and regularly 'culls' her friends list, and I know this because I've friend-requested her at least 3 times previously...We're friends, then we're not friends. We're friends, then we're not friends. We're friends... lol, you get the idea. This last time when I friend-requested her I actually asked her how this is happening... was she culling her friends? She's another person who has significantly impacted my life (and I believe I was there for her a few times in her life, too), and watching her family through events and photos via FB is a privilege.

But then, there's the couple of people whom I've only met in person once, became Facebook Friends with and wished that he or she and I could actually pursue a connection. A person whom I believe to be a person of character, integrity, humor and significance that I wish were in my circle, or that I would be in theirs. This is only a handful of people, but I wish that these few were more "inch wide and mile deep" friends. 

I've wandered around a little in this post. Social Media. There's good. There's bad. There's in-between. I am an addict, I know - where will I spend hours of lost time if I'm not scrolling? 

I'm thinking of having my own website, my own domain. Where I can share ('cuz I love to share funny, useful, weird and interesting stuff) anytime, anything I want. I want to ensure that those who want to find me will be able to find me, however... so - should I first set up that domain...? OR just share this blog site link as a "space to watch" for future developments. Hmmmm.....