Are You Hanging On The FB Cross ?

Are you on FB right now? Scrolling down your news feed or updating your status? Or maybe making an intense, thought to provoke post? Are you thinking Ruining? When ? How ? Not me! I am perfectly happy with my FB. But tell me, won’t you be coming back every few minutes to check how many likes? How many comments and how many Love Spams? And then you will analyse each comment, who made it, what was said, why was it said, what was the open message and what was the hidden message in that open message?

Being on FB is like bearing your own cross up the hill and then climbing on it. Now all you have to do is just wait and one by one they will drive those nails into you, making you stay up there and watch you bleed. And they will cheer you, they will applaud you making you the martyr. Those Unseen barbed wires chafing you and making you wince even as you sit in your plush chair and sip that yummy coffee while looking at your screen which has your FB feed displayed in front of you.

Social Media is amazing. Trust me when I say that I, to a great extent is equally addicted and had my share of Love and Wow Spams. And somewhere in between them and comments, I too succumbed to the FB mania. I wanna share with you the things that I discovered about FB. Think of them as the nails that are being hammered into you.

1. When on FB, nothing remains private. Period. You might change your security settings to bare minimum, but, sooner or later, your information, location, friendships, relationships, work history or pictures will be seen by someone you don’t intend to know. When on social media know that: Nothing stays private when online.

2. Everyone is a Political Pundit. Nothing on FB is more inflammable than politically fueled ranting on walls and status updates. Then begins the comment war. And yea, how can we forget the memes, the stickers, the gifs

   ….Freedom of speech is for all, but when on your newsfeed, it turns into a voice booming in your ear, provoking you to speak, voice your opinion and keeping quiet seems more like an insult to boot. The best way to avoid them is to silence them by using the hide button on your feed so that you won’t be drawn back to see what Tom, Dick and Harry said, and yes, more so if Harry is your friend and Tom your arch enemy. You know what I mean, how we are bound to stand up to our enemies and by our friends.

3. I love babies, I love cats, and I have to make a post which won’t happen cause I am busy liking their pics on FB. Yes, I find them ridiculously cute, but just how many bunnies and unicorns I can like before I decide I am done and must get back to making my post. I mean my mum needs me to go shopping, my aunt wants me to help her with some bills, my domestic help wants me to teach him some English, so it’s time to decide that those few cute puppies won’t drop dead without my like spam. They will still be there when you get back. I promise.

4. You literally know everything and anything about your friends. Besties share everything, right? But do you need to know it all about the 350 friends on FB? Cause you know, they will post just about anything that comes to their mind from the kinda coffee they had to what was their doc’s diagnosis. Am I the only one feeling that my friends are posting just about more than enough? Must we share event waking moment on FB?

5. My wall is not your Dumpster! We have all had that. That one friend who will post most embarrassing pics and videos on your wall and when you log in you’re like NO…. Then you start the cleaning up, untagging, deleting and finally end up changing your setting to no one can post on my wall. But of course, by that time the damage is done and the image you are so conscious about is damaged already.

6. Then comes the English Massacre. Lol, I no, r8? B4 u tink tat, lemme tell u, we are living in Gen Next, and our texting, commenting, writing more in less time theory has poisoned our grammar, punctuation and spellings. This shorthand gets so annoying sometimes that it becomes incorrigible to understand what has been written. One day I had to write a formal letter and found myself using “U” for ‘You” and had to edit the whole letter. I know software like Grammarly have helped us a great deal, but, when in flow, we tend to avoid and just wanna voice our opinion ASAP.

7. Characters from movies. Each and every movie character can be found on FB. The Mean Girls, Pretty Woman, Man in the Iron Mask, V for Vendetta, name it and you have it. It all comes down to us deciding how we chose to portray ourselves on social media. Even if you chose no one, you would witness them. It’s like a sitcom, the lovers, the evil witch, the lone lover, the mum, the step mum, the sister, the agony aunt, they are all there, contributing to the drama. If you keep a close eye, it gets quite interesting sometimes, better than daily soap opera. If you don’t like soap operas, re-evaluate your friend’s list and edit it.

8. That Phantom friend. Yes, I too have that phantom friend, who would like all my posts, comment every now and then but never IB me. I wonder is he/she a bot? I am thinking like why they just want people to know that I am friends with them when they never bother to connect really. Is it all about being more socially active? It’s all good till it stays there but then comes a day when they make a scandalous post and tag you in it. And you are like what? Why me? I wonder if I have any friends who would just IB and never let people know of our bonding.

9. The Scary Friend Request. Just yesterday I got a friend request from someone who has no mutual friends with me. I was like who is he? How he knows me? I racked my brains if I know him and sent him a message asking if he knows me? The reply was NO but just liked my profile. DUH, I can’t accept his request as I have a fear of the complete stranger, and I have been warned about the crimes of social media, so I denied that humble gentleman.

10. It brings out the worst in us. Have you ever realised that social media, especially FB, brings out the worst in people? We end up scavenging through the pics our exes posted, wanting to take a sneak peek into their current lives. We stalk people we don’t like too, just to find their weakness and shortcomings, if they have more enemies that are our friends. Not just that, but FB, makes it way too easier to criticise, condemn, and humiliate just because we are hiding behind our screens and not looking into the eyes of the other person.We can’t see the pain in them or the tears in them. I don’t understand the need to scrutinise and spy only to judge and then embarks them.

11. Religious and Nationalism Posts. The ones where you are tagged in the post made by an Indian for a Pakistani or an update made by a Sikh for an Islamic. They are the ones that make it look like you are part of a WW III. Anyone and everyone will comment, even the ones who weren’t tagged, even the ones you never know. All are touchy when it comes to Religion and Country, it’s a personal hit and abstaining from participating is cowardice. And let’s admit there are some cruel individuals on social media, who can take it upon themselves to express their criticism even when it is not necessary. That is the main reason why social media is not a safe place for children and young adults.

    Overwhelming

    Some negative comments can really push people off the edge. Facebook is just a perfect tool for cyber bullies to target their victims.

12. Ruins Progress. Let’s just look at a hypothetical situation, here you are finally deciding to drown yourself with the information for your next history test when you hear a ding. And would you look at that, it’s a notification from Facebook! Because Facebook so easily disrupts your concentration, it weakens your comprehension, accordingly ruining your long term memory. As a result, your intellectual development is halted and

    you

    Thinking is inhibited. You can only imagine how constant disruption can damage you on a mental level. I am getting so many

    notifs

    right now that I have chosen a new window and won’t open it till I am done with this article.

13. It makes impossible to have real life conversations. Social Media means the death of one on one talk. Yes, it allows me to connect with a friend across half the world or talk to my cousin in a different time zone, but won’t allows talking to your own mother and brother.My mum is constantly asking for my time, and after doing all my work and stuff the time I have goes to looking at my screen. Recently she got unwell, and I realised that all my friends online, put together can’t make up for her. I have altered my ways now, and like to talk to people looking at their face, in their eyes, and I know it, sometimes when they say “I am ohk”, their eyes are telling a whole different story, whereas the talk online leaves a lot of room for misunderstands.

So, if all these nails have been driven into you, then you have become a martyr, and you are hanging on the FB cross just like me. I know how you bleed, I know how it hurts and pains, I know that you will die(deactivation) and then be resurrected(reactivation). And yes, just like any martyr, you will have followers and disciples, who will be hanged with you for the mere crime of supporting you(reported). But you can always choose not to wear that thorny crown and step down from this cross. Just maintain a balance in real and FB.