OK. I have given it a
realistic go. People pressured me to try it. ‘You are missing out’, they said. They
also said ‘do you realise you can join groups and communicate with other
like-minded people?’ I was told once I start I will be hooked. That there’ll be
no turning back. Endless hours of sated curiosity and soothing reminiscence. And
more friends that you can shake a stick at.
I am talking about
Facebook. I started it six months ago. Now it’s the New Year and it’s time to
give it the boot. Well, mostly, anyway. I can’t take back that time wasted on
looking at mindless posts and naively falling into loads of traps.
The first trap was to
accept the ‘friendship’ of people I knew long ago. Some of these were women who
have now had children. Others, men I didn’t really click with way back when. The
children ones were the most disturbing. Endless ‘selfies’ and other shots
holding their sweet little babies. ‘Friends’ gushing and posting ‘likes’ and
comments like ‘aaawww, too cute!’ Me thinking, but not posting, ‘aha, at last
you have found a reason for living.’
The second trap was to join
endless groups to find out what other people around the globe are thinking
about the people or the things that you like. This is not always a complete
loss. For instance, the people on the Katherine Mansfield website don’t post
very often, and when they do it is usually informative and useful. I found out,
for instance, about a 2016 symposium for Mansfield in France somewhere. Someone
who does post sometimes is a woman called Gerri Kimber, who is a major writer
and publisher about Mansfield, a world-wide expert if you like, and it is an
honour to see and receive her posts. Another writer, Colm Toibin, as you might
expect, is very sensible and sensitive, and he often alerts his followers to
interesting newspaper articles he comes across, or posts from critics and
journals that reference his works.
On the other side of the
coin, I was, until recently, a member of the Justin Hayward appreciation group.
I don’t really know any Moody Blues fans over here in Melbourne, and I thought
it might be fun to converse with some online. What tipped me over the edge, and
caused me to give it the flick once and for all, was a recent post by somebody
starting off an A-Z list of things about Justin Hayward. The first ones were ‘A
is for amazing, B is for beautiful, C is for charismatic’, and so on, and I’m
thinking ‘what’s going on here? are we in primary school? are these people all
idiots?’
The Melanie Safka
appreciation society is a bit better, but it got me fed up and depressed as
well after a while. Melanie herself does lots of posts, and the other day she
put up a video of her singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in a croaky voice, with a Santa
hat on, next to a Christmas tree. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Joni Mitchell or
Van Morrison would never do that. Maybe it’s better to grow old a little more
gracefully.’
And don’t get me started on
the trivial little themes people employ. How many ‘Happy New Year(s)’ have there
been? And ‘Merry Christmas’, and the posting of clichéd music videos, such as a
famous one by John Lennon and Yoko Ono (ok, I’ll admit I also posted a
Christmas song- River, by Joni- but at least this one wasn’t quite as obvious).
A fan appreciation group
you think would be safe is the one
devoted to the films of Ingmar Bergman. But after a while this too got me
totally fed up. How many times does one want to see somebody posting an image
from ‘The Seventh Seal’ or ‘Fanny and Alexander’, and getting 80-100 ‘likes’
for their monumental effort, or, just as stupid, a comment that comes up
frequently like ‘what do you think is IB’s best film?’ or ‘was Harriet Andersen
in Persona?’ (to these people I say either go and watch the film or look it
up).
Besides all this there is
the vast multitude of people out there who use it as an excuse to encourage
others to admire their legs, or their teeth, or their hair, or whatever else it
might be. Maybe their car. And usually people do. ‘Looking good sister’, or ‘LOL
gosh you’re beautiful’, with an ‘aaawww thanks’ in reply.
So why have I decided to
refrain from giving Facebook the flick completely? Well there is the matter of
keeping in touch with local and some overseas people you actually do like, and
it is an easy and convenient platform for this. Sometimes curiosity can get the
better of me, and I might wonder how such and such is going now that they are
now 40 instead of 20. And finally there are people you might respect and admire
from afar, and seeing what they are thinking or feeling or posting can be
somehow interesting. How does someone like Salman Rushdie, or the editor of the
Cambridge D H Lawrence, or an old friend of Ted Hughes spend their free time?
So Facebook, even though I
detest and loathe you, and feel used and somehow unclean because of you, I won’t
give you up entirely, but at the same time I won’t allow you to take away so
much of my precious time, either.