How many of you go onto Facebook day after day and see everyone’s perfect life on there? Everyone is always happy and smiling and traveling and graduating and getting married and having kids. Can I just say that this drives me absolutely insane?
It doesn’t bother me that everyone is happy. It bothers me that it might not be completely the truth. It’s some sort of weird vicious cycle. Why would people put their misery on a public forum? At the same time, come on, people’s lives aren’t that perfect. We all go through crap. If you look at my Facebook page, would you have ever imagined that I’ve probably been through some sort of hell over the last month? Maybe a little bit since I occasionally do throw out less than ideal posts. But not often.
Has anyone else had to take Facebook breaks? Am I the only person who works a regular 8 hours job with a crappy commute? I couldn’t stand seeing that no one else worked and just traveled to all of these exotic places all the time. Those people who do work had the best jobs that sent them on the most interesting travels as well. Yeah, you can say I get tired of it every so often. Maybe some of it is jealousy that my life doesn’t seem to look like that. I look at profiles and then I look at my profile and I try to figure out if my life looks as great as theirs.
So how do we reconcile this? I wouldn’t mind seeing some honesty. If something is wrong in this world, shout it. If you feel that something needs to change, voice that. I understand that we can’t say everything, that there needs to be some privacy, especially since a lot of us do use Facebook as a marketing tool and don’t want to announce everything to the outside world. At the same time, if we can share our personal wedding and baby pictures, why can’t we share a few honest thoughts every so often? I really would like to see a person, not an image.
Who We Are Today 
I totally get what you’re saying. And I can attest to the fact that it’s especially frustrating when you see your close friends posting as if life is absolutely perfect when you know for a fact that their marriage is a miserable mess and the “I love you honey” posts are completely fake. For me personally, I learned the hard way that no one really wants to see the unhappy stuff. In particular when I used to complain about how much I hated my job and people would see me and say “boy, you really don’t like your job” – I realized complaining about my job on Facebook accomplished nothing because (almost) EVERYONE hates their job. So from that point forward I made a point to keep my posts cheerful and upbeat. Sure there are times I’ve gotten serious like when my dad had open heart surgery or my newborn was in the NICU and I was keeping people updated and asking for prayers… that’s real stuff that people are actually going to care about. It’s just the day to day gripes that no one really wants to see when they disconnect from the “real world”!
Completely true. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Totally agree with you! I mainly use facebook for blogging and networking. I barely ever update my personal page bc I am pretty private outside of my blog haha. I just find it pointless to share too much there. My close family and friends know what is going on with me offline and I don’t need to portray a certain image for everyone else. Now when it comes to my blog page, that’s a different story but I try to keep it to sharing things related to my niche and uplifting not negative.
I feel this way often, actually. I hate it but it’s true. Some people’s lives just seem a bit too happy and well put together. I mean, does no one work anymore? ha!
Yeah, sometimes I take a day or two to get away from it all. You’re not alone!
I think we have become the kings of multitasking. I remember I used to have fb open as one of my tabs when I worked. Wouldn’t be surprised if more people do that. It would be nice to see reality once in a while. I like putting everything away and just being in the moment sometimes.
Facebook breaks can be a really great thing 🙂
!00% agreed!
I call it “fake book”..LOL Taking a break for a few days to areas where there is no wi-fi or cell service is a requirement for me every few months!
Time away is definitely needed. I think when it bothered me the most, I just took a few months off from facebook. It helped so much.
I totally Struggle with what is appropriate to share. Either be real-life and seem like doom and gloom, or try to be positive and optimistic and look like someone who is fake?
Which is why I usually end up in humor. Like today, where I talked about how my dog was rolling in another dog’s pee. (He’s so gross)
Haha. Those are the posts I like reading the best. Humor is most appreciated.
This is exactly why I’m not active on facebook. My life is far from perfect and I don’t want to be one of those people that only show the good times. And I refuse to air my dirty laundry on social media so I just stay away from it as much as possible.
There have been times where I’ve vented on Facebook, but it didn’t get me anywhere really. Some people take things out of context, so it’s a fine line. I will admit, for self motivating reasons and accountability, I am that cheerful friend checking in at the gym at the ridiculous time of 3am.. I know puke right, in my defense I do this so I can work out before my husband leaves for work, gotta fit in time some how.
This is so true, lots of people use Facebook it seems to construct the life that they wished they had, rather than the one they have. I don’t really use it because of this, I only update my blog’s page. It always gives me a laugh though to read about someone’s perfect day/ holiday/ night out. So great that they took time to stop enjoying it and post about it!