How Facebook Ruins Friendships
Updated Aug. 25, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET
Notice to my friends: I love you all dearly.
But
I don't give a hoot that you are "having a busy Monday," your child
"took 30 minutes to brush his teeth," your dog "just ate an ant trap" or
you want to "save the piglets." And I really, really don't care which
Addams Family member you most resemble. (I could have told you the
answer before you took the quiz on Facebook.)
Here's
where you and I went wrong: We took our friendship online. First we
began communicating more by email than by phone. Then we switched to
"instant messaging" or "texting." We "friended" each other on Facebook,
and began communicating by "tweeting" our thoughts—in 140 characters or
less—via Twitter.
All this online social networking was
supposed to make us closer. And in some ways it has. Thanks to the
Internet, many of us have gotten back in touch with friends from high
school and college, shared old and new photos, and become better
acquainted with some people we might never have grown close to offline.
Last
year, when a friend of mine was hit by a car and went into a coma, his
friends and family were able to easily and instantly share news of his
medical progress—and send well wishes and support—thanks to a Web page
his mom created for him.
But there's a danger here, too. If we're not careful, our online interactions can hurt our real-life relationships.
Like
many people, I'm experiencing Facebook Fatigue. I'm tired of loved
ones—you know who you are—who claim they are too busy to pick up the
phone, or even write a decent email, yet spend hours on social-media
sites, uploading photos of their children or parties, forwarding inane
quizzes, posting quirky, sometimes nonsensical one-liners or tweeting
their latest whereabouts. ("Anyone know a good restaurant in Berlin?")
One
of the big problems is how we converse. Typing still leaves something
to be desired as a communication tool; it lacks the nuances that can be
expressed by body language and voice inflection. "Online, people can't
see the yawn," says
Patricia Wallace,
a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented
Youth and author of "The Psychology of the Internet."
But
let's face it, the problem is much greater than which tools we use to
communicate. It's what we are actually saying that's really mucking up
our relationships. "Oh my God, a college friend just updated her
Facebook status to say that her 'teeth are itching for a flossing!'"
shrieked a friend of mine recently. "That's gross. I don't want to hear
about what's going on inside her mouth."
That
prompted me to check my own Facebook page, only to find that three of
my pals—none of whom know each other—had the exact same status update:
"Zzzzzzz." They promptly put me to "zzzzzzz."
This
brings us to our first dilemma: Amidst all this heightened chatter,
we're not saying much that's interesting, folks. Rather, we're breaking a
cardinal rule of companionship: Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Friends.
"It's
called narcissism," says Matt Brown, a 36-year-old business-development
manager for a chain of hair salons and spas in Seattle. He's
particularly annoyed by a friend who works at an auto dealership who
tweets every time he sells a car, a married couple who bicker on
Facebook's public walls and another couple so "mooshy-gooshy" they sit
in the same room of their house posting love messages to each other for
all to see. "Why is your life so frickin' important and entertaining
that we need to know?" Mr. Brown says.
'I Just Ate a Frito Pie'
Gwen
Jewett, for her part, is sick of meal status updates. "A few of my
friends like to post several times a day about what they are eating: 'I
just ate a Frito pie.' 'I am enjoying a double hot-fudge sundae at home
tonight.' 'Just ate a whole pizza with sausage, peppers and double
cheese,'" says the 49-year-old career coach in suburban Dallas. "My
question is this: If we didn't call each other on the phone every time
we ate before, why do we need the alerts now?"
For others, boredom isn't the biggest
challenge of managing Internet relationships. Consider, for example,
how people you know often seem different online—not just gussied up or
more polished, but bolder, too, displaying sides of their personalities
you have never seen before.
Alex
Gilbert, 27, who works for a nonprofit in Houston that teaches creative
writing to kids, is still puzzling over an old friend—"a particularly
masculine-type dude"—who plays in a heavy-metal band and heads a
motorcycle club yet posts videos on Facebook of "uber cute" kittens.
"It's not fodder for your real-life conversation," Mr. Gilbert says.
"We're not going to get together and talk about how cute kittens are."
James
Hills discovered that a colleague is gay via Facebook, but he says that
didn't bother him. It was after his friend joined groups that cater to
hairy men, such as "Furball NYC," that he was left feeling awkward.
"This is something I just didn't need to know," says Mr. Hills, who is
32 and president of a marketing firm in Elgin, Ill. "I'd feel the same
way if it was a straight friend joining a leather-and-lace group."
And
then there's jealousy. In all that information you're posting about
your life—your vacation, your kids, your promotions at work, even that
margarita you just drank—someone is bound to find something to envy.
When it comes to relationships, such online revelations can make
breaking up even harder to do.
"Facebook
prolongs the period it takes to get over someone, because you have an
open window into their life, whether you want to or not," says Yianni
Garcia of New York, a consultant who helps companies use social media.
"You see their updates, their pictures and their relationship status."
Mr.
Garcia, 24, felt the sting of Facebook jealousy personally last spring,
after he split up with his boyfriend. For a few weeks, he continued to
visit his ex's Facebook page, scrutinizing his new friends. Then one day
he discovered that his former boyfriend had blocked him from accessing
his profile.
Why? "He said he'd only
'unfriended' me to protect himself, because if someone flirted with me
he would feel jealous," Mr. Garcia says.
Facebook
can also be a mecca for passive-aggressive behavior. "Suddenly, things
you wouldn't say out loud in conversation are OK to say because you're
sitting behind a computer screen," says Kimberly Kaye, 26, an arts
writer in New York. She was surprised when friends who had politely
discussed health-care reform over dinner later grew much more
antagonistic when they continued the argument online.
Just
ask Heather White. She says her college roommate at the University of
Georgia started an argument over text about who should clean their
apartment. Ms. White, 22, who was home visiting her parents at the time,
asked her friend to call her so they could discuss the issue. Her
friend never did.
A few days later, Ms.
White, who graduated in May, updated her Facebook status, commenting
that her favorite country duo, Brooks & Dunn, just broke up. Almost
immediately, her roommate responded, writing publicly on her wall: "Just
like us." The two women have barely spoken since then.
Band-Aid Tactics
So
what's the solution, short of "unfriending" or "unfollowing" everyone
who annoys you? You can use the "hide" button on Facebook to stop
getting your friends' status updates—they'll never know—or use
TwitterSnooze, a Web site that allows you to temporarily suspend tweets
from someone you follow. (Warning: They'll get a notice from Twitter
when you begin reading their tweets again.)
But
these are really just Band-Aid tactics. To improve our interactions, we
need to change our conduct, not just cover it up. First, watch your own
behavior, asking yourself before you post anything: "Is this something
I'd want someone to tell me?" "Run it by that focus group of one," says
Johns Hopkins's Dr. Wallace.
And
positively reward others, responding only when they write something
interesting, ignoring them when they are boring or obnoxious.
(Commenting negatively will only start a very public war.)
If all that fails, you can always start a new group: "Get Facebook to Create an Eye-Roll Button Now!"
~Chelsea C
